What to Know Before Getting Started
Starting a New Business?
Selecting a credit card processor is often more complicated than most people expect. How much should you be paying in fees? Should you lease or buy equipment? Should you be locked into a service agreement for anything length of time? These considerations and several others are imporant to understand before signing up with any merchant account provider. Mistakes are easily made and can be very costly to your business. Along with seeing our top choices for payment services below, be sure to checkout this post to avoid common traps in the merchant services industry.
Considerations For Current Business Owners
Changing merchant accounts can be an expensive, complicated, and time consuming process. Are you really going to save as much as promised? Do you need to buy to new equipment or sign new lease agreements? Will there be other less accountable costs such as those associated with employee retraining? Before selecting one of our choices below, you may want to consider renegotiating your fees with your current payment processing vendors using the help of a contingency-compensated consultant. It can result in a dramatic decrease in costs without the pains of switching. In some cases business owner have also obtained substantial refunds of prior overcharges along with saving thousands in future processing costs. See this post to learn more about this little-known alternative to changing merchant account provider.
Residential, commercial, and government-contracted construction businesses have one primary concern when it comes to payment processing: minimizing costs. Between keeping builds on schedule, managing inventory and labor, and landing new contracts, a construction company owner doesn’t have time to haggle over surprise transaction fees and overpriced equipment. The good news for construction companies is that some providers offer inventory and business management solutions in addition to affordable credit card processing. The bad news is that there are hundreds of providers out there, so it’s hard to know where to start.
To help you sift through the seemingly endless supply of payment processors, we’ve compiled the following list of the best merchant account providers for construction companies. The processors below are able to provide level 3 credit card processing and inventory management for enterprise-scale construction companies as well as affordable mobile payment options for smaller contractors. They have also consistently received positive ratings from merchants and third-party reviewers, meaning that you won’t need to worry about hidden fees or burdensome contract terms. In order to get the lowest rates and best service, it is recommended that you contact multiple providers on this list to compare pricing and features.
Our unbiased articles are supported in part by helping you find highly reviewed merchant accounts. You can learn more here.
Why These Merchant Account Providers
Host Merchant Services
Host Merchant Services is a Newark, Delaware-based merchant account provider that is well-suited for most general business types including construction. The company’s products and services include point-of-sale solutions (with a specific package for contractors), online marketing tools, an online payment gateway and virtual terminal, mobile credit card processing, and merchant cash advance. Host Merchant Services also specializes in e-commerce solutions and provides a free website and email address to new merchants who desire these services.
Host Merchant Services has received exclusively positive feedback on public forums, with most reviewers singling out the company’s customer service for praise. Host offers interchange-plus pricing with no early termination fees to all of its merchants, meaning that users will enjoy the most transparent pricing model and can cancel service without penalty. The BBB gives Host an “A+” rating, and CPO also gives the company an “A+.”
For more information, visit the Host Merchant Services website or call (888) 727-4538.
PaymentCloud
Based in Woodland Hills, California, PaymentCloud is a merchant account provider that specializes in serving standard to high risk business types. The company’s products and services include point-of-sale solutions, mobile phone swipers, an online payment gateway and virtual terminal, EMV-compatible terminals, and merchant cash advances. These features allow merchants to accept payments on-site using mobile payment devices and generate detailed invoices for their services that can be paid through a virtual terminal. For those reasons, PaymentCloud is a good option for construction companies as it allows them to process payments for services online, through the phone, or remotely from a job site.
PaymentCloud provides a dedicated account rep to all new merchants for the life of the account. The company has not received any negative complaints on consumer forums, and it customizes its pricing according to each merchant’s business type and processing history. The BBB does not maintain a profile for PaymentCloud at this time, but CPO gives the company an “A.”
For more information, visit the PaymentCloud website or call (888) 506-7859.
Fattmerchant
Active since early 2014, Fattmerchant is a merchant account provider leading the industry’s move toward flat-rate, subscription-style pricing. The company’s products and services include EMV-compatible countertop terminals, a virtual terminal, an online payment gateway, an online shopping cart, mobile phone processing, QuickBooks integration, online invoicing, and recurring billing. Fattmerchant is capable of serving all standard-risk construction companies and offers a comprehensive dashboard for tracking all payments and customers.
Fattmerchant offers multiple pricing plans with different rates. Merchants can select either a plan that charges a flat fee on all transactions or a plan that charges a fixed monthly fee plus a fixed per-transaction dollar amount above interchange. In other words, merchants can choose whether or not they are charged a percentage markup on each transaction. Fattmerchant currently has an “A” rating on CPO and an “A+” rating with the Better Business Bureau.
For more information, visit the Fattmerchant website, or call (866) 397-9826.
Our unbiased articles are supported in part by helping you find highly reviewed merchant accounts. You can learn more here.
Why These Merchant Account Providers
Helcim
NXGEN Canada
Other Merchant Account Options
The providers in this section may not have been researched as thoroughly or may lack a quality that prevented them from being listed above. We have listed them here to provide a broader view of potential merchant account options. Are you a decision maker with your company and believe that you should be listed below? Tell us here.
