Host Merchant Services Review

With transparent pricing and excellent customer support, Host Merchant Services is a fantastic credit card processor for most small businesses.

WRITTEN & RESEARCHED BY
Frank Kehl
Expert Contributor

Last updated onUpdated December 3, 2024

REVIEWED BY

Expert Contributor

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Host Merchant Services

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Total Rating	4.9
Fees & Rates5.0
Products & Services5.0
Contract5.0
Sales & Advertising Transparency4.7
Customer Service4.6
User Reviews4.8

Host Merchant Services At A Glance

Month-to-month billing with no early termination fees
Uses interchange-plus pricing exclusively
Free web hosting included with each account

Pros

Transparent interchange-plus pricing
Accepts high-risk businesses
No early termination fee, setup fee, or application fee
No monthly minimum
Good customer support

Cons

Can be expensive for low-volume merchants
For US & Canadian businesses only

Host Merchant Services Overview

Host Merchant Services (HMS) is a US-based merchant services provider. HMS offers interchange-plus pricing exclusively and will readily admit if its rate structure won’t work the best for your business. (For example, it could be too cost-prohibitive for a very low-volume mobile payment business.)

The company accepts some high-risk industries through a partnership with Electronic Merchant Systems (EMS) and is one of our top recommendations for the best high-risk merchant service providers.

Also, HMS has very few complaints at the BBB and other consumer review sites, directly corroborating its “service first” story — that and the fact that positive testimonies are readily available. Although HMS’s client list could be seen as short (around 6,000), the lack of negative response is not because the company isn’t out there serving any customers.

So, even if your business is low-volume, you’ll likely receive excellent customer service with HMS. That can be a huge deal.

Let’s take a closer look at what HMS has to offer.

Table of Contents

Products & Services
Host Merchant Services Fees & Rates
Sales & Advertising Transparency
Contract Length & Early Termination Fee
Customer Service & Technical Support
Host Merchant Services User Reviews
Final Verdict On Host Merchant Services

Products & Services

Products & Services5.0
Software & Services 5.0
Hardware & Equipment 5.0

Host Merchant Services offers a full range of products and services for just about any type of business. Here’s a brief overview of its primary services:

Host Merchant Services Features	Availability
Dedicated Merchant Account
PCI Compliance
High-Risk Accounts
International Accounts	US & Canadian businesses only
Contactless Payments
ACH Processing
Digital Wallet Acceptance
EBT Acceptance
Virtual Terminal
Mobile POS Reader & App
Hosted Online Store
Payment Links
Payment Gateway Integrations
Shopping Cart Integrations
POS Integrations
BNPL Integrations
API Documentation
Currency Conversion
Recurring Billing
Invoicing
Cash Discount Program
Cryptocurrency Processing

Basic Credit Card Processing Services

Merchant Accounts: HMS offers traditional merchant accounts with interchange-plus pricing for both eCommerce and in-person businesses. HMS also sets up specialized accounts with customized pricing for large and small ticket businesses and nonprofits (HMS Gives).
High-Risk Merchant Accounts: The company also accepts some high-risk companies and industries. High-risk services are provided through a partnership with Electronic Merchant Systems and will have different pricing and contract terms than what is presented on the HMS website. Offshore accounts are also possible through HMS’s international acquiring partners.
ACH Processing: Although it doesn’t provide much information about this service, Host offers ACH processing services for businesses that need them.
Cash Discounting Program: HMS offers what it calls a “No-Cost Account,” which is actually a cash discounting program. This service is available for free to businesses processing over $5,000/month, but otherwise requires a small monthly fee.

Processing Hardware For Retail Businesses

Credit Card Terminals: For brick-and-mortar operations, HMS offers a wide variety of up-to-date terminals, including several new ‘smart’ terminals. Upon signup, you may qualify for at least one free EMV card terminal if you process over $20K per month. If you process a lower volume, you can negotiate a good deal on the purchase of terminals through HMS. The Credit Card Machines page of its website gives a good rundown of the current lineup, including models from Pax, Dejavoo, Ingenico, Valor PayTech, Verifone, and more. All models support EMV payments; most also support NFC-based payment methods, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. Prices are not disclosed, however.
Mobile Processing: HMS promotes Vital and SwipeSimple card readers for mobile POS. Both attach to your mobile device and have associated apps that can be run on your device. More sophisticated options include the PAX A920 and PAX A80 wireless terminals, which don’t require a separate smartphone or tablet.
Point Of Sale (POS) Systems: Retail businesses and restaurants may be interested in Host Merchant Service’s proprietary POS solution called Bonsai. This software-based POS is particularly well-suited to the hospitality industry. POS hardware options include systems from Clover and Vital.

