Ireland Pay processes card payments for small businesses across the United States — restaurants, retailers, automotive businesses, healthcare practices, and more. This page publishes aggregate, anonymized statistics from that live portfolio: dual pricing adoption, customer acceptance, program retention, and transaction patterns. No individual merchant's data is disclosed, absolute portfolio figures are withheld for competitive reasons, and the numbers are refreshed every July.
How many merchants use dual pricing?
70%of Ireland Pay's active merchants process on the dual pricing model, displaying a cash price and a card price at the point of sale. Adoption is accelerating: among merchants who joined in the twelve months ending June 2026, 80% chose dual pricing at signup, and 99% of merchants who launch the program are still on it a year later.
Do customers accept dual pricing?
Across Ireland Pay's merchant portfolio, customer acceptance of dual pricing has consistently stayed above 95% — from restaurants to retail to service businesses. Because both prices are displayed before checkout, customers choose their preferred payment method rather than discovering a fee after the fact. A minority switch to cash, which costs the merchant nothing to accept; the rest pay the posted card price. How the model works, its legality in all 50 states, and how it differs from surcharging are covered on the Dual Pricing Program page.
How large is the average transaction by industry?
Ireland Pay's book is a Main Street portfolio — automotive businesses, retailers, restaurants, healthcare practices, and liquor stores make up the bulk of card volume. The blended average card transaction across the portfolio is $215, but the average varies almost 13-fold by industry:
| Industry group | Average transaction |
|---|---|
| Automotive (dealers, repair, tires, towing) | $833 |
| Healthcare & medical | $432 |
| Restaurants & food service | $196 |
| Retail | $158 |
| Liquor & beverage retail | $64 |
Industry groups are assigned from each merchant's SIC classification. To protect merchant and portfolio confidentiality, Ireland Pay publishes average transaction sizes but not volume, merchant counts, or the portfolio's mix by industry.
How do customers pay? Debit versus credit
Approximately 45% of card volume across the portfolio runs on debit rails, with the remainder on credit and commercial cards. The debit share is highest in everyday-spend categories such as liquor stores and quick-service restaurants, and lowest in high-ticket categories such as automotive.
Methodology
- Source:Ireland Pay's internal processing, CRM, and program records — this is first-party portfolio data, not a survey or third-party estimate.
- Population:the company's full active merchant portfolio for the July 2025 – June 2026 window (every account processing meaningful card volume) — no sampling.
- Privacy & confidentiality: aggregates and ratios only. No merchant names, locations, or account-level figures are published, and absolute portfolio measures — total volume, transaction counts, merchant counts, and the mix by industry — are deliberately withheld.
- Rounding: percentages and dollar figures are rounded for readability.
- Scope:statistics describe Ireland Pay's own portfolio and are not projections for the payments industry as a whole.
- Cadence: updated annually each July. This edition: July 14, 2026. Questions about the data: sales@irelandpay.com.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the data on this page come from?+
Every figure is computed from Ireland Pay's own processing portfolio — the company's full base of active merchant accounts during the July 2025 to June 2026 window — plus its program records for dual pricing adoption. The statistics are aggregate and anonymized: no individual merchant's data is published, and absolute portfolio figures are withheld for competitive reasons. The page is updated annually each July.
How many merchants use dual pricing?+
70% of Ireland Pay's active merchants process on the dual pricing model, displaying a cash price and a card price at the point of sale. Among merchants who joined in the twelve months ending June 2026, 80% chose dual pricing at signup.
Do merchants stay on dual pricing?+
Yes — 99% of Ireland Pay merchants who launch the dual pricing program are still on it a year later. Merchant retention this high tracks with what merchants see at the counter: customer acceptance has consistently stayed above 95% across the portfolio.
What share of card payments are debit versus credit?+
Roughly 45% of card volume across Ireland Pay's merchant portfolio runs on debit rails, with the remainder on credit and commercial cards. The mix varies by industry: everyday-spend businesses like liquor stores and quick-service restaurants skew further toward debit than high-ticket categories like automotive.
Can I cite these statistics?+
Yes. Cite "Ireland Pay Dual Pricing & Merchant Portfolio Statistics, 2026" and link to this page (irelandpay.com/dual-pricing-statistics). The figures describe Ireland Pay's own merchant portfolio, not the payments industry as a whole.