Novalnet Review

Novalnet is a German payment service provider run by Novalnet AG from Garching, just outside Munich. The company says it was founded in 2007. It is a payment institution licensed by BaFin, Germany's financial regulator, with permission to acquire card payments, and Novalnet says it has been a Visa acquirer and Visa Principal Member since September 2025. Merchants sign one contract with Novalnet, which collects the money through trust accounts and pays it out on a cycle agreed at signing. Its published German price list, as of November 2026, puts the self-service account at €99 to set up and €25 a month with no fixed term. On top of that, EU consumer Visa and Mastercard payments cost €0.24 + 1.70%, SEPA Direct Debit €0.24 + 1.50% and iDEAL | Wero €0.28 + 0.30%. Businesses processing €25,000 a month or more get individual pricing. Novalnet supports more than 150 payment methods, sells guaranteed invoice and direct-debit payments, and offers more than 100 free shop plugins, including Shopware, WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify and JTL. The contract can be ended at any time on three months' written notice to the end of a month. Independent reviews are few. The one-star reviews we could read came from consumers disputing subscription debits or collection demands processed through Novalnet, not from merchants.

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

What Novalnet is

Novalnet is a German payment service provider. The operating company, Novalnet AG, is registered at the Munich local court (HRB 167381) and based at Gutenbergstraße 7 in Garching bei München, just north of Munich. Novalnet says it was founded in 2007. Company register data published by a business information service gives a registration in January 2007. Gabriel Dixon chairs the management board as CEO, Johnson Rajdaniel is CFO, and Frank Haussmann chairs the supervisory board. The group also has Novalnet Ltd in Croydon, United Kingdom, Novalnet Payment Corp in New York, and a technology partner company in Chennai, India. Its About page says it has more than 200 staff across four locations, although the same page elsewhere says 150+. Novalnet does not publish its shareholders, and we found no record of an outside owner, so we describe it as privately held without naming one.

We found nothing to suggest the brand has been sold or renamed. It still trades as Novalnet on novalnet.de and novalnet.com, and its 2022 tie-up with emerchantpay is an acquiring partnership, not an ownership stake. Novalnet sells only to businesses. Its legal notice says it does not contract with consumers.

Why we list Novalnet as a platform

We type listings by who holds the merchant agreement. With Novalnet, that is Novalnet itself. BaFin's company database lists Novalnet AG as a payment institution and acquiring service provider. It has held permission to accept and settle card payments since 28 June 2018, and permissions for direct debits, credit transfers and money remittance since 2015. Novalnet says it went live as a Visa acquirer on 1 September 2025 and is a Visa Principal Member, a China UnionPay Principal Member for acquiring, and an American Express aggregator in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK. The merchant signs Novalnet's service contract, the money passes through Novalnet's trust accounts, and Novalnet appears on shoppers' bank statements as the merchant's contractual partner. That is the acquirer and platform position in our taxonomy.

It is not a pure acquirer for every scheme, though. In its Visa announcement, Novalnet says it is still preparing direct acquiring for Mastercard, and since 2022 it has used emerchantpay for acquiring capacity. Its FAQ also says some merchants sign a separate card acceptance agreement. If it matters to you which bank or acquirer settles your Mastercard volume, ask Novalnet before you sign.

What it costs

Novalnet publishes its prices on novalnet.de/preise. As of November 2026, the self-service account ('Sofort Konto') costs €99 to set up and €25 a month, with no fixed contract term. Businesses processing €25,000 a month or more can ask for individual pricing, which Novalnet says comes with a dedicated account manager and 24/7 support. Businesses in restricted categories must get approval first and are priced differently. The English version of the price list, on novalnet.com, shows the same €99 setup and €25 monthly fees and says both apply only on live activation. Prices are in euros, and neither version says whether VAT is included. An older English 'Fees and Prices' page, last updated in 2021, still quotes prices 'from € 49.90'. It is not linked from the current price list, but it is still online, so rely on a written offer.

