We grade payment processors on pricing transparency, features, support and contract terms — then publish the reasoning behind every grade.
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independent
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The report card
real directory dataStripe
Payfac / Aggregator
PayKings
Agent Office / Reseller
Square
POS & Business Software
The evidence
Rates, fees, payout times and contract terms come from published documentation and public filings — never from a sales call. Each review carries the date it was last fact-checked.
Where a provider doesn't disclose a number, the review says so. We don't estimate, and we don't fill gaps with marketing copy.
The fact sheet
real directory dataHelcim
Fact-checked September 7, 2026
Every value above is published by the provider. A processor that doesn't publish a number gets “Not disclosed” in that cell — never an estimate.
The grade
Pricing transparency, feature set, ease of use, customer support, contract terms and industry reputation — every review scores all six, and the grade is what the scores say it is.
No pay-to-play, no sponsored placements. A provider can't buy a better grade; they can only earn one, and the reasoning is published either way.
The scorecard
real directory dataHelcim
Mean category score 4.5/5
The six weighted scores produce the letter grade — the same rubric for every review in the directory.
Head to head
Same criteria, same evidence, side by side — with a winner called per row and overall, and the reasoning for each call.
Where the honest answer is “it depends on your business”, the comparison says that instead of forcing a verdict. And it's not just the featured matchups — any two of the reviewed processors can be compared.
Head to head
real directory data| Razorpay | Stripe | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can sign up | Open sign-up; account activated after KYC✓ | Invite-only; request an invite from Stripe's sales team; existing Indian accounts continue to be supported |
| Entity types | Individuals and freelancers, sole proprietors, partnership firms, LLPs, private and public limited companies, trusts and NGOs✓ | Individuals for domestic sales only; sole proprietors, LLPs and companies for domestic and export; no simple partnerships, non-profits or NGOs |
| RBI status | Razorpay Payments Private Limited, an RBI-authorised payment aggregator; final authorisation 19 December 2023 after a year-long onboarding pause | Stripe India Private Limited, final RBI payment-aggregator authorisation reported 15 January 2024 |
| Set-up and recurring fees | No setup fee, no annual maintenance charge; a one-time ₹199 KYC processing fee plus taxes is stated in Razorpay's new-merchant offer terms | No setup or monthly fees |
Full transparency
Lawsuits, regulatory actions, undisclosed pricing, contract traps — when the evidence turns up a problem, it goes in the review with the same prominence as the praise.
A grade you can trust has to be allowed to be bad. Every item in this feed links to the review that documents it.
Watch out
from published reviewsIn the Matter of PayPal, Inc. (FTC order concerning Venmo)
Venmo (Business Profiles) · 2018-05-24
Armstrong v. Codefied Inc. d/b/a Housecall Pro (TCPA class action)
Housecall Pro · 2019-10-22
State attorneys general v. Blackbaud, Inc. (multistate data breach settlement)
Blackbaud Merchant Services (Blackbaud Integrated Payments) · 2023-10-05
In re Blackbaud, Inc. (SEC administrative proceeding)
Blackbaud Merchant Services (Blackbaud Integrated Payments) · 2023-03-09
Doesn't publish its pricing
ProMerchant
Doesn't publish its pricing
Barclaycard Payments
Documented in the linked reviews — legal actions are listed with case title, date and status.
Top rated
Ranked by grade, then by average category score. Equal grades share a position. An acquirer and an agent office are not the same purchase — pick a category to rank like against like.
Stripe is a leading payment processor known for its developer-friendly API, transparent pricing, and comprehensive suite of payment solutions for businesses of all sizes.
PayKings is a specialized payment processor offering tailored solutions for high-risk industries with a strong emphasis on fraud prevention.
Square offers simple, transparent payment processing ideal for small businesses. Flat-rate pricing, no monthly fees, and excellent software make it a top choice — but account holds and limited support are key concerns.
Helcim is a Calgary-based payment processing company that offers genuinely transparent interchange-plus pricing with no monthly fees, no hidden charges, and a comprehensive suite of free payment tools.
Adyen is a global, enterprise-grade payments platform that unifies acquiring, processing, routing and risk management into a single stack for merchants with international and omnichannel needs.
