Payment companies are not interchangeable. An acquirer, an ISO and an agent office sell very different things and carry very different risks, so we rank each against its own kind rather than against everyone at once.
25 providers
Companies that hold the acquiring relationship and run their own processing stack. Everyone further down this list ultimately settles on rails like these.
Top ratedAdyenA-
24 providers
You sign up under the facilitator's master merchant account. Approval is fast and the price is usually published, but the account is theirs rather than yours, which is what makes a sudden hold possible.
Top ratedStripeA
32 providers
Independent Sales Organizations are registered with the card networks and sponsored by an acquiring bank. They can underwrite and price, and they hold your merchant agreement.
Top ratedDharma Merchant ServicesA-
12 providers
Agent offices and brokers sell and service accounts but hold no card-network registration of their own. Your contract, reserve and funding terms come from whichever ISO they place your file with — ask which one before you sign.
Top ratedPayKingsA
12 providers
The layer that carries a transaction from your checkout to a processor. A gateway is not a merchant account, and most businesses need both.
Top ratedAuthorize.netA-
12 providers
Software you run the business on that also takes the payments. You are buying the system first; the processing comes attached, and leaving usually means replacing both.
Top ratedSquareA
5 providers
They pay you up front and carry the shopper's credit risk, at a commission several times the cost of taking the same sale on a card. A conversion tool, not a cheaper way to get paid.
Top ratedZipB
5 providers
They sell your product as the legal seller, taking on sales tax, VAT and chargeback liability in exchange for a larger share of each sale.
Top ratedFastSpringB+
4 providers
ACH, open banking and other bank-rail payments rather than cards. Cheaper per transaction, slower to settle, and no interchange.
Top ratedGoCardlessB