• Visa and Mastercard (EU consumer cards): €0.24 + 1.70%.
• Visa and Mastercard commercial cards and non-EU cards: €0.24 + 2.90% on the German list. The English price page instead says a 1.5% surcharge applies to these cards, which would make them dearer, so confirm the rate in writing.
• American Express, JCB, UnionPay, Discover and Diners: €0.24 + 2.99%.
• Apple Pay and Google Pay: €0.24 + 1.99%.
• PayPal: €0.24 + 0.00%, marked as depending on volume and sector. The list does not say whether PayPal's own fees apply on top, so ask.
• Prepayment and purchase on invoice (without guarantee): €0.24 + 0.99%.
• SEPA Direct Debit: €0.24 + 1.50%.
• Guaranteed invoice, guaranteed SEPA Direct Debit and instalments, B2C: €0.42 + 2.4% in Germany and €1.62 + 2.5% in Austria and Switzerland.
• Guaranteed payments, B2B: €1.62 + 2.5% in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Invoice and invoice instalments cost €1.82 + 2.7% elsewhere in the EU and €2.82 + 2.9% outside it.
• Bank and local methods: online bank transfer €0.24 + 1.10%, eps €0.24 + 1.50%, iDEAL | Wero €0.28 + 0.30%, Przelewy24 €0.24 + 2.20%, Bancontact €0.28 + 1.50%, PostFinance €0.24 + 3.55%, Trustly €0.30 + 2.25%, Multibanco €0.30 + 3.00%, Carte Bancaire €0.24 + 1.80%, MB Way €0.24 + 1.50%, Bizum €0.35 + 1.50%, ACH direct debit €0.24 + 0.85%.
• Alipay and WeChat Pay: €0.24 + 3.10%.

As an illustration, take a shop that takes €10,000 a month in 200 EU consumer card payments of €50. Card fees would be €170 in percentage fees plus €48 in fixed fees, or €218. Add the €25 monthly fee and the total is €243, about 2.4% of sales, before the one-off €99 setup fee. If the same sales came in by SEPA Direct Debit, the transaction fees would be €198. At a tenth of that volume the monthly fee alone adds 2.5% to costs, which is why Novalnet suits shops with steady volume better than very small ones. The fixed €0.24 fee also weighs on small baskets: a €10 card payment costs €0.41, or 4.1%. Novalnet does not publish chargeback, refund or PCI fees on its price list, so ask for them in writing.

How it works and what you get

Novalnet is built for online businesses. It says it supports more than 150 payment methods and more than 125 currencies through one contract and one merchant account. Its range is strongest in the German-speaking market. Alongside cards and wallets, it sells purchase on invoice, SEPA Direct Debit and instalments with a payment guarantee. Novalnet says this protects merchants against non-payment and returned direct debits and covers reminders and collection at no extra cost until court proceedings. B2C guarantee checks need the buyer's date of birth, and B2B checks need a company name and email. Other features include subscriptions and tokenised one-click payments, virtual IBANs for matching bank transfers, split payments and affiliate payouts for marketplaces, Pay-by-Link, a virtual terminal for mail and telephone orders, IVR phone payments, the Novashield fraud tool, and dunning and debtor management. Novalnet also markets an in-store product called NovalPay, but publishes no in-person rates.

Integration is through more than 100 free plugins or an API with a hosted payment page. The plugins cover Shopware 5 and 6, WooCommerce, Magento 2 (including Hyvä Checkout), Shopify, PrestaShop, BigCommerce, JTL-Shop, plentymarkets, Gambio, OXID, Odoo, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud and many smaller German shop systems. The plugin licence lasts only as long as the service contract and is provided as-is, with no obligation on Novalnet to maintain the software. In practice, Novalnet's FAQ says merchants and their developers get free technical support by phone and email during implementation.

Signing up

You register online and immediately get a test account with sandbox API keys. Test transactions are deleted automatically at the end of each day. To go live you upload KYC documents, sign the contract electronically and complete a video identification. Novalnet says this can take three to five days, depending on how quickly you supply the documents. Its FAQ lists the signed service contract, in some cases a separate card acceptance agreement, an identification form, ID for the managing directors or shareholders, a business registration and a commercial register extract no more than six months old. Identity checks by POSTIDENT cost €9. As a BaFin-supervised institution, Novalnet has to identify every business partner under German anti-money-laundering law, so this step cannot be skipped.

