Payrix, the online payment processor used by SchoolInsight, has fees associated with both individual transactions and disbursements. These fees are deducted from the balance in customers’ Payrix accounts. So the funds available for disbursement to districts/schools are slightly lower than the amount charged to parents/guardians.
This information can be viewed in SchoolInsight by going to Main > Online Payments > Pricing.
Item | How much does it cost? |
Visa, Mastercard, and Discover transactions | 2.99% + $0.30 per transaction |
American Express transactions | 2.99% + $0.30 per transaction |
Chargebacks* | $15 per chargeback |
Refunds** | No additional cost |
Disbursements (withdrawals to your bank account) | $0.25 per disbursement |
*When a user disputes a charge made with a credit card
**Processing fees are refunded when transactions are refunded
Please note that Payrix charges a per disbursement fee. This is assessed when funds are moved from Payrix to the district/school bank account. This is a new fee for SchoolInsight, and hasn’t been charged before. The size of the fee is roughly equivalent to the cost of an ACH transaction used to move funds. To reduce costs to customers, we’ve set the default disbursement frequency to weekly (prior to 2024, it was daily).
When no parents/guardians have made a payment since the last disbursement, there will not be a material balance for a customer in Payrix. In this case, the scheduled disbursement is skipped, and no disbursement fee is charged.
Most customers do not want the district/school to bear the financial cost of payment processing. To address this issue, a “Convenience Fee” can be added to online payments. This is an additional cost, paid by parents/guardians, that raises the total payment amount and offsets Payrix’s processing fees.
We offer a couple of options for convenience fees. The most popular is to set convenience fees to “Match Processing Costs.” This will add the smallest convenience fee to a transaction that covers Payrix per transaction fees.
There is some penny rounding involved in the calculation. Payrix calculates fees to 5 decimal places, but transactions with parents/guardians can only be done in dollars and cents. For each transaction, the convenience fee will slightly exceed the Payrix per transaction fee. After a number of transactions, the district/school will typically have a few additional cents from convenience fees in excess of Payrix fees. For more information see: Why are there 5 digits after decimal on Payrix online payment reports?
Customers can also choose to custom configure convenience fees. Per transaction, they can set a percentage fee and flat fee.