Shopify Payments is Shopify’s own branded payments service — processed by Stripe, per Shopify’s published processor list — giving merchants one-click access to accepting cards and wallets inside Shopify, simplifying setup and eliminating third-party gateway fees for supported merchants.
The directory
A Venmo business profile lets a sole proprietor, club or registered business accept payments from Venmo's 67 million monthly users inside the app — by username, QR code, or, since March 2024, Tap to Pay on a phone — and it is the only Venmo product that a merchant signs up for directly rather than through PayPal or Braintree. Venmo was founded in New York in 2009 by Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, bought by Braintree in 2012 and by PayPal with Braintree in 2013; it is operated by PayPal, Inc., which holds money-transmitter licences in every US state and is not a bank, and business profiles were opened to all sellers in February 2021. On PayPal's fee page as of September 2026 a business profile pays 1.9% + $0.10 on every payment of $1 or more it receives from another Venmo account, and 2.29% + $0.09 on a contactless card or wallet accepted with Tap to Pay, which is available on iPhone and Android in the United States only. There are no monthly, setup or chargeback fees, receiving is unlimited, and money moves to a bank for free in one to three business days or in minutes for 1.75% (minimum $0.25, maximum $25). The customer pays nothing extra, even when funding with a credit card, and buyers get Venmo's Purchase Protection on business-profile payments. What it is not is a merchant account: there is no interchange-plus, no invoicing, no card-on-file, no integrations, no seller protection beyond documented shipped-goods claims, one login per profile, management only in the app — and an operator whose 1.1 TrustScore from 1,268 reviews and 4,581 BBB complaints in three years are dominated by frozen accounts and held balances.
Jobber is field-service management software for home-service businesses — lawn care, cleaning, HVAC, plumbing, electrical and about fifty other trades — with card and bank processing built in as Jobber Payments. The company, legally Octopusapp Inc., was founded in Edmonton, Alberta in 2011 by Sam Pillar and Forrest Zeisler and is still run by them; it raised US$100 million from General Atlantic in February 2023 and says more than 400,000 service professionals use the product. Jobber does not hold a merchant agreement itself: Jobber Payments is processed by Stripe, Inc. under Stripe's connected-account terms, which is what makes the rate card flat and the onboarding fast. As of September 2026 the published rates are the same on every plan — 2.9% + 30¢ for cards paid online through the client hub, 2.7% + 30¢ for Tap to Pay in the field, 1% for US bank payments (ACH), and an extra 1% for an instant payout — with a chargeback fee (amount unpublished) that is refunded if you win and no monthly processing charge beyond the software subscription, which runs from $49 a month (Core, one user, no commitment) to $199 a month (Grow) at list. Payouts run on a rolling two-business-day window after a five-day authorization period on the first payment; ACH takes about four business days. The processing is available in the US, Canada and the UK; ACH, the card reader and the Jobber Money account are US-only. The trade-off is the software: its subscription is the real cost, it auto-renews, and prepaid annual fees are non-refundable, which is the substance of most of the complaints on record.
Housecall Pro is field-service software for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, cleaning and other home-service trades, with card, ACH and consumer-financing acceptance built in as HCP Payments. Codefied Inc., which trades as Housecall Pro, was founded in San Diego in 2013 by a team including Ian Heidt and Roland Ligtenberg, took $125 million from Permira Growth Opportunities and Vista Credit Partners in June 2022, has since moved its headquarters to Denver, and says more than 200,000 home-service professionals use the product. The processing is Stripe's: the terms of service bind every customer to Stripe's Services and Connected Account agreements, and Stripe applies the $25 dispute fee. The rates, published in the help centre as of September 2026, are percentage-only with no per-transaction cents — 2.59% for cards dipped, tapped or swiped in the field (Tap to Pay adds $5 per active device a month), 2.99% for cards paid online against an invoice, 3.49% for keyed, card-on-file and scanned cards and for American Express and business cards, 1% for ACH, 2.99% for PayPal and Venmo, and 4.99% for PayPal Pay Later and Klarna — with mobile check deposit free. Standard payouts take two business days, with up to seven for the first and Instapay in about 30 minutes for 1%. The software runs $79 a month (Basic, one user) to $329 a month (MAX, eight users) billed monthly, or $59 to $299 billed annually, with no long-term contract. The record is the problem: a 2.4 TrustScore from 638 reviews, 76 BBB complaints in three years and a steady stream of reports about held funds, surprise price increases and cancellations that require a phone call.
