BLIK is now present in roughly 60% of Polish online checkouts. For merchants, the question is no longer “should we offer BLIK?” but “is BLIK actually cheaper than a card?”
The honest answer: it depends on your basket, your margin, and what your acquirer is charging you. Here’s how to run the numbers properly.
How BLIK pricing actually works
Unlike Visa and Mastercard, BLIK does not operate on the four-party interchange model. There is no IFR-capped interchange. Instead:
- The merchant pays a single fee to their payment aggregator (Przelewy24, PayU, Tpay, etc.) or to an acquirer that supports BLIK
- Typical ranges: 0.8%–1.4% per transaction for SMB, 0.6%–1.0% for high-volume merchants
- There is usually no fixed per-transaction fee on BLIK at scale — but many SMB contracts still include PLN 0.20–0.50 fixed component
Compare this to card:
- EEA debit: 0.2% interchange + 0.1% scheme + 0.25–0.6% markup = 0.55%–0.9% effective
- EEA credit: 0.3% interchange + 0.1% scheme + 0.25–0.6% markup = 0.65%–1.0% effective
On pure cost, card is cheaper. On pure volume and conversion, BLIK often wins. The truth is in the combination.
The conversion factor most merchants ignore
BLIK’s strength is checkout friction — there isn’t any.
- 6-digit code entered once inside the banking app
- No 3DS redirect, no SMS, no OTP timeout
- SCA compliance is native — no friction-authentication tradeoff
Typical conversion lift for BLIK vs card in Polish e-commerce:
- +8 to +15 percentage points on mobile checkouts
- +5 to +10 percentage points on desktop
- Strongest uplift on first-time buyers and impulse purchases
If BLIK costs you 0.3% more but converts 10 points higher, the math favours BLIK — on almost any merchant with margins above 15%.
When card routing actually saves money
BLIK is not the right default everywhere. Card-first routing wins when:
- Margins are thin (grocery, commodity resellers) — 30–50 bps matters more than conversion
- Returning customers dominate — they convert on card almost as well as BLIK
- High-ticket B2B purchases — buyers use corporate cards, not personal BLIK
- Subscription / recurring — BLIK is primarily one-off; recurring still needs card-on-file
For high-volume grocery or wholesale, a card-default / BLIK-optional checkout saves meaningful cost.
Real-world comparison: a PLN 200 basket
| Method | Fee rate | Cost per transaction | Typical conversion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visa debit (EEA) | 0.65% | PLN 1.30 | 72% |
| Mastercard credit (EEA) | 0.85% | PLN 1.70 | 73% |
| BLIK | 1.1% | PLN 2.20 | 84% |
At 1,000 checkout attempts:
- Card-only: 720 conversions × PLN 200 margin * 15% = PLN 21,600 gross, less fees ≈ PLN 19,656
- BLIK-only: 840 conversions × PLN 200 margin * 15% = PLN 25,200 gross, less fees ≈ PLN 22,700
BLIK wins — but only because of the conversion lift. Turn it off on a high-converting returning-customer flow and the math flips.
How to negotiate BLIK rates
BLIK is often bundled into a single “online payments” quote. That is where margin hides.
Steps to unbundle:
- Ask your aggregator for a line-by-line breakdown: card rate, BLIK rate, gateway fee, chargeback fee
- Benchmark BLIK against at least two aggregators — Przelewy24, PayU, Tpay, Autopay
- For volume above PLN 500k/month, ask for IC++ on card and a flat BLIK fee
- Request scheme-fee transparency — if your contract says “schemes included,” it’s likely marked up
- Re-negotiate annually — BLIK margins have compressed every year since 2022
The bottom line
BLIK is usually slightly more expensive per transaction than EEA card — but often more profitable overall thanks to conversion lift and SCA-native UX.
The merchants who overpay are the ones who:
- Accept a single blended “payments” rate without seeing what BLIK specifically costs
- Never run conversion A/B comparisons between methods
- Haven’t renegotiated BLIK since signing their original aggregator contract
FeeFox benchmarks Polish merchants across card and BLIK costs, with a true cost-per-conversion view, in 24 hours — free and independent. If BLIK is in your stack and you haven’t audited it this year, you’re likely leaving 20–30% on the table.