Top 10 Cheapest Credit Card Processing Companies for Small Business

Are you just starting up a new business venture and looking out for ways to itemize and manage business expenses? Starting a new business or startup can be a tedious process and you might need a constant flow of money to keep the momentum going. Taking a bank loan for the same is almost not possible as banks would not agree to source their funds to a startup or business that is not yet recognized in the market. Therefore, the dependency and need for a credit card for any kind of business has increased over the years. Let’s further talk in-depth about credit card processing and the various factors involved in it.

Why Choose A Credit Card Over A Loan?

The core purpose of both credit card and loan is the same, they let you borrow money at a specific interest rate from lenders following a set of regulations and procedures. Also, some common factors between a loan and a credit card are monthly payments along with principal and interest, amount limits, late fees, and more. Besides these similarities, they also share some key differences mostly concerning repayment terms. The loan is a one-type deal where you borrow a lump sum that is to be repaid over a certain period. 

Credit cards, on the other hand, belong to the revolving credit category where the borrower has access to findings as long as the funds remain in good standing. The borrowing limit is predetermined based on the periodical credit limit. Choosing the cheapest credit card processing for small businesses can benefit your business to a greater extent. It ideally helps small businesses in keeping up their momentum without having to worry about the frenzy about losing or running out of cash. You can buy the kinds of stuff needed for your business using a credit card and later pay it off once you see a profit.

Pros Of Credit Card

• You can use it just anytime you need it.
• Access to many rewards and interest-free purchases if paid on time.
• No hustle of carrying cash every time, as you have access to money with just the card in your hand.
• You can track easily you’re spending from a single place.
• You will be notified about any unauthorized charges and thus will be protected from any kind of fraudulence.
• You will get exposed to a wide variety of offers and cashback
• There’s no interest added in most of the credit card processing up to 40 days, which means you can borrow money without interest if you can repay it in the mentioned period.
• A credit card could be the ideal source of emergency funds as compared to other money-borrowing options.
• Some of the credit cards come with an automatic insurance policy with every purchase. 
• You have the flexibility of canceling your card anytime you want to, with no additional charges.
• If used responsibly, they can be a significant source of cash flow and could increase your credit score.
• Can be used for both offline and online shops.

Factors To Look for Before Buying a Credit Card

Few of the many companies offer excellent credit card processing for small business. With all the terminal options, additional and processing fees, it becomes extremely difficult to choose the best credit card processing service. One of the best ways to narrow down your search is by figuring out the need and purpose you need the credit card for, like if you want it to pay the bills or to pay for a particular purchase. 

Analyze if you will pay the credit card bill at the end of the cycle. If yes, you can take advantage of the interest-free period. If you want a credit card so you can borrow a lump sum of money, then it’d be optimum for you to choose a card that offers low interest rates.

Checklist of things you to look for before getting a credit card:

• The Annual Percentage Rates (APR)–This is the price incurred on you when you borrow money using a credit card. You can avoid these interest rates when you repay the amount in a month.
• Charges–Usually, there will be an additional credit card processing fee when you use your card overseas, if your spending crosses the spending limit and when you don’t repay on time. You can find all information about these charges in your credit agreement.
• Rewards and loyalty points–Your loyalty points add up when you shop from a particular shop, online or offline. You can either convert these loyalty points to cash or use them to buy goods.
• Annual fee–Few cards charge you annually for using the card. The amount will be added to your period bill, once each year and this includes additional charges if not paid on time. Choose the credit card processing company that incurs less or no annual charges.
• Minimum repayment–This is the minimum amount you’re bound to pay when you’re unable to pay the total amount in the current billing cycle.

Top And Cheapest Credit Card Processing Companies

Choosing the best credit card processing company is essential for the growth of your business. There are a lot of options for you to choose from, but let’s settle only with the greatest credit card processing company. Let us look at a few cheapest credit card processing firms.

1. Square–They provide credit card processing services to cover almost all aspects of your business. They offer the best services in Point-of-sale, invoices, contactless payments, and eCommerce with a bunch of connected tools. This easy access to almost all services drives in more customers. They also provide digital invoices that let your customers pay you from anywhere, online.

They also have partnerships with other eCommerce providers to eliminate the hurdles when your customer pays you via other service providers. To get started with their services, go to https://squareup.com/signup/us?lang_code=en-US and sign up with your email.

Fee structure

• In-person payments done using Square Reader: 1.79% – 3.25%
• In-person payments done without using Square Reader: 2.2% – 3.5%
• eCommerce: 2.5% – 3.6%

2. Fattmerchant–They introduce subscription-style merchants service where you can systematically simplify your payment infrastructures with their platform. Their dashboard shows your performance graphs comprising net sales, refunds, and gross sales over a day, month, year, and week. This offers subscription-based payment methods where you get access to everything under one platform eliminating the need to deal with various vendors, increase profits and grow faster. They offer the best mobile credit card processing at the cheapest rates. The other services they offer:

• One-Click shopping cart
• Custom branding
• Customer management
• Advanced reporting and dashboard
• Invoicing
• Same-day Funding
• Customer satisfaction and reliability.

To access their services, go to the following link and sign-up https://fattmerchant.com/.