Vagaro is booking, point-of-sale and marketing software for salons, spas, barbers, medical spas, gyms and studios, sold from Pleasanton, California since 2009 by founder and chief executive Fred Helou. Card processing is built in through Vagaro Merchant Services, a registered ISO of PNC Bank, N.A., and priced on two published plans: small merchants under $4,000 a month pay 2.6% + $0.10 for swiped, dipped and tapped cards with no monthly fee, and large merchants above that pay 2.29% + $0.19 for $10 a month. Every keyed, online, card-on-file and membership charge is 3.5% + $0.19 on either plan, card-brand FANF and Mastercard location fees pass through, buy-now-pay-later through Affirm costs 6% + $0.30, and surcharging is not allowed. Deposits arrive the next business day after a batch, with same-day and instant payouts at 1.75%. The software is $30 a month for one calendar (currently $23.99 for the first six months) plus $10 a calendar up to seven, month to month with no cancellation fee, and the US marketplace listing is free — Vagaro only takes a 20% cut when you opt into its Fill My Books promotions. The rate card is clear and competitive in person; the weak spots are the keyed rate, a BBB review score of 1.09 out of 5 with recurring complaints of duplicate charges and hardware warranty disputes, and the lack of any way to pass fees on to clients.
FreshBooks Payments is the built-in way to get paid on a FreshBooks invoice. FreshBooks, the Toronto accounting software company founded in 2003 by Mike McDerment, rebuilt the product on Stripe Connect in 2024, retiring the WePay-powered version in the process, and now runs it as a white-labelled Stripe account you open from inside FreshBooks. It is sold only to businesses in the United States and Canada, on top of a FreshBooks subscription ($23 to $70 a month at list, or the custom Select plan). Published US pricing is 2.9% + $0.30 on domestic consumer cards, 3.5% + $0.30 on American Express and business cards, 1% on ACH with no cap outside Select, 3.5% + $0.30 on anything run through the $20-a-month Advanced Payments add-on (virtual terminal, saved cards, AutoPay), 6% + $0.30 on Affirm and Afterpay, plus 1.5% for cards issued abroad, 2% for currency conversion and $15 per dispute. Card money arrives two business days after the charge once the account is established, but every new account waits seven business days for its first payout, and Stripe's reserves and verification holds apply. There is no monthly fee, no minimum and no contract for the payments product itself. It is convenient and priced at the Stripe standard for small invoices; it is a poor fit for a business collecting large bank transfers, which pay the full 1% with no ceiling.
Blackbaud Merchant Services — renamed Blackbaud Integrated Payments (BBIP) in 2025 — is the payment processing built into Blackbaud's fundraising, school and CRM software: Raiser's Edge NXT, eTapestry, Luminate Online, Blackbaud Tuition Management and the rest. Blackbaud, founded in Charleston, South Carolina in 1981 and listed on Nasdaq, does not process or hold the money itself; under its August 2025 payments terms the designated processor is Stripe, Inc., and each organization signs Stripe's sub-merchant agreement through Blackbaud. The published US rate is 2.99% + $0.30 per card transaction (3.5% + $0.30 on American Express), 1% + $0.30 capped at $5 for ACH, and a $15 chargeback fee, with no setup or monthly processing fee. What the rate card does not show is the rest of the bill: a payment enablement fee charged to every customer with a payments-capable product whether or not they process anything, a new online-form platform fee of 1.5% to 2% on top of processing from 1 July 2026, and a software subscription that renews on a standard three-year term unless you give 45 days' notice. Add the 2020 ransomware breach — a $49.5 million multistate settlement, a $3 million SEC penalty, a $6.8 million California judgment and a 2024 FTC order — and a D- BBB rating for the company, and the convenience of one integrated system carries a real cost. It is the default for organizations already committed to Blackbaud software; it is not a processor anyone picks on its own merits.
