Unzer Review

Unzer is a German payments group that sells online payments, card terminals, cash-register software and white-label buy-now-pay-later to small and mid-sized merchants, mainly in Germany and Austria, with a Danish arm (Clearhaus and Quickpay) serving webshops in the Nordics. It began in 2003 as heidelpay, co-founded in Heidelberg by Mirko Hüllemann, grew through about a dozen acquisitions under private-equity owners AnaCap and then KKR, and took the Unzer name in September 2020. The group company, Unzer Group GmbH, is registered in Berlin. Merchants contract with Unzer Luxembourg S.A. (a CSSF-supervised payment institution) or Unzer E-Com GmbH (a BaFin-supervised payment institution in Heidelberg), with Unzer POS GmbH and Tillhub GmbH supplying terminals and till software. Unzer says it had €225.0 million of revenue and 90,000 merchants in 2025. As of September 2026 its English pricing page quotes online payments from 1.50% + €0.20 and in-store payments from 0.99% + €0.20, and its terminal shop lists the POS Go all-in-one till at €0 a month with card fees from 1.29%, but most real prices are set in a quote and the contract length is not published. The history matters: in 2022 BaFin fined Unzer E-Com €350,000 and banned it from taking on new customers over anti-money-laundering failings, and Luxembourg's CSSF fined Unzer Luxembourg €145,000. BaFin partly eased the ban in March 2024 and lifted it fully in October 2024. In 2023 KKR agreed to hand majority control to the company's lenders, according to press reports.

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

What Unzer is

Unzer is a German payments group aimed at small and mid-sized merchants that sell in store, online or both. It sells card terminals, cloud till software, online checkout and plugins, white-label invoice and instalment payments and a bundled business account. Its main markets are Germany and Austria. The group also owns Clearhaus, a Danish card acquirer, and the Danish gateway Quickpay, which serve webshops in the Nordics.

The company began as heidelpay, founded in Heidelberg in 2003 with Mirko Hüllemann as co-founder and chief executive. Private-equity firm AnaCap agreed to buy control in January 2017, when heidelpay served about 14,500 online merchants, and funded a string of acquisitions, among them the Hamburg terminal operator StarTec (2017), the collections and pay-later specialist Universum Group and the terminal business Alpha-Cash (2019). KKR agreed to buy a majority from AnaCap in August 2019, when heidelpay said it served more than 30,000 merchants. The buying continued under KKR: Paysafe's pay-later business Payolution (announced September 2020), the Danish acquirer Clearhaus and gateway Quickpay in 2021, along with 3dsecure.io, and the rest of Berlin till-software maker Tillhub, in which it already held a stake, in April 2022. In September 2020 the heidelpay Group relaunched as Unzer.

The expansion did not pay off for KKR. In August 2023, after the company missed its financial covenants, KKR agreed in principle, subject to regulatory approval, to hand majority control to its lenders, Alcentra, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Partners Group, who were to put in fresh equity and write off part of the debt, according to Bloomberg and Handelsblatt; KKR was to keep a minority stake. Later press coverage describes the handover as having taken place. Unzer's site does not name its shareholders. The chief executive is Robert Bueninck.

Today the group company, Unzer Group GmbH, is registered in Berlin. Merchant contracts are signed with one of two payment institutions: Unzer Luxembourg S.A., supervised by Luxembourg's CSSF, which holds most 'One Unzer' contracts, or Unzer E-Com GmbH in Heidelberg, supervised by BaFin. Unzer POS GmbH in Hamburg and Tillhub GmbH in Berlin supply terminals and till software, and Unzer Austria GmbH and Payolution GmbH are in Vienna. Unzer says it had €225.0 million of revenue, 18.5 billion in transaction volume (the page gives no currency) and 90,000 merchants in 2025. In October 2024 it reported 2023 revenue above €206 million and about 750 staff.

Why we list Unzer as a payment facilitator

For most merchants Unzer holds the merchant agreement itself, as a licensed payment institution, and uses card acquirers behind the scenes; the terms say the acquirer used may change from time to time. Merchants in high-risk sectors, or those that exceed US$1 million a year in Visa or US$10 million in Mastercard volume, must also sign an addendum directly with the acquirer. In the German girocard system Unzer acts as a commercial network operator, and a central-clearing form among its legal documents names Concardis as the girocard clearing partner. That is why Concardis appears in Unzer's documents, but Concardis was never part of heidelpay or Unzer; it is now part of Nexi.

Pricing

Unzer publishes starting prices, not a rate card. As of September 2026 its English pricing page lists online payments from 1.50% + €0.20, a monthly service fee from €19 and a €149 setup fee, while the 'standard rates' box beneath it says no service fee and a €0 setup fee. In-store payments are listed from 0.99% + €0.20, a monthly fee from €29 and a €99 setup fee. Volume pricing is offered above €100,000 a month.

