Stancer Review

Stancer is a French payment institution about 90% owned by iliad SA, the telecoms company behind Free. It is authorised by the ACPR as a payment institution, including for acquiring, and acquires card payments itself, so the merchant contract is with Stancer rather than a bank. It sells to French small businesses through a payment terminal, Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android, payment links and an online checkout API, and it also handles SEPA Direct Debit. Pricing is published and low. As of October 2026 (live pricing page and Pricing Conditions dated August 2024), French CB cards and Visa and Mastercard cards issued in the EEA cost 0.7% + €0.07 on Stancer's terminal, with no fixed fee under €7, and 0.7% + €0.15 for Tap to Pay, links and online payments. Visa and Mastercard cards issued outside the EEA cost 2.5% plus a fixed fee. All prices exclude tax. There is no setup fee, no monthly fee and no fixed term, and the terminal is free in a month with more than 150 transactions on it (the product page says 150 or more), or €15 a month otherwise. The trade-offs are real. Funds reach your bank within seven working days rather than the next day, and faster payout costs 2% of the amount. Stancer does not accept American Express, chargebacks cost €25 on Visa and Mastercard, and the contract makes you pledge a cash collateral that it can top up from your balance and keep for 13 months after you leave. Trustpilot reviews are split, with complaints about frozen funds and slow support.

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

What Stancer is

Stancer is a French payment provider for small businesses, majority-owned by the iliad group, the telecoms company behind the Free mobile and broadband brands. Its legal name is Iliad 78, a simplified joint-stock company at 16 rue de la Ville l'Évêque in Paris, incorporated on 6 December 2017 according to the French company register. The iliad group's 2025 universal registration document, filed in April 2026, shows iliad SA holding 89.55% of Iliad 78 at 31 December 2025 (89.00% a year earlier); a 2020 free-share plan covers 2.95% of Iliad 78's capital for four employees or managers. iliad SA is 98.86% held by iliad Holding, which is controlled by Maya, the holding company of Xavier Niel's family. Stancer's own About page describes it as a subsidiary of the iliad group.

Stancer was built for iliad's own use before it was sold to anyone else. When it launched to merchants in September 2022, Niel told the press that iliad had grown tired of paying high fees to collect payments from its subscribers, and that this was how Stancer was born. Sources differ on the year it was started: the 2022 launch coverage, relaying Le Figaro, dates Niel's idea to 2018, while 2026 trade press says Stancer was created in 2017. We use 2017, the year the company was registered. Stancer's homepage, undated, claims more than 253,000 transactions a day and more than €1.76 billion processed a year. The French trade site Univers Freebox, relaying the newsletter Mind, reported in April 2026 that it handles over €2 billion a year for more than 10,000 French clients, and that it was still loss-making in 2024. Iliad 78's own accounts are small by comparison: revenue of about €6.3 million and a net loss of about €1.8 million in 2024, according to the filed accounts shown in the French government's company register, and revenue of about €6.5 million with a net loss of about €1.9 million in 2025, according to the subsidiaries table in iliad's 2025 registration document.

Why we list Stancer as an acquirer

Stancer is a payment institution authorised by France's prudential regulator, the ACPR, under number 11758. The REGAFI register shows the authorisation active since 24 October 2019, with acquiring of payment transactions among its authorised services and the licence passported, on a freedom-to-provide-services basis, to Ireland, Italy and Poland. Its General Conditions describe Stancer itself as the acquirer: the merchant signs a payment services framework agreement directly with Stancer, card payments are credited to a Stancer payment account in the merchant's name, and a merchant suspended by the CB scheme is told it may later sign with 'another acquirer of the Client's choice'. Stancer's French documentation states that it acquires your payments. There is no bank or payment facilitator between you and Stancer, which is why we list it as a platform and acquirer rather than a payfac or reseller.

What it costs

Stancer publishes its prices on its website and in a four-page Pricing Conditions document dated August 2024, which the pricing page still links to as of October 2026. The rates on the live site match that document. All prices are stated exclusive of tax, in euros.

