Helping Legal Professionals Recover Processing Fees for Credit Card Payments
Surcharging lets law firms pass credit card transaction fees to clients. This highly requested feature has saved deals and reduced churn from Clio Payments by addressing a critical pain point for cost-conscious firms.
The surcharging feature allows law firms to pass credit card transaction fees to clients when they pay by credit card. This strategically important capability addresses the number one feature request for Clio Payments, representing nearly 20% of all feedback. By aligning Clio with competitor offerings and eliminating a major competitive gap, surcharging has helped win high value customers, prevent churn, and increase payment processing volume through the platform.
Result
Since August 2024, surcharging has become our key competitive advantage. It was the deciding factor for 12 out of 59 large processing firms (20%) that switched to Clio Payments. These large processors generate the majority of our payment processing volume and are critical to Clio's revenue growth.
Challenges
While applying a surcharge may seem simple, it becomes complex when integrated with legal-specific workflows and application features. One challenge was deciding how surcharges appear in financial reporting. We needed to clearly show firms that surcharges aren't revenue but rather offset the processing fees we charge.
Another challenge was collaborating with product, engineering, and legal counsel to ensure the feature upheld our trusted reputation. We had to balance regulatory compliance with shifting some responsibility to law firms. For example, we built the ability to refund surcharges separately from payments, allowing firms to comply with state-specific regulations without making surcharge refunds mandatory across the board.