A payment system reduces transaction costs for online merchants. The payment system receives a transaction amount for the purchase of goods or services by a consumer from an online merchant. The payment system receives bank identification numbers for a plurality of accounts of the consumer that could be used by the consumer to pay for the good or services. The payment system determines transaction costs associated with processing a payment transaction with an acquirer processor using each of the consumer accounts. The payment system determines a recommended consumer account to use for the purchase of the good or services based at least in part on the transaction costs. Tender steering information is generated and sent to the consumer. Tender steering information includes the recommended consumer account information and one or more incentives to incentivize the consumer to use the recommended consumer account for the payment of the goods or services.