They are both variations on the same thing: you offer customers an incentive to pay with cash to better reflect the real cost to you of accepting credit cards without forcing cash-paying customers to absorb that cost. Cash Discount means that you show customers only the card prices and then offer a simple percentage discount from those card prices for paying with cash. Dual Pricing means that you show your customers BOTH the card price and the cash price for all items.

Both options provide a way for you to offset the cost of your payment processing while still giving your customers access to your lower cash prices. Cash Discount is good if you want something simple to administer with only one set of prices displayed (and don’t want to reformat menus). Dual Pricing should be chosen if you want to ensure that people clearly understand the cash prices available item by item (for example, if you have a ‘signature price’ on an item like a $9.99 sandwich or a $5 drink).

The rules governing these options are set by the credit card brands (most notably Visa) as well as state and federal laws (in some cases). Accepting Visa cards means you have to abide by their extensive rules. The most important rule is that the card price must be displayed clearly everywhere you display prices. Visa enforces their rules by investigating customer complaints and sending out ‘secret shoppers’ to audit merchants. Penalties for violating their rules can start at $1,000 fines with no advance warning for first offenses and can escalate to much higher fines and the loss of the ability to accept cards. Visa has dramatically increased its auditing in the past year and is issuing $1,000 fines for first offenses with no warning, so you should definitely take their rules very seriously.

They are both variations on the same thing: you offer customers an incentive to pay with cash to better reflect the real cost to you of accepting credit cards without forcing cash-paying customers to absorb that cost. Cash Discount means that you show customers only the card prices and then offer a simple percentage discount from those card prices for paying with cash. Dual Pricing means that you show your customers BOTH the card price and the cash price for all items.

The ‘card price’ is the price that a credit or debit card holder would pay for an item if they choose to pay with their credit or debit card. The price they are ultimately charged for what they buy should be the sum of the displayed card prices and not the sum of cash prices with a blanket percentage added to the cash price total to get it up to the card total. You can absolutely ALSO show the cash prices for all items, but you must show the card prices. You need to show the card prices everywhere that you display item level prices, such as on menus, menu boards, etc.

These options can put a lot more money in your pocket by defraying the vast majority of your card processing costs. These options also allow you to offer better prices (or continue to offer your existing prices) to customers who pay with cash and therefore do not make you incur processing costs. That said, these options are not for everyone and you always have the choice to switch (to or from) if you determine something different is better for your business.

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