Software For eCommerce Businesses

Payment Gateways: HMS Pay is the company’s proprietary payment gateway. It supports ACH services/recurring billing, check imaging, wireless processing, batch processing, and multilocation networking. Alternatively, you can use a third-party gateway, such as Authorize.Net, NMI, or others.
Virtual Terminal: For merchants who need to manually key in credit card transactions (such as mail order or telephone order businesses), HMS Pay includes a built-in virtual terminal. Virtual terminals are also integrated into all of the third-party gateways that the company supports.
Shopping Cart Integration: HMS Pay (and third-party gateways) are compatible with most of the major online shopping carts on the market, including WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, and many others.
Web Hosting: A merchant account with HMS includes a free basic website and business email. You’ll pay extra for some additional “premium” features.
PCI Compliance/Data Breach Insurance: HMS partners with Trustwave for PCI compliance and includes $100,000 of data breach insurance with all merchant accounts. While you do have the option of opting out of this coverage, we don’t recommend it.

Ancillary Business Services

Gift Cards & Loyalty Cards: HMS offers to customize a system for you to accept one or both types of cards.
Merchant Cash Advances: If you need money to launch or expand your business, HMS offers merchant cash advances up to $500,000, with funding in as little as 3-5 days. Fast cash advances of up to $20,000 can also be funded within 48 hours. Take the time to compare options carefully and consider merchant cash advance alternatives before jumping on this. That said, if you’re in the market for a merchant cash advance, there are advantages to getting one through your payment processor, as it makes it easy to pay the money you owe without making any complicated external arrangements or switching processors.
Partnering/Referral Program: If you are happy processing payments with HMS and are looking to sweeten the deal, you can refer your business-owning clients to them. You essentially become a reseller for HMS merchant accounts to your end customers, and HMS handles the application and approval process.

Host Merchant Services Fees & Rates

Fees & Rates5.0
Pricing 5.0
Affordability 5.0

HMS offers interchange-plus pricing to all clients, with guaranteed rates for the life of your merchant account. HMS’s Pricing page offers extensive disclosures of both processing rates and account fees.

Pricing Overview

Item	Value
Pricing Range	$0-$20/month
Pricing Starts At	$0/month for cash discount plan; $14.99/month for standard plan
Contract Length	Month-to-month
Processing Model	Interchange-plus
Card-present Transaction Fee	Interchange + 0.20-0.25% + $0.09-$0.10/transaction
eCommerce Transaction Fee	Interchange + 0.35% + $0.10/transaction
Equipment Cost	$0+

While the published rates are for businesses processing over $10,000 per month, there are no monthly minimums with HMS. According to its website, HMS will customize a rate package for lower-volume accounts. You can expect around 0.50%-0.55% + $0.10 as a starting point for volumes under $10K. The published rates for over $10K are a baseline. Higher volume businesses will certainly have the flexibility to negotiate the perfect credit card processing deal.

Monthly Plans

Host Merchant Services Plans	Price	When To Use
Retail	$14.99/month (interchange + 0.25% + $0.10/transaction)	For face-to-face retail transactions.
Restaurant	$14.99/month (interchange + 0.20% + $0.09/transaction)	For face-to-face restaurant transactions.
eCommerce	$14.99/month (interchange + 0.35% + $0.10/transaction)	For online transactions.
No Cost (Cash Discount)	$0 for merchants processing >$5K/month; $20/month for merchants processing <$5K/month	For merchants who want to pass their processing costs to their card-paying customers.

Overall, Host’s pricing is fair and reasonable and compares favorably to most of our other preferred providers. You’ll note that rates for restaurants are lower than for retail. This rate variance is due to the generally lower risk/higher volume nature of the food business. Additionally, HMS is specifically looking to attract restaurant owners to its customized POS system.

Extra Costs

Host Merchant Services Extra Costs	Price
Gateway Fee	$5/month (optional)
Voice Authorization	$0.75/authorization
Batch Processing Fee	$0.20/batch
Chargebacks	$15
Retrievals	$20
1099 Reporting Fee	$24/year

Sales & Advertising Transparency

Sales & Advertising Transparency4.7
Sales Practices 4.6
Web Presence 4.9

Happily, HMS is one of the relatively few merchant service providers that publicizes processing rates on its website.

HMS discloses just about everything on its website, except for the costs of a few hardware devices. While the site’s layout isn’t the most intuitive we’ve seen, it offers an impressive amount of information to help you make a decision about whether the company will be a good choice for your business. Just be ready to click around a bit until you find what you’re looking for.