CDG Commerce
Located in Chesapeake, Virginia, CDG Commerce is another great option for construction companies of all sizes and types. CDG has been privately owned since 1998 and offers a proprietary payment gateway (as well as a discount on Authorize.Net’s payment gateway), a virtual terminal, QuickBooks integration, mobile phone processing, security breach protection, and vulnerability scanning. CDG Commerce is ideal for construction businesses that would like a simple, low-cost, fully integrated method for accepting payments online or in person.
CDG Commerce only charges a low, fixed fee per transaction and offers competitive contractual terms, including no annual fees, monthly minimums, or termination fees. CDG also offers next day funding to most business types. CDG has earned an “A+” rating in our review as well as an “A+” rating with the BBB.
For more information, see the CDG Commerce website or call (888) 393-1079.
Payline Data
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Payline Data is a highly rated all-purpose merchant account provider that offers a wide range of services for construction companies. The company’s products and features include a QuickBooks-integrated online payment gateway and virtual terminal, level 3 line-item payment processing, inventory management, ACH processing, payment tokenization, mobile processing, a “Pay Now” button, and customizable sales analytics.
Payline Data consistently receives praise from merchants for its transparent sales policies, helpful customer support, and affordable pricing model, which typically includes interchange-plus pricing with no early termination fees. Our review of Payline Data gives the company an “A+” rating, while the Better Business Bureau gives Payline an “A” at this time.
Helcim
Based in Alberta, Canada, Helcim is an all-purpose processor that supplies in-person, mobile, and online payment solutions to U.S. and Canadian businesses. Helcim’s products and services include a virtual terminal, email invoicing, secure data storage and access, inventory management, and a payment gateway that can be directly integrated with a website, billing system, or other application via an API.
Helcim is known for its uncommonly transparent pricing structure (interchange-plus pricing with month-to-month agreements and no early termination fees) and frequently receives positive merchant feedback related to its sales team and support staff. Our review gives Helcim an “A+” rating at this time, and the BBB also assigns Helcim an “A+.”
For more information, see the Helcim Website.
Dharma Merchant Services
Based in San Francisco, California, Dharma Merchant Services is a highly rated merchant account provider that can save construction contractors and suppliers a lot of money on their credit card processing. The company’s products and services include countertop terminals, mobile device payment processing, an online payment gateway (Authorize.Net), QuickBooks integration, small business financing, and custom fundraising pages for non-profits like Habitat for Humanity. The company extends special pricing to non-profit organizations and donates a percentage of its profits to non-profits of its choosing every year. Dharma is best suited to provide savings for merchants who process over $10,000 per month, which makes it a good fit for many construction merchants.
Dharma scores highly in our review and elsewhere due to its positively reviewed customer service, transparent marketing practices, competitive interchange-plus rates, and fair service agreements. The BBB currently assigns a rating of “A+” for Dharma Merchant Services, while CardPaymentOptions.com also gives the company an “A+.”
For more information, see the Dharma Merchant Services website or call (888) 404-1237.
Cayan
Cayan is a large merchant services and payment processing software provider based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company offers a wide range of services for enterprise level construction companies, including an online payment gateway and virtual terminal, FTP (file-based) batching, API- and IP-based software integration, inventory tracking, transaction histories and reporting, line-item payment processing, and payment tokenization. Cayan also provides a cloud-based customer engagement platform called “Genius” that includes digital signature capture and check processing.
Cayan varies its pricing based on each merchant’s business type and size, but it typically offers a month-to-month agreement with no early termination fees. The company currently has an “A” rating with CardPaymentOptions.com and an “A+” rating with the BBB.
For more information, see the Cayan website or call (888) 506-8019.
TSYS Merchant Solutions
TSYS Merchant Solutions is a very large direct processor headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. One advantage of being a direct processor is that TSYS is able to offer a large array of services for any size of utilities company, including online processing solutions, mobile payment options, business management software, sales analytics, online reporting, level 3 processing, and PCI compliance solutions.
TSYS consistently maintains a remarkably low complaint rate relative to its size and appears to avoid the sales and support issues that typically plague giant corporations. The company is able to customize its pricing depending on a business’s size, business type, and processing history. Our review of TSYS gives the company an “A-” rating, while the BBB gives TSYS an “A+.”
If your business offers merchant accounts and payment solutions to construction companies, please leave a comment in the comment section below or contact us through our contact page in order to get listed in this article.
About Phillip Parker
Thank you for reading my review. I hope that it has helped you with your research.
Why I'm Qualified to Write About Credit Card Processing and Merchant Account Services
I'm a former credit card processing sales director who left the industry because I didn't like how it takes advantage of small business owners. It feeds like a leech on businesses and thrives by imposing fees that are nearly impossible to comprehend. Seeing a need for change, I left and built this website help business owners better understand the industry, research merchant services providers, and get refunds of excessive merchant account fees. My experience of working "behind the curtain" in the industry, and using that knowledge for good, has resulted in millions of dollars returned to hard-working small business owners as well as enterprise-level companies.
From the time that I starting working in the merchant services industry to when I left to create this website, I've been on the pulse of payments for nearly 15 years. It didn't seem fair to keep this "insider" knowledge to myself. To lift the fog, I've reviewed hundreds of companies, read thousands of user reviews, and learned the pricing tricks of every provider. If you have questions about credit card processing, you can find the answers on this website.