Payments · Supplements5 min readUpdated October 26, 2026

Supplement Processing Fees and Reserves

What supplement brands pay to process cards: published rates and reserves, how a rolling reserve ties up cash, network fees, what to ask first.

Nick Bonnassies, CMO at Tagada · checked against 10 sources

Article summary

TL;DR

Supplement brands pay a processing rate above standard retail pricing, often keep a rolling reserve of 5% to 10% of sales, and carry network costs such as subscription registration and dispute fees. Few processors publish their numbers. Ask for five terms in writing before signing: rate, reserve percentage, reserve period, payout delay, and what happens to your balance when you leave.

Soar Payments publishes rolling reserves of "typically 5 to 10% of your processing volume".
Corepay advertises rates "as low as a blended 2.95%"; "as low as" is a floor, not a quote.
Mastercard's registration for negative option billing merchants costs $500 a year in its February 2025 rules; PaymentCloud reports $1,000 since May 1, 2026.
Visa charges a fee for each retry beyond its limits: $0.10 domestic plus $0.05 cross-border, as reported by Payway.
On Shopify, a third-party processor adds 0.2% to 2% per order.

Want to go further? Ask

On this page

This guide is part of our hub on nutraceutical payment processing. The general guides, for any business: high-risk processing fees and rolling reserves.

What you pay

Cost	What it is	Who sets it
Processing rate	A percentage plus a fixed fee per transaction	Your processor
Rolling reserve	A share of each sale held for a period, then released	Your processor
Dispute fees	Per chargeback, and per alert if you use alerts	Processor and alert providers
Network programs	Fees when you exceed Visa or Mastercard thresholds	Visa, Mastercard8
Registration	Annual fee for negative option billing merchants	Mastercard6
Retry fees	Visa fees on excess reattempts	Visa9
Platform fees	Shopify's fee when you don't use Shopify Payments	Shopify10

What processors publish

These are the processors' own figures, not Tagada's, read in October 2026.

Term	Published figure	Published by
Rolling reserve	"Typically 5 to 10% of your processing volume"	Soar Payments1
Reserve review	"Every 60 to 90 days"	Soar Payments1
Rate	"As low as a blended 2.95%"	Corepay2
Monthly minimum	None of the six processors we read publishes one	Our reading

5 to 10%

Rolling reserve Soar Payments publishes as typical

60 to 90 days

How often Soar Payments reviews the reserve

2.95%

Corepay's "as low as" blended rate, a floor, not a quote

Online guides quote wider ranges for rates and reserves, usually without a source. Treat any range as a starting point for negotiation, not a price.

How a rolling reserve works

A rolling reserve keeps a share of each day's sales and releases it after a set period.

Example

You sell $100,000 a month with a 10% reserve held 90 days. Each month $10,000 is held. After three months, about $30,000 sits in reserve at any time, and month 1's $10,000 comes back in month 4.

Monthly sales	Reserve	Period	Cash held at steady state
$50,000	5%	90 days	About $7,500
$100,000	10%	90 days	About $30,000
$100,000	10%	180 days	About $60,000

Simple arithmetic on the reserve terms; real releases follow your contract's schedule.

Fig. 1The reserve from the example, coming back month by month

Held at steady state

$30,000

Still held by the processor Paid back to you

$10,000Held until month 4Paid back month 4
$10,000Held until month 5Paid back month 5
$10,000Held until month 6Paid back month 6

Each month's 10% returns three months later.

Illustrative example. $100,000 a month, 10% reserve, 90 days; real releases follow your contract.

Plan this cash before launching a big promotion: reserves grow with sales. How payouts and reserves interact: payout timing for supplement brands.

Reserves at Stripe and PayPal

Provider	How reserves work	Source
Stripe	Two types, fixed and rolling; "a temporary hold on a portion of a business's funds for a predetermined period of time"; "in some rare cases" indefinite	Stripe3
PayPal	Rolling, minimum and jumpstart reserves; example: "10% and held for a 90-day rolling period"; minimum reserves "reviewed within every 180 days"	PayPal4 5

PayPal warns "you might never be able to fully remove a reserve from your account"4.

Network and platform costs

Cost	Amount	Source
Mastercard negative option registration	$500 a year (February 2025 rules); $1,000 since May 1, 2026 as reported	Mastercard6, PaymentCloud7
Visa VAMP, "Excessive" level	$8 per fraud report or dispute, as reported	Chargeback Gurus8
Visa excess reattempts	$0.10 per excess attempt domestic, plus $0.05 cross-border	Payway9
Shopify third-party processor	2% Basic, 1% Grow, 0.6% Advanced, 0.2% Plus	Shopify10

Fig. 2Shopify's fee on orders paid through a third-party processor

Basic2%
Grow1%
Advanced0.6%
Plus0.2%

Source: Shopify pricing, read October 26, 2026

Shopify pricing, third-party payment provider fees, read October 26, 2026.

Tagada follows Visa and Mastercard rules and the laws that apply to payments.

Avoiding the dispute costs: chargebacks for supplement brands.

What to ask before you sign

[ ] Rate: percentage and fixed fee, for cards, wallets and international cards.
[ ] Reserve: percentage, period, and when it's reviewed.
[ ] Payouts: delay after capture, and frequency.
[ ] Disputes: fee per chargeback, and per alert.
[ ] Limits: monthly volume cap and approved products.
[ ] Leaving: notice period, and how long the balance and reserve are held after.
[ ] Changes: how reserve changes are communicated, and with what notice.

How Tagada helps

Don't let one account's terms set all your costs

TagadaPay lists "Supplements / nutra" among its industries; each file is underwritten, with enhanced review on regulated verticals
Routing across Stripe, Adyen and TagadaPay, cascade on decline, so one account's terms don't decide all your volume
Subscriptions with retries and automatic recovery
Native 3DS2, device intelligence and a rules engine to keep fraud disputes down

Plans and rates are on the pricing page.

Apply for processing

Don't let one account's terms set all your costs

Updated on October 26, 2026

Nick Bonnassies

CMO at Tagada

CMO at Tagada. Before Tagada, Nick built direct-to-consumer brands that generated over $115M in sales, raised over $25M in crowdfunding and sold two of them. He also works as a fractional CMO on marketing operations and AI systems.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a nutraceutical merchant account cost?

It depends on the file. Corepay advertises rates "as low as a blended 2.95%", a floor rather than a quote. Add reserves, dispute fees and network costs such as Mastercard's registration.

What is a normal rolling reserve for a supplement brand?

Soar Payments publishes "typically 5 to 10% of your processing volume", reviewed every 60 to 90 days. A 10% reserve held 90 days on $100,000 a month keeps about $30,000 aside at any time.

Can I negotiate the reserve?

Often, once you show history: low disputes, steady volume, clear terms. Ask when the reserve is reviewed and what would lower it. PayPal notes a reserve may never be fully removed.

Why do supplement brands pay more for card processing?

Processors price the category's dispute risk from subscriptions and trials, claims regulators can challenge, and card-not-present fraud. Lower disputes and clean offers are the lever on price.

Sources

Checked October 26, 2026

TagadaPay

Know what you pay and what they hold

Tell us what you sell and how you sell it. Each application is underwritten, and approval is not guaranteed.

Apply for processing See pricing

01Tell us what you sell and how
02Underwriting reviews your business
03Process through TagadaPay alongside your other processors