CardConnect Review

Pros

• Powerful CardPointe integrated payments platform
• Interchange-plus pricing available

Cons

• Contract length as long as five years
• Early termination fee as high as $750
• Extensive use of independent sales agents
• Reputation for poor customer service

What Is CardConnect?

Merchant services provider CardConnect is an independent subsidiary of direct processing giant Fiserv/First Data and is the largest of the company’s many independent sales networks. CardConnect’s primary offering is CardPointe, its payment processor and payment gateway. Additionally, the company offers a full range of high-quality products and services, including real-time reporting, point-of-sale systems, and a wide range of third-party business integrations.

However, the company’s lengthy contracts, high termination fees, and inadequate pricing transparency are less than impressive. Although the business-unfriendly contract terms don’t apply to everyone who signs up for CardConnect, the fact that they’re imposed at all hurts the company’s overall rating. CardConnect’s general lack of transparency, high complaint volume and generally poor reputation among merchants doesn’t help, either.

Our full CardConnect review will give you the full, unvarnished story of the company’s offerings.

Products & Services

Like most medium-sized merchant services providers, CardConnect merchant services include a full range of products that enable your business to accept just about any kind of payment, whether you’re in retail, eCommerce, or both.

Feature-wise, CardConnect offers a solid lineup of merchant services, prompting its high rating in this category. Offerings include the following:

Fees & Rates

CardConnect’s complete lack of transparency regarding its pricing harkens back to the payment processing industry’s bad old days, so we can’t give it a good score in this category.

CardConnect’s website doesn’t disclose any information about processing rates, account fees, or contract terms. For that matter, it barely discusses merchant accounts at all. This means that its pricing is highly variable and will differ from one merchant to another. The only guarantee is that your account will be underwritten by Fiserv.

The company seems to offer a variety of both tiered and interchange-plus pricing plans. Ask for an interchange-plus pricing plan, as your overall costs will usually be lower, and you’ll have complete transparency on the markup you’re paying to CardConnect.

Be aware that you may not be offered interchange-plus pricing if your business is a startup or in the high-risk category. Also, know that most sales agents will try to put you into a pricey tiered plan if you don’t specifically ask for interchange-plus.

Like processing rates, CardConnect’s fee structure is also highly variable. You won’t be charged an account set-up fee, which is a good thing, as we consider this to be a “junk” fee in most cases. There’s also no annual fee or reprogramming fee if you already have a terminal. Beyond that, it depends on your needs and what your sales agent includes in your contract. Here are the most common fees you’ll probably have to pay:

• $9.95 monthly account fee
• $10.00 monthly wireless data fee (this only applies if you have a wireless terminal)
• $8.25 monthly PCI compliance fee
• $19.95 monthly PCI non-compliance fee
• $10.00 monthly gateway fee
• $5.00 monthly statement fee
• $20.00 monthly minimum
• $25.00 per occurrence chargeback fee

Most of these fees are in line with industry averages. I’m happy that PCI compliance is billed monthly, rather than charging you the full $99 once a year with no proration the way most processors do (though many processors charge nothing for PCI compliance). The PCI non-compliance fee is something of a “junk” fee as well, as it’s just a penalty imposed if your account is out of compliance due to inaction on your part. The company isn’t providing any service to get you back into compliance with this fee. And yes, you will be charged both PCI compliance and PCI non-compliance fees at the same time if your account is out of compliance!

Remember, these are only the most common and most significant fees. You can also expect to pay for such things as voice authorizations, use of the Address Verification Service (AVS), batch fees, and other items.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

When you hover over the “Who We Serve” section in the header of CardConnect’s website, the first thing you see is “Sales Agent & ISOs.” “Merchants” comes later. This tells you exactly what we find disappointing about CardConnect. Independent sales agents add zero value for merchants — quite the opposite, in fact.

While CardConnect’s site now offers more information about the company’s products and services than it once did, you won’t find any disclosures regarding processing rates, account fees, or contract terms. What’s more, the meager knowledgebase simply isn’t adequate for customers trying to diagnose a problem.