Truist Merchant Services is the card-acceptance arm of Truist Bank, the Charlotte, North Carolina bank formed in December 2019 by the merger of BB&T and SunTrust. Unlike most bank programmes, which refer merchants to Fiserv or another processor, Truist Bank is itself the counterparty on the merchant agreement: it bought out its former joint venture, SunTrust Merchant Services, LLC, in 2022 for $175 million and now runs the book directly, and in mid-2025 it began rolling out Truist Merchant Engage, a Pollinate-built dashboard that puts merchant services inside the bank's business-banking experience. The pitch is next-business-day funding into a Truist business checking account, in-house consultants rather than agents, and statement credits for balances of $25,000 or more. The price of that convenience is a contract written for the bank: no published rates, a three-year initial term with one-year auto-renewals, a $500 early-termination fee per merchant account ($250 in a renewal term), and the right to demand a reserve on seven days' notice. It is a reasonable option for a Truist business customer who negotiates; it is not one to sign without reading the Merchant Program Guide.
ProPay is a Lindon, Utah payment facilitator that has sold instant-activation card acceptance to home-based sellers, direct-selling distributors and small merchants since 1997, and now operates as a subsidiary of Global Payments after TSYS bought it for $123.7 million in December 2012. Its model is unusual: an annual membership fee rather than a monthly one, a flat blended rate, funds that settle into a ProPay account before being transferred to your bank for a per-transfer fee, and single-transaction and monthly processing caps that rise only with history. As of September 2026 the public pricing page's rate table is empty, so the only official numbers are a fee schedule that says 'up to 3.50% plus $0.35' per card transaction and an annual membership fee of 'up to $299.95'. The Better Business Bureau shows 240 complaints in three years and an average review score of 1.02 out of 5, and ProPay remains a defendant in the TelexFree pyramid-scheme litigation twelve years after it was filed. It works as a plumbing layer for direct-selling companies; as a standalone merchant account it is hard to recommend over a modern aggregator.
Fresha is the London-based booking and business platform for salons, barbershops, spas and wellness studios, founded as Shedul in 2015 by William Zeqiri and Nick Miller and renamed in 2019. It became a unicorn in May 2026 when KKR invested $80 million at a valuation above $1 billion, at which point it said it served more than 130,000 businesses, handled 35 million appointments a month and about $15 billion a year in gross merchandise value, and was profitable on a $140 million revenue run-rate. Payments are embedded in the software through Adyen for Platforms: as of September 2026 the US rate card is 2.29% plus $0.20 in person (plus $0.10 per Tap to Pay authorisation), 2.79% plus $0.20 online, 3.30% plus $0.20 for manually keyed cards and 5.99% plus $0.30 for Klarna instalments, with payouts the next business day, no contract and no early-termination fee. The software itself stopped being free in 2025 — plans are $19.95 a month for one person or $14.95 per bookable team member — and clients who find you on the Fresha marketplace cost a one-off 20% commission with a $6 minimum. Trustpilot rates it 4.8 from more than 7,000 reviews. It grades B+ on clear pricing and terms, with the marks held back by the marketplace fee, the 2025 pricing shift and the payout holds that come with any aggregator.
Compare processors on published facts — rates, fees, contract terms and support — with a grade that explains itself.
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Expert insights and industry analysis.
The same foreign client, the same $10,000, and a bill that runs from a few dollars to over five hundred depending on which rails it travels and who does the currency conversion. PayPal, Stripe, Airwallex, Payoneer and Revolut Business, from their own fee pages, plus what a plain bank wire costs.
Ottawa's deal with Visa and Mastercard took small-business interchange to about 0.95% in October 2024. Stripe held its standard price and said why; Square cut its rates. Visa is now widening the program and cutting again. What the networks charge, what each processor did, and the Code that lets you leave.
Stripe, Square, PayPal, Shopify and the rest all say the fee from the original sale is not returned when you refund it. Visa's and Mastercard's own rate tables show the issuer returns interchange on a credit-card refund, and nothing on debit. What each processor keeps, and when a void saves the whole fee.
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