The German terminal shop at get.unzer.com is more concrete, and some of its figures differ from the English page. It lists:

• POS Go all-in-one till: €0 a month, €0 setup, card fees from 1.29% (the English page says €29 a month including VAT)
• PAX A920 mobile terminal: €0 a month, card fees from 1.29%
• Desk 5000 countertop and Move 5000 mobile terminals: €22.90 a month excluding VAT, with transaction fees from €0.07 on the Desk 5000
• iPad till software: €69 a month, with gastronomy, services and retail bundles at €99 a month

Ordering from the shop only submits your details. A salesperson then calls to complete the contract, and the per-card rates come from that quote. Unzer's terms also let it reprice during the contract when cost factors change, including your card mix, the share of foreign or business cards, and scheme or partner fees, on at least four weeks' notice. It can also reprice if your average monthly volume or ticket runs more than 10% below what you declared for more than a month. Get the full fee schedule, including chargeback and returned-debit fees, which are not published, before you sign. For comparison, Mollie, which we also review, publishes a full per-card rate card.

Payouts

Payout timing is agreed per contract. Unzer's help centre shows daily cycles (two days after the transaction for in-store payments through Unzer Luxembourg), weekly cycles paid on Wednesdays or Tuesdays, and monthly cycles paid between the first and tenth working day of the next month, depending on the contracting entity and service. Unzer Financial Services, an add-on run with the e-money institution Pliant Oy, pays credit-card revenue out daily at no charge into a free business account with company cards.

The terms give Unzer a lien on your payout claims and let it demand security, such as a rolling holdback, and increase it if your risk changes. It may suspend payouts or switch off payment methods as a protective measure, and payouts count as provisional until they are final, for up to 18 months after a transaction.

Contracts

The published general terms (AGB One Unzer and AGB Unzer E-Com, versions from January 2026) do not state a minimum term or notice period. They defer both to the individual merchant contract. An Unzer Austria AGB from 2020 used a 24-month minimum that renewed for 12 months unless cancelled six months ahead; we could not confirm whether it still applies. What the current terms do give merchants is two months' notice of changes to the terms and a right to cancel free of charge before a disadvantageous change to the terms, which the terms say includes price changes, takes effect; a separate clause lets Unzer adjust fees for cost changes on four weeks' notice without itself mentioning that right. Unzer can terminate immediately for good cause, which includes a suspected breach such as fraud where the merchant does not supply the information requested, excessive disputes, no transactions in the first six months, or declines above 10% of transactions over three months.

Regulatory record and reputation

Unzer's recent regulatory history is the main reason for caution. In July 2022 BaFin ordered Unzer E-Com to fix its organisation and banned it from onboarding new customers. A special audit had found serious governance and anti-money-laundering failings, the worst being a payment arrangement with several hundred merchants, most of them shell companies, whose transactions between 2018 and 2021 were monitored inadequately or not at all. BaFin appointed a special monitor in August 2022 and fined the company €350,000 in September 2022 for lacking adequate measures to ensure compliance with anti-money-laundering law. Separately, Luxembourg's CSSF fined Unzer Luxembourg €145,000 in August 2022 for AML failings found in an on-site inspection carried out in 2020 and 2021, including name-matching controls. BaFin partly eased the ban in March 2024, and on 31 October 2024 Unzer announced that BaFin had ended the monitorship and fully lifted it. Unzer says it spent more than €20 million on compliance over three years.

Unzer's Trustpilot profile shows 4.6 from 13,494 reviews (536 in the last 12 months, September 2026), 89% of them five-star and 4% one-star, but it is a merged profile and the score should not be read as a merchant rating. Many of the reviews come from shoppers who paid through Unzer's or Payolution's invoice products and are rating the shop they bought from, and Trustpilot notes that Unzer has not invited reviews recently, so the score says little about merchant experience. The merchant complaints on the profile concern withheld settlements, reconciliation mismatches and slow onboarding. One merchant wrote in September 2026 that Unzer was holding about €58,500 and not substantively answering its support ticket. Unzer typically replies publicly within 48 hours.

Who Unzer suits

Unzer fits German and Austrian merchants that want terminals, a fiscally compliant till, online checkout and invoice or instalment payments from one provider with local service, and that are comfortable negotiating a contract rather than signing up online. It is a weaker fit if you want published, per-card pricing and a clear exit before you commit, or if a provider's recent money-laundering enforcement history is a concern for you. Before signing, get in writing the per-card rates, the minimum term and notice period, any holdback, and the chargeback and returned-debit fees.