Epoch Review

Epoch is an online billing company that has processed payments for subscription and digital-content websites since 1996, and it has long served the adult entertainment industry. It calls itself a Visa and Mastercard payment facilitator. Merchants do not get their own merchant account: Epoch runs the payment pages, stores card data and handles cancellations and billing questions 24 hours a day. "Epoch.com", not the website's name, is what shows on the customer's card statement. As of November 2026, its published pricing is a single all-in percentage of sales. New accounts start at 15%, and the rate steps down to 13.25% as average weekly volume rises. There is no transaction, monthly or setup fee. A refund costs $1, a chargeback costs $12.50, and digital-content merchants based in the US or EU pay a $1,950 card-network registration fee each year. Epoch says it holds no reserve and takes no security deposit. It accepts merchants only from the US and from countries in the card networks' Europe region. It does not publish its payout schedule or contract length. Epoch.com, LLC is a defendant in a proposed class action filed in October 2025 by plaintiffs who allege they were trafficked by GirlsDoPorn, a former Epoch client. The court dismissed the first complaint with leave to amend, an amended complaint is pending, and no liability has been found.

Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using Epoch’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.

What Epoch is

Epoch is a US online billing company for websites that sell subscriptions, memberships, tokens and digital content. Its homepage calls it "a pioneer of payment solutions for online merchants since 1996". A 2010 press release from the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP), an adult-industry child-protection nonprofit, describes Joel Hall as one of Epoch's founders and its chief technology officer from the company's founding in 1996, and says he became CEO in 2004. Epoch's own site does not name the industries it serves. Its history is in adult entertainment: ASACP credits Epoch with consistent support and honoured its CEO at the 2010 XBIZ Awards, an adult-industry event. Its business pages describe subscription, per-unit and token billing that fits paid content, membership and creator sites.

The company trades as Epoch, Epoch.com and Epoch Payment Solutions. Epoch.com, LLC is the entity named in court filings. Epoch's legal and privacy pages give its address as the Summit Building, 3415 North Pines Way, Wilson, Wyoming. Other sources place it in California: its BBB file lists an office at 3110 Main Street in Santa Monica, the 2025 lawsuit's complaint describes Epoch.com, LLC as a California limited liability company with its principal place of business in Santa Monica, and its sales and billing phone lines use Los Angeles-area (310) numbers. The legal page also lists a Wyoming (307) number. We list both locations because the sources disagree. Epoch's legal page describes it as a payment processing provider in the Visa USA and Europe regions. We found no evidence that it is owned by a larger group.

How it works

Epoch describes itself as "an approved Visa and MasterCard Payment Facilitator". The merchant does not get its own merchant account. It integrates Epoch's hosted payment pages and Epoch takes the payment. Epoch stores the card data, so repeat and one-click purchases never pass card numbers through the merchant's site. It runs recurring billing, per-unit (token or credit) billing, one-time sales and one-click upsells. It also answers the merchant's customers directly, 24 hours a day, by chat, email and phone, including cancellations. Customers see "Epoch.com" on their card statement, not the website's name. Epoch says it has passed PCI DSS Level 1 audits every year. It also says it was the first company in the world to be certified PCI-compliant by a third-party audit, in 2002 under Visa's CISP programme. That claim is Epoch's own, and we have not verified it independently.

The payment page reads the customer's IP address and browser language to show local currency and a translated form. In November 2026 Epoch listed 58 currencies, 17 languages and 27 payment types. The payment types cover major cards except American Express, PayPal and Paysafecard, and local methods across Latin America and Europe, such as PIX, Boleto, SPEI, Khipu, PagoEfectivo, iDEAL, Bancontact, EPS, Przelewy24, BLIK and Multibanco. APIs are available, but Epoch sends them only after you start sign-up and are assigned a sales representative.

Pricing

Epoch publishes its pricing. It charges one percentage of sales that covers the gateway, card storage, PCI compliance, international billing and customer billing support. It charges no setup, transaction, decline, maintenance, monthly or annual fee. The rate is set by average weekly volume, and Epoch says it adjusts automatically as sales change. The table published on its merchant page in November 2026:

• Up to $5,000 a week: 15.00%
• $5,001 to $7,000: 14.75%
• $7,001 to $9,000: 14.50%
• $9,001 to $12,000: 14.25%
• $12,001 to $15,000: 14.00%
• $15,001 to $20,000: 13.75%
• $20,001 to $25,000: 13.50%
• $25,001 to $45,000: 13.25% (the table lists two tiers at this rate; the upper one was 13.00% in 2015 and 2016)
• Above $45,000: quoted

