PaymentCloud Review: Features, Pricing, Pro & Cons
Founded in 2015, PaymentCloud is one of the best merchant service providers for high risk businesses such as eCommerce and telephone mail orders. Its headquarters are in Woodland Hills, California and its headed by Shawn Silver, who was iPayment high risk vice president.
The company focuses on credit card processing services for medium-risk and high-risk businesses. However, it also accepts low-risk businesses that are looking for payment processing services. Apart from that, this company also sells electronic merchant systems.
Products and Services
PaymentCloud partners with various banks to provide these payment solutions. Although most of these banks are not displayed on the PaymentCloud website, some of them include BMO Harris, Merrick Bank, and Esquire Bank. These financial institutions also have a high-risk appetite. Here are the most renowned PaymentCloud products and services;
Cards Not present
Virtual terminal. This is a processor that supports mail order and telephone order transactions(MOTO). Businesses can send invoices via email to their clients using this feature. When integrated with a USB card reader, Virtual terminals support card-present payments.
Payment gateway. PaymentCloud supports online payments through the Authorize.Net platform. Aunthorite.Net comes with customizations tools that help you to integrate it with your site. The gateway provider charges a monthly fee but the set with PaymentCloud is free of charge up.
eCheck and AHC processing. When a credit card payment is no longer viable due to the high risk of payment, AHC processing is the best alternative. You can use it for direct debit payments options straight from your website.
Shopping Cart integration. PaymentCloud supports a myriad of online shopping carts for e-commerce enterprises. Some of the major carts it intergrates with include Shopify, 3D Cart, and BigCommerce.
Card-present
Credit card terminal. PaymentCloud provides a free terminal for each merchant account. However, if you shut down your account, PaymentCloud requires you to surrender this terminal to them. Otherwise, they will charge you for the entire machine. This company provides various credit card terminal models such as Ingenico iCT220, Verifone VX 520, and others. All of them are EMV compliant. On top of that, they also provide wireless models.
POS Systems. PaymentCloud offers numerous POS systems in conjunction with third parties. The options are many, and you can choose whichever you deem suitable for your business.
Mobile Payments. PaymentCloud offers various mobile payment options. These are the likes of audio-jack and BlueTooth readers. They are compatible with Android and iOS. Additionally, they support contactless and EMV payments.
Other services
High-risk industries. PaymentCloud hasn’t put out a list of high-risk industries that it doesn’t accept. Currently, it serves credit repair services, adult entertainment website, E-cig vendors, hemp vendors, debts consolidators, and others. If you are in a high-risk industry that we have not listed above, you can ask PaymentCloud about your industry.
Contactless payment requests. Recently, PaymentCloud acquired Paysley which is a popular contactless payment start-up. PaymentCloud has now extended this service to merchants. For secure payments, they require you to send QR codes to your clients.
When to use PaymentCloud
When running a high-risk business. PaymentCloud is ideal when running a high-risk enterprise. These are the likes of adult merchandise, hemp, tobacco, and so on. If you are looking for quick approvals and reasonable fees but you are in the high-risk category, this company this merchant service is your best bet.
Cheap credit card processing. If you are looking for affordable credit card processing, PaymentCloud can assist you in getting the best rates.
Retail credit processing. PaymentCloud has a wide range of credit card processors. These are the mobile reader, POS system, and EMV terminal.
Merchants who seek hands-on services. PaymentCloud provides a hands-on support team that guides merchants from the setup point to when your account is up and running.
When not to use PaymentCloud
While running a low-risk business. There are plenty of payment options for businesses that receive most of their payments online. Some of the viable e-commerce payment options include Paydepot, Paypal, and so on.
Businesses that don’t want to be billed monthly. PaymentCloud charges monthly rates. If you would like to avoid these fees, you can choose merchants that do not demand a monthly charge.
When looking for an all-inclusive merchant account. PaymentCloud works with third-party tools. As such, they luck the sometimes much-needed pricing transparency. Stax BY and Fattmerchant are more inclusive and could be more favorable in such situations.