Although HMS primarily uses an in-house sales team to market and set up accounts, it also uses independent sales agents, disclosing an ISO agent program on its website. Fortunately, this hasn’t resulted in any complaints about the company’s sales practices. Unlike most vendors in the processing industry, HMS appears to keep a tight rein on its independent agents. In this case, it shouldn’t make any difference to you as a prospective merchant whether you work with a company employee or an independent agent.

Contract Length & Early Termination Fee

Contract5.0
Commitment 5.0
ETF & Other Fees 5.0

There are no long-term contracts or early termination fees with HMS. Your merchant agreement includes an attached waiver of any cancellation fees, so keep your eyes peeled for this. In the Partnership FAQ, HMS also guarantees to pay up to $250 in owed early termination fees for referred clients and $500 if that referral client processes over $50,000 per month. Perhaps this deal only applies in a referral situation, but if you’re considering HMS and are facing a merchant account early termination fee with another provider, it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask!

Customer Service & Technical Support

Customer Service4.6
Personal Support 5.0
Self-Service 4.2

Host Merchant Services offers 24/7 telephone support to all its merchants. There’s also a live chat feature that’s available during regular business hours. After hours, you may be passed to TSYS tech support or another third-party company associated with your account, but HMS reviews and personally follows up on all of these conversations.

Host Merchant Services Customer Service	Availability
Phone Support
Email Support
Support Tickets
Live Chat
Dedicated Support Representative
Knowledge Base or Help Center
Videos & Tutorials
Company Blog
Social Media

Other support literature on the website is a combination of older articles and a more current blog focusing on industry news and topics of interest to card processing merchants. This content is frequently linked on the HMS Twitter and Facebook pages.

HMS also advertises local, on-site troubleshooting for malfunctioning terminals, which it offers within about a 150-mile radius from its offices in Newark (the Delaware one) and Naples. I suspect a large portion of businesses with HMS-installed hardware are in New England or Florida and can benefit from this local touch, which subsequently contributes to the high customer satisfaction rate.

Host Merchant Services User Reviews

User Reviews4.8
Customer Feedback 5.0
Review Site Aggregate 4.7

Host Merchant Services has great user reviews. Let’s look closer at the feedback.

Negative HMS Reviews & Complaints

HMS has been accredited with the Better Business Bureau since March 2011, with an A+ rating. The company has received just three complaints within the last three years, and no complaints have been received within the last twelve months. Of these complaints, one was withdrawn by the merchant, and the other three have been deleted. On TrustPilot, the company has an overall rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars, based on 48 reviews (note that 96% of these were 5-star reviews).

With so few complaints, we really aren’t able to identify any patterns of common problems. Nonetheless, no provider is perfect. We encourage you to carefully review your contract documents before signing up and take full advantage of HMS’ excellent customer support if you encounter a problem.

Positive HMS Reviews & Testimonials

The HMS website now includes an extensive Testimonials page that features positive reviews from almost four dozen merchants from around the country. Unlike many testimonials you’ll find elsewhere, most include detailed discussions of particular features that were useful to the merchants writing them.

Some of the things customers like HMS are:

Outstanding Customer Service: HMS’s customer service seems to go out of its way to try to resolve issues that arise.
Competitive Pricing: Interchange-plus pricing is always welcome, and you won’t have to make special requests to get it.
No Long-Term Contracts: We encourage merchants to avoid locking themselves into long-term payment processing contracts whenever possible. You won’t have to worry about that with HMS.

Final Verdict On Host Merchant Services

Besides referrals from happy customers, HMS gains most of its clients by reaching out directly to local brick-and-mortar companies or by tapping into its network of web-based business connections. HMS is thus able to effectively close those sales by customizing a suite of products and services for each client and by explaining its inherently fair system of interchange-plus pricing. Then, the company enhances client loyalty with attentive customer service and secondary partnerships. HMS does an excellent job at this and has a great reputation to prove it.

Host Merchant Services has received one of our highest scores overall, and it’s one of the best credit card processors for small businesses that we’ve found. We heartily recommend checking out HMS, especially if you are based in Delaware, Florida, or Colorado, or if you run a web hosting or cloud service provider business.

Frank Kehl

Expert Contributor at Merchant Maverick

Frank has been writing about payment processing and business services since 2015. He is a retired Air Force officer and a former practicing attorney. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University and a Juris Doctorate degree from the Ventura College of Law.

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The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Host Merchant Services

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After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Host Merchant Services for yourself.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Host Merchant Services

Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Host Merchant Services for yourself.

To learn more about how we score our reviews, see our .