Does Apple Pay or Google Pay charge the merchant a fee?
Short answer: neither wallet charges the merchant a fee of its own, and neither does the processor charge extra because a wallet was involved. Checkout.com states it plainly in its support centre: there are no charges to enable Apple Pay or Google Pay, and the same pricing agreement, fees, and conditions that apply to card transactions apply to wallet transactions. Desjardins says the same about Google Pay: no additional fees, and for billing purposes a Google Pay transaction is considered the same as a card transaction. Clearly Payments, a Canadian processor, puts it in till language: with its pricing there is no extra cost for Apple Pay, and tapping a phone costs the same as tapping the credit card inside it.
That answer is true and incomplete. It tells you the wallet layer costs nothing. It says nothing about the layer underneath, which is where every cent of the cost sits. A wallet is a way of presenting a card. The price of the sale is set by which card is presented and, more importantly for your statement, by which channel the sale runs through. Card present, online, and card on file are three different price lines on every published Canadian rate card, and a wallet sale can land on any of them.
The channel sets the price: one $80 sale, priced four ways
Run one $80 sale through the published Canadian cards, checked November 3, 2026. The wallet changes nothing in any row. The channel changes everything.
| How the $80 wallet sale runs | Square Canada | Stripe Canada | Moneris flat rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tap at the counter (credit card in the wallet) | 2.5% = $2.00 | 2.7% + $0.05 = $2.21 | 2.65% + $0.10 = $2.22 |
| Online checkout (wallet button on a web store) | 2.8% + $0.30 = $2.54 | 2.9% + CA$0.30 = $2.62 | 2.85% + $0.30 = $2.58 |
| Interac debit card in the wallet, tapped in person | 0.75% + $0.07 = $0.67 | CA$0.15 flat | $0.12 flat |
| Interac debit in the wallet, paid online | 2.8% + $0.30 = $2.54 | Card pricing applies online; no separate Interac online line is published on the Canada pricing page | $1.00 flat |
Read the first two rows together. The same customer, the same phone, and the same underlying credit card cost $2.00 at a Square counter and $2.54 through Square Online, a 54 cent difference created entirely by the channel. Stripe shows the same shape: $2.21 in person against $2.62 online. Nothing in either gap is a wallet fee. It is the standard card present versus card not present spread, and a business that moves wallet sales from a web checkout to a counter tap, where the workflow honestly allows it, keeps the spread.
Two more lines on the published cards matter for wallet sales. Square adds 1.5% on cards issued outside Canada, in person and online, so a visiting customer's wallet tap costs more than a local one. Stripe adds 0.8% for international cards online. Neither is a wallet charge either, but both appear on statements beside wallet sales and are easy to misread as one.
Interac inside a wallet: the Canadian case
Interac Debit runs inside both wallets. Interac's own pages describe Interac Debit in app and in browser through Apple Pay and Google Pay with participating financial institutions, with the card number not stored on the device or shared with merchants, and Interac Debit also works contactlessly in person from a wallet. That makes the debit card in the phone the cheapest wallet payment a Canadian business can take, and the pricing splits sharply by channel.
In person, the debit wallet tap is priced as debit: $0.12 flat at Moneris, CA$0.15 flat on Stripe Terminal, and 0.75% plus $0.07 at Square, which works out to $0.67 on the $80 sale. Online, the answers diverge. Square lists Interac Debit via Apple Pay or Google Pay inside its online channel, so the same debit wallet payment costs the full 2.8% plus $0.30, or $2.54 on $80. Moneris lists card not present Interac Debit at a flat $1.00 per successful transaction. On an $80 online sale, the choice of processor moves an Interac wallet payment between $1.00 and $2.54, a wider gap than anything on the credit side of the table.
The practical reading is about steering, not switching. If your online checkout takes meaningful Interac wallet volume, ask how your processor prices Interac Debit through Apple Pay and Google Pay in writing, because the published answers genuinely differ. If the sale happens at a counter, the debit tap is already the cheapest line on the card.
What enabling a wallet actually costs
On the processor side, enabling is priced at zero by the sources above: no enabling charge at Checkout.com, no additional fee at Desjardins, and standard pricing at Square and Stripe with no setup or monthly processing fees on their published Canadian pages. The real requirements are hardware and setup time, and they are modest. A wallet tap in person needs a contactless capable reader or a phone based acceptance app. A wallet button online needs a checkout that offers it, which the major hosted checkouts do as part of the standard integration.
There is one specification worth verifying before you rely on a wallet button, and it is the card mix inside the wallets you will actually see. Square's Canadian fees page prices its in person credit rate across Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. Clearly Payments notes Apple Pay supports Visa, American Express, Mastercard, and many other credit and debit cards, priced at the standard interchange for the underlying card on interchange plus pricing. On an interchange plus plan, in other words, a wallet does not flatten your card mix. A premium rewards card tapped from a phone costs what that card always costs. The wallet hides the card from your eyes, not from your statement, which is why the statement, not the till, is where wallet costs should be audited.
The decision: which channel to steer wallet sales into
Three rules cover most Canadian storefronts. First, treat wallet acceptance as free to enable and worth enabling, because the fee question was never about the wallet. Second, price your channels, not your wallets: in person wallet sales belong on card present rates, and any workflow that quietly routes counter sales through an online checkout is paying the card not present spread for nothing. Third, for online sales, check the Interac wallet line before anything else, because that is the one place where processors publish genuinely different answers for the identical payment.
A note on format: this is an explainer, not a procedure. There are no setup steps to follow because the question it answers is what a wallet sale costs on each published Canadian card, and the tables above are the answer.
— Dex Carter, Tech Writer
Sources, accessed November 3, 2026: Square Canada, Understanding Our Fees (in person credit 2.5%, debit 0.75% + 7 cents, online 2.8% + 30 cents including Interac Debit via Apple Pay or Google Pay, keyed and card on file 3.3% + 15 cents, plus 1.5% on cards issued outside Canada); Stripe Canada pricing (online cards and digital wallets 2.9% + CA$0.30 for domestic cards, plus 0.8% for international cards; in person 2.7% + CA$0.05, Interac debit CA$0.15 per transaction); Moneris pricing (card present credit 2.65% + $0.10, Interac $0.12; card not present credit 2.85% + $0.30, Interac $1.00); Checkout.com support, Apple Pay and Google Pay enabling fees (no charges to enable, card pricing applies); Desjardins, Google Pay FAQ (no additional fees); Interac, Interac Debit on Apple Pay and Google Pay; Clearly Payments, How to Accept Apple Pay at your Business in Canada. Processor pricing changes over time. Confirm your own rate card before relying on a figure. General information only, not financial advice.