Vape shops run 80–90% card sales. Every pod, every coil, every disposable — ~3% of it goes to a processor before you ever count it as revenue.
It's the same story from Deep Ellum and Bishop Arts to the shops along Harry Hines: the card reader takes its cut before you count a dollar of revenue. Most owners treat it like weather — annoying, unavoidable. It isn't. Here's the actual math for a Dallas vape shop, and the setup that makes the fee line $0.
| Setup | Typical all-in cost | On $25,000/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Flat-rate reader (Square, Clover Go, Toast) | 2.9%–3.5%+ | −$725 to −$875/mo |
| Traditional processor + monthly fees | 2.3%–3.0% + fees | −$575 to −$750/mo |
| Pacta dual pricing | $0 to you | $0 — you keep 100% |
"All-in" is the number that matters: the advertised rate plus per-transaction dimes, monthly statement fees, PCI compliance fees, and batch fees. Pull one statement and divide total fees by total volume — that's your real rate, and it's almost always higher than the number you signed up for.
Dual pricing means your register shows a cash price and a card price — the small card fee is disclosed to the customer at checkout instead of coming out of your margin. You've seen it at every gas station in Texas your whole life. The price is posted, it prints on the receipt, and your regulars adjust within a couple of weeks — because they see the same thing everywhere else.
Yes. Dual pricing — posting a cash price and a card price — is legal in all 50 states, including Texas. It's a different animal from credit-card surcharging, which involves card-brand registration and percentage caps and is restricted in some states. Dual pricing is the gas-station model: two posted prices, customer picks, everything disclosed up front and printed on the receipt. That distinction is why it works everywhere.
Surcharging adds a fee on top of the listed price for credit cards — capped, regulated, banned in a few states, and it reads as a penalty. Cash discounting takes money off the listed price for cash. Dual pricing posts both prices side by side from the start — the most transparent version, the one customers already understand, and the one Pacta runs. No surprises at the counter, no gotcha on the receipt.
Yes. Many mainstream processors mark vape up as 'high-risk' — that's a pricing choice, not a law. Pacta signs vape shops as a core vertical with the same $0-fee dual pricing as everyone else.
A shop doing $25,000/month on cards loses about $750/month — $9,000 a year. That's an entire month of rent for most locations, gone to a processor.
Vape customers skew young and card-first, and they see disclosed card fees everywhere — gas stations, food trucks, corner stores. Posted clearly at the counter, pushback is rare and brief.
Same-day funding. Sales land in your account the day you make them, not two or three business days later.