Costs and Pricing
PaymentCloud does not display its fees on its official website. The reason for this is that the company does not have standard charges for all types of business. Enterprises that seek its services have different levels of risk. A high-risk business may pay more than a medium or low-risk company.
Regardless of that, there are no complaints of PaymentCloud charging high-risk businesses unreasonable fees. As such, this company creates room for its clients to maintain lucrative profit margins.
PaymentCloud does require its customers to pay application fees while setting up. Merchants pay more if they opt to lease instead of buying hardware such as processing terminals and other physical paraphernalia. Those who prefer to purchase processing equipment pay less. Pricing also depends on the types of payment that a merchant seeks. For specialized forms of payment such as mobile payments and e-cheques, vendors may pay more.
Types of businesses that PaymentCloud Serves
PaymentCloud mostly serves high-risk businesses that struggle to obtain merchant accounts from other companies.
High-Risk Industries
Most banks and other financial institutions do not how to deal with businesses in high-risk industries. For instance, if you are in the adult entertainment sector, banks may not want to associate with you. This could be due to poor credit history. Regardless of the reasons, such businesses need merchant accounts to process their payments.
Paymentcloud has an arsenal of banks, virtual terminals, chargeback, and fraud prevention to help you process payments effectively. The high risk businesses PaymentCloud supports include;
- Nutraceuticals
- Guns and firearms
- Online dating services
- Credit repair
- Jet Charter
- Cigars and tobacco
Medium-risk
Credit cards provider categorize some businesses as medium-risk enterprises due to chargebacks or high average transaction volumes. PaymentsCloud takes on these types of businesses. These are;
- Property management
- SEO services
- Accounting
- Subscriptions
- Dropshipping
- Web Design
Low-risk
PaymentCloud also takes on low-risk businesses that want a different retail procession option. Businesses in this category include;
- Pet supplies
- Beauty shops
- Auto parts
- Moving companies
- Apparel
- Home goods
Types of contracts
PaymentCloud offers a free account set up for merchants. Its approval rates are fast and commendable. On top of that, its minimum contracts are three years long. However, this is standard in the payment processing industry. Merchants may not negotiate for month-to-month contracts with PaymentCloud. The reason for this is because Payment cloud most handles high-risk payments. Should merchants decide to terminate their contracts before they mature, they may pay termination fees amounting to hundreds of dollars.
Customer Complaints
Even though there are a few customer complaints about PaymentCloud, most of its clients seem satisfied by their service delivery. As such, the complaints are tremendously low.
Customer Service
PaymentCloud seems to provide stellar customer service. Otherwise, a lot of complaints from dissatisfied clients would surface online. The company takes its customer service a notch further by assigning a representative for each merchant. The customer service representatives are not only well trained, but they always full comprehensive details of the respective account. Besides that, they are aware of the common challenges that merchants are likely to encounter.
As if that’s not enough, this company provides a far-reaching FAQ section. Merchants can rely on it to troubleshoot some of their problems. The company not only provides a customer care number but an email address for merchants that would like to engage them directly. Its clients can reach its customer service agents from 7. a.m to 6. p.m, Monday to Friday.
In terms of communication, the company is quite responsive. Their agents resolve most of their customer problems in a matter of minutes or hours. It depends on the complexity of the issue.
Customer Response
Like we said earlier, there is little negative feedback about PaymentCloud online. Most of the reviews available online for this company are minimal. This can only mean that PaymentCloud is getting a lot of services right.
In Conclusion
Overall, most comments from bsusinesses that use Payment Cloud are positive. Most clients seem happy with the services, customer care, and pricing. On websites where people comment about PaymentCloud, few comments touch on pricing. However, no one has released the exact figures. It is getting a quotation from this company for business that will shed a light on their rates.
In comparison to other options, PaymentCloud accepts businesses that are deemed unfit by other payment processing companies. When we consider positive and negative customer feedback, the good outweighs the bad. Our verdict is that PaymentCloud is doing a lot of things right. And that is why their clients are barely complaining.
