How does CardFellow make money, and is it really free?

CardFellow is free to the merchant. Per its own FAQ, credit card processors pay CardFellow a commission if you select their quote; CardFellow does not disclose how large that commission is. The commission is a cost the processor incurs to acquire your account. weAudit works differently: the merchant pays a low flat monthly fee, and weAudit takes no money from any processor.

Does a processor-paid referral service earn more when my fees are higher?

It can. In payments, referral commissions are often paid as a residual, an ongoing share of the markup the processor collects from you, which means the more you are charged, the more the referrer earns. CardFellow does not disclose how its commission is structured, so ask. weAudit is paid a flat fee by the merchant and takes nothing from any processor, so its pay never rises when your bill does.

Is CardFellow the same as a processing fee audit?

No. CardFellow is a marketplace where processors send you quotes and you switch to one; BBB categorizes it under Comparative Shopping Services. A processing fee audit, like weAudit's, keeps your current processor and reviews your actual statements line by line to reduce the fees you already pay.

Do you have to switch processors to use CardFellow?

Yes. CardFellow's process ends with you moving to a new processor chosen from its marketplace. weAudit does not require switching; it audits and reduces the fees on the processor you already have.

Do processing services receive money from the processors they recommend?

Some do. CardFellow discloses that processors pay it a commission when you select their quote. weAudit receives no revenue share, referral fees, or commissions from any processor, ever; its only revenue is what clients pay. Ask any provider this question and expect the answer in writing.

Who decides what counts as savings?

With a quote-based marketplace, a new rate can look cheap against a bad baseline and still leave money on the table, so ask what the savings are measured against. With weAudit's flat fee, savings are simply your old cost minus your new cost on the processor you keep.

What actually analyzes my statements?

Ask whether the tool audits the statement you have today or just collects quotes for a new provider. weAudit uses MADR (Mass Analysis Data Reporting), a proprietary in-house engine updated every April and October when the card networks change their rules. CardFellow provides an online quote comparison from hand-selected processors.

Should the people helping with my processing have worked for a credit card processor?

Ask whether anyone on the team has been an executive for an actual credit card processor, not an ISO or sales agent. weAudit's founder is a former executive at Fifth Third Processing Solutions, the company that became Vantiv, then Worldpay, today part of Global Payments. Verify any provider's background yourself on LinkedIn.

Choosing an Auditor

CardFellow vs. weAudit: A Referral Marketplace, or an Independent Audit?

If you are comparing CardFellow and weAudit, you already suspect your business is overpaying for credit card processing. But these two are not the same kind of service, and the difference matters a lot. We are weAudit, so you know where we stand. That is exactly why every statement about CardFellow on this page comes from their own website, their BBB profile, or public records, with dates, so you can verify each one yourself.

The Short Version

	weAudit.com	CardFellow
What it is	An independent credit card processing fee audit firm	A free online marketplace; BBB categorizes it under “Comparative Shopping Services” and describes it as “a free venue where businesses can sign up for free to receive instant quotes from multiple credit card processors” (per bbb.org, as of July 2026)
How you pay	A low flat monthly fee, published on our website	Free to the merchant. In their own words, “credit card processors pay us a small commission if you select their quote” (per cardfellow.com FAQ, as of July 2026)
Compensation from processors	None. No revenue share, referral fees, or commissions from any processor, ever. Our only revenue is what clients pay us	Yes, paid a commission by the processor you select; the size of that commission (a percentage, a share of the markup) is not disclosed (per cardfellow.com FAQ, as of July 2026)
What you end up with	You keep the processor you already have; we cut the fees on it	You switch to a new processor chosen from their marketplace (per cardfellow.com, as of July 2026)
Who the arrangement is paid by	You, and only you	The processor that wins your business
How the work is done	A forensic audit of your actual statements through our proprietary MADR engine	An online quote comparison from “hand-selected” processors (per cardfellow.com, as of July 2026)
Founder background	Former executive at Fifth Third Processing Solutions (which became Vantiv, then Worldpay, today part of Global Payments)	Founder Ben Dwyer has run CardFellow since 2006; his public LinkedIn profile lists no prior credit card processing employer (per LinkedIn, as of July 2026)
Company	Partner-owned specialist audit firm; processing audits only since 2009	Lists itself as a 2–10 employee company, though only its founder appears as an associated member on LinkedIn; in business since 2008 (per LinkedIn and bbb.org, as of July 2026)
Third-party accountability	BBB: A+ rating, Accredited since 2015, zero complaints on file; 2019 Torch Award. Google: 5.0 stars across 26 reviews (as of July 2026)	BBB: not a BBB Accredited business (per bbb.org, as of July 2026)

Every CardFellow fact above is drawn from cardfellow.com, bbb.org, or public profiles as of July 2026. If anything changes, we will update this page.

The Biggest Difference: An Audit, or a Referral?

Both services start from the same true premise: most businesses are overpaying to accept cards. What each one does about it could not be more different.

