10 Best Merchant Services of 2023

What we like:

Square is an all-in-one merchant services provider, meaning it can process payments in-store and online as well as via mobile, virtual terminal, invoice, and even quick response (QR) code payments. The simplest merchant account provider to get started with, Square is free to use except for pay-as-you-go transaction fees.

Easy, low-cost, and flexible merchant services, combined with the best free POS software, makes Square the best value for new and small businesses.

As soon as you create your free Square account, you can accept credit card payments, record cash and check sales, process invoices, set up an online checkout or ordering system, and accept contactless payments.

What we like:

Helcim is an all-in-one merchant account provider. Similar to Square, it comes with free sophisticated sales solutions, including a fully hosted online store, invoicing software, POS app, a mobile payment app, basic inventory tracking, hosted payment pages, and more.

Like Payment Depot and Stax by Fattmerchant, Helcim offers interchange-plus pricing, which is great for businesses doing heavy volume.

Unlike the others, it has no monthly fee and offers automated discounts as you scale. Helcim’s free software, interchange-plus pricing with no monthly fee, and transparent volume discounts make it the best and most affordable choice.

What we like:

Payment Depot is a merchant service provider with a membership pricing model that offers payment processing at extremely competitive rates. One membership with Payment Depot includes interchange-plus pricing for card-present, online, virtual terminal, and mobile payments.

Payment Depot is also one of two interchange-plus processors on this list that does not add a percentage markup—just a flat fee of 8 cents for card-present transactions and 18 cents for card-not-present transactions.

Payment Depot’s flexible model with affordable pricing makes it one of the cheapest credit card processors for small established businesses, including retailers, restaurants, salons, auto shops, medical practices, and B2B companies.

What we like:

Chase Payment Solutions (formerly Chase Merchant Services) offers merchant services for any business looking to work with a traditional bank, especially if your business accounts are with Chase. Having Chase as both the processor and receiving bank in transactions can provide speed and security by removing the intermediary.

Chase Business Checking customers really get the best value from using Chase as a merchant service provider. With a checking account, you can access Chase QuickAccept, a free mobile payments app that includes same-day deposits and dispute management.

Chase is one of the few direct processors that offer flat-rate fees for small businesses. Larger businesses can also negotiate competitive interchange-plus pricing, like you’d find with Helcim.

What we like:

Stax (Formerly Fattmerchant) is a popular merchant service provider with dedicated solutions for small and large businesses, as well as SaaS platforms. Similar to Payment Depot, Stax offers membership-based interchange-plus pricing. However, Stax’s pricing plans are targeted more toward growing small businesses processing at least $20,000 per month.

Stax offers invoicing, card-on-file payments, and recurring billing similar to Helcim, Stripe, and Square. What sets Stax apart are features like short message service (SMS) text-to-pay solutions, white-label customer portals, and robust reporting. These tools are ideal for growing businesses that primarily collect payments through online billing or invoicing, such as professional services.

In November 2021, Stax acquired CardX, an automated credit card surcharge platform that passes processing fees through to customers. This feature is now available through Stax where permitted by state and local guidelines.

What we like:

PayPal is a household name offering user-friendly payment processing for online, mobile, and in-store sales. PayPal offers competitive flat-rate fees and is quick and easy to sign up for. It also has discounted rates for nonprofit organizations.

Plus, adding PayPal as a payment option can increase online store conversions and reduce cart abandonment because shoppers don’t need to type in payment or shipping information. PayPal alone makes this distinction and is often used with other merchant accounts like those on our list.

However, PayPal is not a traditional merchant account. This means business accounts can be flagged and frozen if the company deems anything suspicious, which is problematic for businesses relying on daily deposits. So, PayPal is a recommended option for low-volume and occasional sales or an additional payment option for online stores.

What we like:

Stripe is a payment processor with sophisticated software and APIs ideal for online businesses. Stripe’s pre-built integrations make it easy to connect a Stripe checkout to almost any website or software. Besides PayPal, it’s the easiest to integrate for online sales.

One of the best features of Stripe is the number of different payment types it can work with. Accept ACH and e-check payments, WeChat, Klarna, Apple Pay, Google Pay, cross-border payments, and more.

With Stripe, you can configure subscriptions, recurring billing, or one-time payments for different checkout needs, such as per-seat pricing, metered billing, coupons, free trials, prorates, overages, and usage-based fees. You can also update expired or renewed customer card information automatically.

What we like:

Dharma Merchant Services specializes in working with small businesses and is known for being very transparent and honest in its practices. Every single fee—even account closure fees—is listed on Dharma’s website. In addition to transparency and affordable pricing, Dharma is an eco-friendly company and, to date, has donated over $750,000 to nonprofits.

Dharma offers low-cost interchange-plus pricing to low-risk merchants processing at least $10,000 monthly. Merchants processing more than $100,000 or 5,000 transactions qualify for volume discounts, which are also available on Dharma’s website. There are also special rates for restaurants with low average tickets.

What we like:

PaymentCloud is a popular merchant service provider that specializes in high-risk accounts. The company has relationships with more than 10 banks and a step-by-step application process to help you submit all the documents needed to get approved by one of their partner banks. Even if other merchant account providers have turned you down, PaymentCloud can likely get you approved.

PaymentCloud does offer traditional merchant services in addition to high-risk account services. However, high-risk payment processing is what PaymentCloud is best known for. Many other merchant service providers refer high-risk businesses to PaymentCloud because of its excellent reputation in getting businesses approved.

What we like:

QuickBooks Payments has a lot of strong features and good rates. If you regularly process over $7,500 a month, you can apply for a discount of up to 40% on transactions. The other processors on our list that offer discounts usually do so at a higher volume.

QuickBooks, along with many others on this list, rank among the best B2B payment solutions. It has Level 2 processing, which gets you cheaper rates for B2B transactions. It also has invoicing tools and lets you designate multiple accounts for deposits. However, you must have a QuickBooks account to use this service.