On top of the percentage, Epoch charges $1 for each refund it processes and $12.50 for each chargeback. Merchants selling digital content from a US or EU company also pay the Visa and Mastercard registration fee, which Epoch lists as $1,950 at contract initiation and $1,950 at each annual renewal. Epoch collects the fee and pays the networks on the merchant's behalf. Archived copies show the table unchanged since at least mid-2017. Before that, in 2015 and 2016, the $35,001 to $45,000 tier was 13.00%. So the two 13.25% tiers reflect a rate rise on that band rather than a lower floor. The registration fee has also risen: archived copies of the page show $1,000 for US merchants and $500 for EU merchants from 2015 to 2019, $1,000 for both in 2020 to 2023, and $1,450 as recently as May 2026. Established merchants switching from another processor are told to ask for a quote, so the table is best read as the starting point, and an established business may be offered something different.

Contracts, reserves and payouts

Epoch's pricing FAQ says it does not require a security deposit and does not withhold a reserve. The same FAQ says most banks and processors require a rolling reserve of up to six months or a deposit of 5% to 10% of gross sales. Epoch has made the no-reserve statement since at least 2015. It does not publish its merchant agreement, contract length, termination terms, payout schedule or minimum payout. Its FAQ says the tiered rates are set out "in your contract". Get the payout frequency, any settlement delay, and the termination and chargeback-liability terms in writing before you integrate.

Who can sign up

Epoch only takes merchants based in the United States or in the card networks' Europe region. Epoch says this is because payment facilitators must stay within the processing regions the networks set. A non-US business must be incorporated in the Europe region, and at least one principal must live there. A sole proprietor must live in the Europe region. The list of qualifying countries includes the UK, EU member states, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Israel and Türkiye. Consumers can pay from anywhere. Sign-up is an online form, and Epoch says an account representative will reply within 24 hours.

Reputation and complaints

Most public complaints about Epoch come from consumers, not merchants. Because "Epoch.com" appears on the cardholder's statement instead of the website's name, people disputing a subscription charge tend to complain about Epoch. In November 2026 the BBB rated Epoch A+ and had accredited it since August 1999. The BBB had logged 40 complaints in the past three years and 8 in the past 12 months, all marked answered or resolved. Recent complaints there describe annual renewals people say they had switched off, charges they did not recognise, and partial refunds offered in place of full ones. At least one complaint in the BBB file is about The Epoch Times, an unrelated company. Trustpilot showed a TrustScore of 1.7 out of 5 from 158 reviews, with 81% one-star and 15% five-star. Epoch has not replied to negative reviews there. Some of those reviews are about an unrelated watch brand also called Epoch, and others describe trials that rolled into paid annual plans. Epoch's consumer FAQ says most trial memberships convert to monthly memberships if not cancelled, and that refunds can take up to five business days to show on a statement. We found little public feedback from merchants.

In October 2025, three anonymous plaintiffs who allege they were trafficked by GirlsDoPorn sued Epoch.com, LLC, CCBill, First Data Merchant Services, Total System Services and unnamed banks in federal court in San Diego. The suit seeks class status and alleges, under the federal sex-trafficking civil remedy (18 U.S.C. § 1595), that the payment companies knowingly benefited from GirlsDoPorn's sex-trafficking venture. The complaint alleges that Epoch was the payment facilitator for GirlsDoPorn's sub-merchant accounts. The plaintiffs later dropped First Data and Total System Services without prejudice. In April 2026 the judge granted Epoch's and CCBill's motions to dismiss in part and dismissed the complaint, finding the plaintiffs had not adequately alleged that the defendants knew or should have known about the criminal conduct, and allowed them to amend. An amended complaint followed in June 2026, and new motions to dismiss were fully briefed by the end of October 2026. The court has made no finding of liability.

Who Epoch suits

Epoch suits US and European-region businesses that sell subscriptions, memberships, tokens or digital content in categories mainstream processors turn down, and that want one company to run checkout, recurring billing, card storage and customer billing support. The published no-reserve policy and the absence of per-transaction fees help cash flow and make costs predictable. The 15% starting rate and $1,950 yearly registration fee make it expensive for small or new sites. It is not a fit for businesses outside the US and the networks' Europe region, merchants who need American Express, or anyone a mainstream processor would accept. Because payout timing and contract terms are not published, compare a written offer before you commit.