On the plus side, developers will be impressed with the CardConnect Developer Center, which contains a robust library of APIs for integrating CardConnect’s services with your website. The site now includes links to documentation for both the CardPointe integrated payments platform and supported hardware.

The company also has an active presence on social media, with accounts on X/Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Instagram. CardConnect’s YouTube channel contains marketing videos and very cursory tutorials but no testimonials from happy clients.

Contract Length & Early Termination Fee

Much like its rates and fees, CardConnect’s contract terms are all over the map. Depending on the nature of your business and your processing history, you might have a contract term of anywhere from two to five years. Alternatively, you might not have a fixed-length term at all, with month-to-month billing and no penalty for closing your account.

It’s good that CardConnect is willing to offer month-to-month contracts for at least some of its merchants, but I’d like to see the company extend these terms to everyone. If your contract has a fixed length, you’ll also have to deal with an early termination fee (ETF) if you close your account before the term expires. Merchant reports indicate that CardConnect’s ETF is as high as $750 — well above the industry average of $300-$500.

Now, CardConnect will waive the fixed-length term and ETF for merchants who qualify. Sadly, we’ve seen several complaints where the merchant was assured by their sales agent that they were on a month-to-month contract, only to be charged an expensive ETF when they tried to close their account. If you are offered these terms, get them in writing and keep copies of documentation in case you need proof.

CardConnect also occasionally offers new merchants free processing equipment when they sign up. However, if you accept this, you’ll be locked into a long-term contract. You can have a month-to-month contract or a free terminal — not both. If you’re given this choice, take the month-to-month contract and buy a terminal. Being stuck in a five-year contract (not to mention the costly ETF) will cost you much more in the long run than the purchase of a terminal.

Customer Service & Technical Support

CardConnect offers 24/7 telephone support and appears to handle this function in-house. You can also contact the company via email.

While having 24/7 customer support is good, the quality of that support has generated a lot of criticism from merchants online. A few users are happy with the support, while many others have encountered rude and unhelpful support representatives. This inconsistent support quality means your experience will depend on who happens to pick up the phone when you call in. Therefore, CardConnect’s score takes another hit in this category.

The company now has a CardConnect Support Center on its website that functions as a rudimentary knowledgebase. It’s a handy resource for new customers who want a little extra help in setting up their equipment and software services. However, except for the API Gateway documentation, it doesn’t go very deep into most subjects and will probably be of little use if you encounter a technical problem.

CardConnect User Reviews

When a merchant services provider offers little in the way of self-disclosures, feedback from the company’s user base helps fill that knowledge gap. Sadly, for the most part, what can be gleaned from the service’s user reviews isn’t pretty.

Final Verdict

In theory, there are things to like about CardConnect. The company sells credit card terminals rather than leasing them to unsuspecting merchants. I also like the CardPointe integrated payments platform, although most major merchant services providers now offer their own similar platforms. The CardPointe gateway is a solid product with all the essential security features you need. The availability of interchange-plus pricing is also a positive.

That said, CardConnect clearly isn’t a good deal for everyone. Five years is a significantly longer time to be stuck in a contract than most providers require, and having a $750 early termination fee hanging over your head makes it even worse. These terms alone are reason enough to skip them in favor of a top credit card processing provider.

When you consider the extreme variation in CardConnect’s contract terms, its opaque and largely useless website, and the ever-worsening state of the company’s user reviews, there’s very little here that warrants recommending CardConnect over a provider that discloses pricing information offers month-to-month billing to everyone, and serves merchants (rather than independent sales agents) first.

Credit Card Processor Review Methodology

We evaluate and test each payment processor that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on certain key characteristics in order to generate our granular ratings for merchant accounts and credit card processors.

For payment processing reviews, we use a 24-point rubric to evaluate the provider. First, we look at pricing structure – interchange plus, subscription-based, tiered, or hybrid – giving the most points to providers that provide fair, transparent pricing and docking those that rely on tiered models. Then we examine rates, the presence and transparency of early termination fees, and any additional fees.

We also look at contract length and fairness and test out sales staff and customer service channels ourselves to ensure that the company uses reputable, above-the-board sales techniques. Finally, we take the company’s online reputation into account, reading customer reviews and comments.

Read more about how we rate payment processors.

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