Contract terms

The self-service account is advertised with no fixed contract term. Novalnet's FAQ says the contract runs indefinitely and can be ended at any time, without giving reasons, on three months' notice in writing to the end of a month. There is no minimum term to buy out, but you should expect up to three more monthly fees after you give notice. Novalnet's general merchant terms (AGB) are not linked from its website. A copy that a third-party site once hosted is no longer available, so we could not check the clauses on price changes, reserves, set-off or termination by Novalnet. Ask for the current AGB and price annex before signing, and check whether a separate card acceptance agreement applies to you. In 2019 a merchant on the Shopware forum asked whether Novalnet switches low-volume merchants to a more expensive fee model. Novalnet replied that merchants choose their model and it is not changed without agreement, and the merchant later said the matter had been cleared up.

Payouts and safeguarding

The payout schedule is set in the contract and depends on your business and payment methods. Novalnet's German site lists cycles of three days, weekly, every two weeks or monthly. An older English fees page, last updated in 2021, also lists daily payouts. You can take payouts net, with Novalnet's fees deducted, or gross, with the fees invoiced separately, and each payout comes with a settlement file broken down by transaction. Payouts are available in 25 currencies. They are free to accounts in the euro area, while Novalnet says payouts to accounts outside it often carry international transfer costs. Customer money is held in trust accounts under Germany's payment services supervision law (ZAG). Novalnet says these accounts protect the money if Novalnet becomes insolvent and that the banks holding them have no right to set off or retain it.

Who it will and will not take

Novalnet's compliance page lists 57 prohibited business categories, including cryptocurrency and forex, CBD, free and low-cost trial offers, lifetime subscriptions, outbound telemarketing, pre-order merchants, VoIP, weapons and crowdfunding. It also lists 25 higher-risk categories that it may onboard after enhanced due diligence, with custom pricing, reserves or limits and ongoing monitoring. These include gambling, dating services, subscription merchants, nutraceuticals, pharmacies, alcohol, securities brokers and primary ticketing. It also lists 35 prohibited and 40 high-risk countries. So Novalnet will consider some higher-risk businesses, but it is not a high-risk specialist, and those merchants should expect quoted pricing and holds rather than the published list.

Reputation and complaints

Independent merchant reviews of Novalnet are scarce. As of November 2026, its Trustpilot profile, claimed since 2012, shows a TrustScore of 4.5 from 157 reviews, with only 11 in the past 12 months. The distribution is split: 72% of reviews are five-star and 20% are one-star. The recent five-star reviews praise support and reliability and mostly come from merchants. The three one-star reviews Trustpilot displayed to us all came from consumers disputing subscription debits or debt-collection demands for payments processed through Novalnet, mostly for dating services. That is a common pattern for a provider whose name appears on shoppers' bank statements. Novalnet runs an end-customer hotline (Monday to Friday, 9 am to 4 pm) and an online lookup by transaction number for those shoppers, but merchants should know their customers will see Novalnet's name. Novalnet promotes industry awards, including first place in the Payment & Fintech category of the E-Commerce Germany Awards 2026. We found no lawsuits, regulatory fines or enforcement actions naming Novalnet.

Who should use Novalnet

Novalnet makes most sense for an established online business in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, or one selling across the EU, that wants cards, SEPA, local bank methods and guaranteed invoice or direct-debit payments under one regulated contract, through a ready-made plugin for its shop system. The published per-method prices, the BaFin licence, the trust-account safeguarding and the absence of a fixed term are real strengths. It is a weaker fit for very small sellers, because of the €25 monthly and €99 setup fees, for businesses with many non-EU or commercial card customers, and for anyone who wants published in-person rates. Ask for the AGB, confirm VAT and any chargeback fees in writing, and confirm which acquirer handles your Mastercard volume before you sign.