CardFellow’s model

A free referral marketplace. You answer some questions, processors in CardFellow’s marketplace send you quotes, and you switch to the one you choose. It is free to you because, in their own words, “credit card processors pay us a small commission if you select their quote.” What they do not disclose is how large that commission is: a percentage of your rate, a share of the markup, a flat amount? The processor is paying to acquire your account, and in payments, that acquisition cost is carried in the rate you end up paying. Free to you is not the same as free, and here you cannot even see the size of the part that is not free.

weAudit’s model

A low flat monthly fee, published right on our website. You keep the processor you already have; we audit your actual statements and cut the fees on them. We are paid by you and no one else, so the only way our fee makes sense is if we save you more than we cost.

There is a quieter point underneath all of this. When the party recommending your processor is paid by that processor, you have to ask which side the recommendation is really on. With a flat fee paid by you, there is no such question to ask.

A Referral Is Not an Audit

These are two different things wearing similar language. CardFellow helps you shop for a new processor. weAudit audits the processor you already have. If you are certain your current processor is hopeless and you simply want to leave, a marketplace that puts processors in competition for you can be genuinely useful, and CardFellow does that. But shopping for a new processor and auditing your real statements line by line are not the same job, and only one of them tells you what you are actually being overcharged today.

There is also the matter of who is paying, and it is worth being clear-eyed rather than cynical about it. When you move your business to a new processor through a referral, that processor pays a commission to whoever referred you. That is a normal way for lead generation to work, and to CardFellow’s credit they disclose it plainly. But it means the recommendation you are leaning on is paid for by the company being recommended, and that commission, which CardFellow says exists but never sizes, is a cost the processor has to earn back somewhere, from your account. weAudit is built the opposite way on purpose: we do not move your account, we do not take a dollar from any processor, and we are paid a flat fee by you, so there is nothing sitting inside your rate to pay us back.

Who Does Your Auditor Answer To?

weAudit is paid by exactly one party: the merchant. A low flat fee, month to month, and not one dollar from any processor, ever. That is the entire reason we can tell you the unvarnished truth about your statement, because no processor is paying us to send you anywhere.

CardFellow, by its own FAQ, is paid by the processors: “credit card processors pay us a small commission if you select their quote.” There is nothing hidden about that, and we are not suggesting otherwise; they say it themselves. But it is worth sitting with the question it raises. When the company recommending your next processor is paid by that processor, whose interest does the recommendation serve first, yours or theirs?

It is worth understanding how these arrangements usually work. In payments, a referral commission is often a “residual,” an ongoing cut of the markup the processor collects from you, month after month. Wherever a commission is built that way, the incentive points the wrong direction: the more the new processor charges you, the more the referrer earns. We are not saying that is how CardFellow’s commission is structured, because they do not disclose it. We are saying that is exactly why you should ask, and that a flat fee paid by you, like ours, can never work that way.

We are paid by you, we keep your processor, and the savings are yours.

How the Work Actually Gets Done

weAudit runs every statement through MADR (Mass Analysis Data Reporting), our proprietary in-house analysis engine, refined across thousands of merchant statements. We invested more than $1 million to build it, and it remains one of our largest ongoing expenses for a reason merchants will recognize: the card networks change their processing rules and rates every April and October, and MADR is updated on that same cycle, every single time. Because we built and maintain the engine ourselves, we can adapt it the moment processors invent a new fee, and they invent new fees constantly.

CardFellow’s process is a quote comparison: you describe your business, “hand-selected” processors return instant quotes, and you choose one (per cardfellow.com, as of July 2026). That is a useful way to shop. It is not a line-by-line audit of the statement you have in your hand today, which is the only way to find what your current processor is actually overcharging you right now.

Caution

There Is No License for What We Do

Read this before you read the questions below. There is no license for what we do. No certification, no regulator, no exam. Anyone can put up a website tomorrow that says “processing fee auditor” and “we are the industry experts,” and start signing up merchants by the afternoon. That is not a knock on the industry; it is simply the reality of it, and it means the entire burden of telling a real firm from a good-looking website falls on you. So do not trust claims. Trust records.

Records are public now, and they are hard to fake. Before you sign with anyone, or hand your business to anyone, spend fifteen minutes verifying four things:

Leadership career history, on LinkedIn. Look up the people who actually run the firm. Where were the years spent, and inside which companies? An experience claim that does not trace to real roles at real companies is just a number on a website.
The BBB record. Is the firm accredited, for how long, at what rating, and how many complaints are on file? A firm that has put itself on that public record for years is telling you something a homepage cannot.
How they are paid, by whom, and how much. Do you pay them, or does a processor pay them to send you over, and if so, how much? A service paid by the processors it recommends is not working only for you, and “a small commission” with no number attached is worth a follow-up question.
Whether you have to switch, and what you keep. Are they fixing the account you have, or moving you to a new one? Switching is a one-time event; overbilling is not. Get it all in writing before you commit.