Fee structure

• Virtual Terminal: $0.15 Per Transaction + Interchange
• Mobile: $0.12 – $0.15 Per Transaction + interchange
• Shopping Cart: $0.12 – $0.15 Per Transaction + interchange
• API: $0.12 – $0.15 Per Transaction + interchange
• Termination fee: None
• Standard Plan: $99 Per Month
• Enterprise Plan: $199 Per Month

3. Payline Data – The best part of their services is that they offer various features for mobile credit card processing like:

• They provide intuitive and secure credit card readers for Android and iPhone to approve and perform payments on the go.
• Seamless integration–A mobile Point Of Sale that streamlines your products in the front-end and processes the accounting in the backend.
• Recurring and scheduled billing–Tokenizes and stores the payment and customer information in their secure mobile credit card processing application.
• Transparent pricing–You will have a dedicated manager to take care of the accounts and the solutions to keep you posted on the services that might work the best for you, with neither additional charges nor long-term contracts.
• Apart from these, their online services offer the most secure and robust hardware in sync with their software. Their P2PE solutions allow you to take ownership over the client experiences while they take care of the support, updates, and compliances. Link to sign-up for their services: https://paylinedata.com/.

Fee structure

• Transaction fee: $2.05–$2.25
• Monthly fee: $0: 19.95
• Monthly minimum: $25
• Equipment cost: $49 – $349

4. Payment Depot–They are subscription-based and offer credit card processing for small businesses. They aim to level the playing field by providing various discounts and other services for small businesses. Their subscription is as little as 10 cents for every transaction. Their charges and clearly defined and constant over every month. To access their site, sign up from the following link: https://paymentdepot.com.

Fee structure

• Swiped rate: % 0.05 -% 0.15
• Keyed-in rate: $0.05 – $0.15 + interchange
• Virtual Terminal Fee: $0.05: $0.15 + interchange
• Gateway Fee: None
• Basic plan: $49 per month
• Popular plan: $79 per month
• Best-value plan: $99 per month
• Premier plan: $199 per month
• Termination/compliance fee: None

5. Stripe–From startups to large enterprises, they offer provisions to send payouts, accept payments, and other credit card processing services through their APIs and software. They offer payment services for subscription businesses, software marketplaces and platforms in-person and online retailers, and everything else. They also manage other business spends, restrict fraudulent accesses, issue physical and virtual cards, and send invoices. 

They provide the right abstractions of the services under one platform, so you need not agonize over integrating your payments across different platforms. Their platform is also constantly improving with hundreds of features added each year to keep you stay on par with the industry standards. They promise 99.9% uptime, scalability, and reliability. They have incorporated machine learning to train millions of data to assist in fraud identification, increase revenue, and a lot more. To make the best out of their credit card processing for small business, sign up from the following link: https://stripe.com/en-in.

Fee structure

Issuance fee:

• 2% for Visa and Master cards 
• 3.5% for AMEX cards 
• 4.3% for cards with different currency presentment
• No monthly and other hidden fees are involved.

6. Stax – They are US-based, high volume, and offer the best credit card processing for small businesses with predictable pricing. They are:

• Data-driven – They have access to a wide amount of data to enlighten their clients with deep insights. They perform researches at a larger scale and treat both gut instinct and hypothesis alike with information sourced from different tools and technologies.
• Actionable – They offer practical recommendations and pieces of advice to the clients to help them achieve their targets and implement various methodologies to march towards greater profits. 
• Strategic – They keep track of the daily operations of clients and constantly assess the horizon to find answers to the strategic questions the clients may have.

Services they offer:

• Growth strategy 
• Digital strategy
• Project implementation
• Market entry
• Lean transformation
• Investor facilitation

Fee structure:

• Stax pricing starts from $0.50 per month 
• Free trial available
• Premium edition: 2% from AWS spend: billed monthly
• Enterprise edition: billed monthly; tailored pricing

You can refer the link – https://www.stax.com/.

7. Payment Cloud – They are one of the cheapest credit card processing firms. They offer:

• Chargeback Protection – Protection against chargeback with auto reimbursement and chargeback solutions. 
• Online Fraud Protection – Protects your business against unprecedented and fraudulent activities. 
• Merchant account solution – This Lets you connect your eCommerce cart and POS with your card for a seamless transaction.

Fee structure:

• Swiped rate: 3-6%
• Keyed-in rate: 3.6.5%
• Payment gateway charges: $25
• Batch fee: $0.10
• Early cancellation fee: none.

Link – https://paymentcloudinc.com

8. Toast–They offer credit card processing services for restaurants. If you’re planning on starting a restaurant of your own, you can choose their services as they promise.

• Transparent pricing with a seldom hidden fee, custom built-rate, clear, and competitive pricing.
• Single platform to improve the efficiency of your restaurant using just one platform.
• Better insights to customers
• Online and offline mode of payments
• Prioritized security
• Encryption for payment-related data

Fee structure

• Installation fee: $499
• Equipment purchase: $450 – $899
• Inventory management: $75 per month
• Gift cards: $50 per month
• Swipe rate: $1.8

9. Clover–They build systems that are smart and customized to ease your work. Clover POS covers:

• Online ordering
• Contactless payment
• Gift cards
• Complete mobility

Fee structure

• Swipe rate: 2.3%
• Monthly fee: $14
• Termination fee: $500
• Equipment cost: from $999

Link: https://www.clover.com/

10. Lightspeed–They help manage multiple systems in a single place. Can be accessed from a mobile phone, iPad, or laptop. You can integrate this application with your favorite tools.

Fee structure

• Minimum deposit: $10,000
• Stock trades: $0.01
• Trade fee: $4.50

Link: https://www.lightspeedhq.com/

Also Read –

• What is an FNS Number?
• Best Credit Card Machines and Terminals