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There are very few companies in the payments industry that are totally transparent about their fees (and boy, do some merchant service providers LOVE their fees). The problem with these fees is that they don't do anything to benefit the merchant, but are all about increasing the processor's bottom line. At best, the fees are unreasonably expensive for what they offer merchants-at worst, they're just made up. Here's a list of fees you'll need to look out for when you're checking into payment processing for your business:
PCI Fees
While PCI compliance is no myth, the fees a lot of merchant service providers charge you to stay compliant are completely unnecessary and made up as another way to nickel and dime merchants. The only way to stay compliant is to self-evaluate and complete a PCI questionnaire, and then if you don't do that, some processors will charge you even more for not being compliant. At Helcim, we just make sure that you are compliant and don't charge you either way.
Annual Fees
Instead of being upfront about the monthly cost of your service, many processors will bury some of their costs through annual fees. These fees usually range between $50-$200 and can be hard to spot, since processors only have to sneak these by you once a year. Frankly, when it comes to credit card processing, there's little reason to charge an annual fee (especially when a monthly fee is often already in place), and there's certainly no reason to hide the fee from merchants.
Customer Support Fees
Have you ever been promised 5 STAR customer service by a company only to call them up and have a robot answer your call? Or worse, been unable to contact them by phone at all? Unfortunately a lot of payment processors promise the world when it comes to merchant support but when it comes down to it, they've outsourced their customer service or don't maintain any sort of live support team to help you. And when you're paying for that kind of service, it just starts to rub you the wrong way.
Some payment processors charge monthly fees just for you to have access to live support, but wouldn't you rather it were free? At Helcim we not only believe in 5 STAR customer service, but we believe that no one should ever charge you for access to a helpful team of in-house experts. Our support team is always available to you when you have questions or need help.
Monthly Minimums
Did you know that as a merchant you don't have to process anything at all? The merchant service providers that tell you you'll be charged if you don't process a certain amount of payments in a month are actually just softly swindling their merchants out of more money and blaming the card brands or other external forces for these charges when in fact, it's the MSPs themselves responsible for this. With Helcim, you'll never pay for monthly minimums. We're never going to penalize our merchants for not making any money. How backwards is that?
Cancellation Fees
If you don't like someone, you don't have to hang out with them. It should be the same way with your payment processor in our opinion. Why would you keep doing business with someone that's not helping you succeed? At Helcim, our relationships with our merchants are mutually beneficial, and we're not here to nickel and dime anyone. That's why when you sign up with Helcim, there's no sign up fees and no cancellation fees (or hard feelings) if we part ways.
No Fees Like These With Helcim
Helcim doesn't charge any of the above fees to any of our merchants. We don't even charge a monthly fee for our service! That's right-our merchants just pay processing.
Our company was built with the best interests of business owners in mind, and we're on a mission to debunk the payments industry so that businesses everywhere can start to expect better. If you're looking for Better Payments (including no pointless fees), look no further than Helcim.