We put weAudit on all four records on purpose: our leadership is on LinkedIn, our BBB file is A+ and accredited since 2015 with zero complaints, we take nothing from any processor, and we fix the processor you already have. Hold every option you consider, including us, to the same four.

Seven Questions to Ask Before You Hand Over Your Business

How do you get paid, and by whom? Do I pay you, or does a processor pay you a commission to send me its way? The answer tells you who you are really working with.
Do you receive any money from processors? Referral fees, commissions, revenue share, anything. A service paid by the industry it steers you into is not working only for you. If the answer is no, it should be in writing on their website.
Do I have to switch processors? Are you fixing what I have, or moving me to a new provider? Switching is a one-time event; the overbilling that follows is not.
Is there a cancellation or early termination fee on what you set me up with? An early termination fee is a classic processor lock-in tactic. Ask what it costs to leave the arrangement you are being placed into, and get it in writing.
Who decides what counts as “savings,” and against what baseline? A quote can look cheap against a bad starting point and still leave money on the table.
What actually analyzes my statements, and who owns it? A quote form is not an audit of the fees you are paying today.
Has anyone on your team been an executive for a credit card processor? Not an ISO. Not an agent. An executive inside one. That is the difference between shopping the machine and having helped build it.

We will answer all seven for weAudit right now: you pay us a flat published fee; not one dollar from any processor, ever, and it says so on our website; we do not switch you, we fix the processor you have; there is no cancellation or early termination fee, ever; savings are simply your old cost minus your new cost; MADR audits your real statements; and our founder is a former executive of the processing giant now known as Worldpay, part of Global Payments.

Ask CardFellow the same seven. We mean that sincerely. An informed merchant is our best client.

What We Have in Common

In fairness, we agree on the big thing: merchants are overpaying, and both of us will take a free look at your situation. If your real goal is to leave your processor entirely and you want competing quotes, CardFellow’s marketplace can put processors in competition for you, and that has genuine value. We simply do a different job. We make the processor you already have stop overcharging you, for a flat fee, without moving your account, and without being paid by anyone but you. This is why we also guarantee the largest savings, or our services are free.

Third-Party Validation

weAudit.com is BBB Accredited (since 2015) and holds an A+ rating with zero complaints on file, per bbb.org as of July 2026. In an industry built on fine print, an A+ and a complaint record that reads zero is not luck. It is the flat-fee model working exactly as designed: when clients keep all the savings and can leave month to month, there is nothing to complain about. In 2019, the St. Louis BBB awarded weAudit its Torch Award, the Bureau’s recognition for ethics in the marketplace. On Google, weAudit holds 5.0 stars across 26 reviews (as of July 2026). You can read what our clients say, in their own words, on our testimonials page.

CardFellow is a long-running business, operating since 2008, and it discloses its processor-paid model openly, which is to its credit. For anyone who weighs third-party accountability, two facts are worth knowing: CardFellow is not a BBB Accredited business, and BBB lists it under “Comparative Shopping Services” rather than auditing (per bbb.org, as of July 2026). It also lists itself as a 2–10 employee company, with only its founder shown as an associated member on LinkedIn (as of July 2026). None of that is a knock, it is simply what CardFellow is: a lightweight online venue to shop for a processor, not a staffed team that audits the one you have.

One last note, offered without spin. weAudit’s founder is a former processing-company executive who crossed the aisle to work for merchants. CardFellow’s founder, Ben Dwyer, has run CardFellow since 2006, and his public LinkedIn profile lists no prior credit card processing employer (as of July 2026). We draw no conclusion from that beyond the obvious one: do not take anyone’s word for their background, ours included. Look both of us up on LinkedIn and decide for yourself.

One more difference you can hold in your hands: our founder wrote the book on this industry. The Great American Heist, with a foreword by Shark Tank’s Kevin Harrington, documents exactly how processors engineer their fees, and it is the playbook weAudit runs every day.

Comparing other providers as well? See our Verisave, Merchant Cost Consulting, and P3 Cost Analysts comparisons.

Have you used both, or spotted something on this page that needs correcting? We would genuinely like to hear it, whatever the outcome: [email protected]. That invitation extends to CardFellow too.

Get Your Free Audit

Send us a recent processing statement. Our MADR engine and our analysts will show you exactly what you are overpaying on the processor you already have, what it should cost, and what we would fix, no switching required. If we find nothing, you owe nothing and you have lost nothing. If we find money, it stays yours: our fee is flat, published, month to month, and covered by our 60-Day Love-The-Results-Or-Don’t-Pay Guarantee. And one more promise: we guarantee the largest savings, or our services are free.

Get Your Free Audit

All statements about CardFellow on this page are drawn from cardfellow.com, bbb.org, and public profiles as of July 2026 and are provided for comparison purposes. CardFellow is a trademark of its owner. If CardFellow, or anyone, believes any statement on this page is inaccurate or out of date, we welcome the correction at [email protected] and will review and update promptly.