• Payment terminal, French CB cards and Visa or Mastercard cards issued in the EEA: 0.7% + €0.07, with no fixed fee on transactions under €7.
• Tap to Pay, payment links and online payments, same cards: 0.7% + €0.15.
• Visa and Mastercard cards issued outside the EEA: 2.5% + €0.12 on the terminal, 2.5% + €0.25 otherwise.
• Cards whose interchange and scheme fees exceed the variable fee: actual interchange and scheme fees plus 10%, in place of the variable fee.
• Terminal: free in a month with more than 150 transactions on it (the product page says 150 or more), otherwise €15 a month. Extra replacement €100, damage €160, non-return €300. Merchant card replacement €10.
• Chargebacks: €3 on CB, €25 on Visa, €25 on Mastercard.
• SEPA Direct Debit: 0.25% + €0.10, capped at €2 below €1,000; €5 per refused debit; €0.20 for a cancellation, reversal, return or refund request. Incoming SEPA transfer: €0.10; recall €3.
• Payout sooner than seven working days: 2% of the net amount. Dormant account: €30 a year.
• No setup fee, no monthly account fee and no volume limit.

For a shop taking mostly European consumer cards, this is cheap. A €30 contactless sale on the terminal costs €0.28, under 1%. A €4 coffee costs €0.028 because the fixed fee falls away under €7. An online shop pays €0.50 on a €50 sale. Two things push the real cost up. The pass-through clause means business cards and other higher-cost cards are not capped at 0.7%. And the €25 chargeback fee on Visa and Mastercard is high relative to the transaction fees, so a business with frequent disputes will see it quickly. Stancer accepts transactions only above a minimum, which its current documentation sets at €0.50 and which the General Conditions let the merchant switch off from the User Area.

How it works

You open an account online, which Stancer says takes about five minutes, then supply the identity and company documents its anti-money-laundering checks require. Once the account is approved you can send payment links straight away, accept contactless payments on your phone with Tap to Pay on iPhone or Android, integrate the online checkout through a CMS module, hosted page, pop-in, iframe or API, and order a terminal, which Stancer says arrives ready to use within seven working days. A single dashboard and mobile app cover payments, refunds and disputes across all of them. Stancer also issues SEPA Direct Debit mandates and collects debits, and can receive SEPA transfers. Its card acceptance covers the CB, Visa and Mastercard families; American Express is not on the list.

Payouts and fund holds

This is the main compromise. Stancer's General Conditions say the net amount is paid to your bank account no later than seven working days after Stancer receives the funds, and its FAQ explains the delay as time to screen payments for fraud. You can ask for quicker payment, but that costs 2% of the amount paid out, which is more than the transaction fee itself for most European cards. Stancer may also suspend transactions on the account until a reversed payment has been recovered, debit your bank account if your Stancer balance is short, and suspend service without notice for security, fraud or misuse, or if you do not provide documents it requests. If documents are not supplied within seven business days of a request, it may end the contract without notice.

Contract terms

The General Conditions for professional clients, updated October 2025, run for an indefinite period, and either side can end them on one month's notice; you do it from your User Area. There is no early-termination fee, but a terminal must be returned by registered post within 15 days or a €300 charge applies. Every client also signs a cash collateral pledge. It starts at €1, but Stancer may raise it, by debiting your balance, to an amount driven by the disputes you received over the past 13 months, and it keeps the collateral until 13 months after the contract ends. Stancer's liability is capped at the fees you paid in the two months before the problem arose, and it can change the pricing on 15 days' notice, other terms on one month's notice, and card acceptance terms on five days' notice where it sees abnormal use of lost, stolen or counterfeit cards, with your right to leave free of charge if you object. The contract is governed by French law, French is the only contractual language, and disputes go to the courts in the Paris Court of Appeal's district.

Reputation and complaints

As of 28 October 2026, Stancer has a TrustScore of 3.1 out of 5 from 168 reviews on Trustpilot, where it claimed its profile in 2023. The distribution is polarised: 38% of reviews are five-star and 47% are one-star. Positive reviews praise the low prices, the simple interface and quick setup. Negative ones describe funds blocked for weeks during compliance checks, accounts suspended without a clear explanation, the seven-day payout delay, charges that differed from what was expected, and slow or unresponsive support. The testimonials on Stancer's own site are, as you would expect, uniformly positive. We found no ACPR sanction, lawsuit or other enforcement action naming Stancer or Iliad 78.

Who should use Stancer

Stancer suits a French small business that takes mostly European consumer cards and wants a very low published rate with no fixed-term contract: a café, bakery, market stall, salon or tradesperson, or a small online shop. The terminal is especially good value for businesses that take many small payments, because terminal payments under €7 carry no fixed fee. It suits less well a business that needs its money the next day, takes many business or non-European cards, needs American Express, or has a high dispute rate, given the €25 chargeback fee and the collateral mechanism. If you sign up, keep enough working capital to cover a week of takings, and keep copies of every document you send in case an account review holds your funds.