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.
Hemp Credit Card Processing Is Available
Hemp and other non-psychoactive cannabis products have been unfairly demonized for decades. Hemp fiber, hempseed oil, hemp protein, hemp milk, and other hemp goods are highly popular products that pose zero risk to consumers. However, the classification of cannabis as a schedule I drug in the United States has limited the hemp merchant account options that are available to legal hemp producers and hemp processors. Hemp businesses hoping to accept credit cards are often required to partner with specialists in high risk industries just to take any electronic payments at all.
Hemp Payment Processing Is an Evolving Field
The regulations governing hemp sales change frequently, and payment processors are forced to reevaluate their policies about processing credit cards for hemp sellers on a regular basis. Most sellers of hemp products should be prepared for higher-than-average transaction rates due to the elevated risk associated with their industry, and they may also encounter rolling reserves or occasional fund holds. However, the security and convenience that comes with accepting credit cards may make it worthwhile for most sellers. If you are a hemp vendor who is hoping to open a hemp merchant account, be aware that we will continually update the list below with providers that have signaled that they may be able to serve hemp businesses.
Please keep in mind that hemp processing is an ever-changing landscape at this time, and that major banks have been known to purge hemp merchants from their portfolios en masse and unexpectedly.
Looking for CBD oil payment processing? See our list of the top merchant accounts for CBD.
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
PaymentCloud
Now Approving Hemp
Currently, PaymentCloud is our top recommendation for talking card payments as a hemp business. As of the writing of this post, PaymentCloud is currently approving hemp merchant accounts, kratom merchant accounts, and CBD merchant accounts for credit card processing. Besides the ability to approve these businesses, PaymentCloud is one of the best rated processors in the merchant services industry.
About PaymentCloud
Based in Woodland Hills, California, PaymentCloud is a merchant account provider that specializes in serving high risk business types, including hemp sellers. 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.
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.
eMerchantBroker
Offshore Processing Option
eMerchantBroker is a Los Angeles, California-based company that offers high risk e-commerce processing solutions including hemp merchant accounts. The company’s products include credit card processing, ACH processing, an online payment gateway, merchant cash advance, and a chargeback management system to help merchants dispute and resolve chargeback claims. eMerchantBroker can only place hemp sellers with a merchant account through an offshore bank.
About EMB
eMerchantBroker offers custom pricing for each merchant and maintains a low complaint rate relative to its size and merchant portfolio. Our review of eMerchantBroker gives the company an “A” rating overall and the BBB assigns the company a rating of “A+.”
For more information, see the eMerchantBroker website or call (877) 301-3442.
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.
Instabill
Founded in 2003, Instabill is a high risk merchant account provider that can provide hemp merchants with an offshore aggregate merchant account with a shared billing descriptor. The company’s products include credit card processing, a virtual terminal, an online payment gateway, fraud protection, and an online shopping cart. Instabill can only serve hemp vendors who operate in states where marijuana use is legal, and the company requires four to six months of processing statements and three months of business banking statements to get a hemp merchant account up and running.
Instabill offers custom pricing for each merchant and has received a low number of complaints since we’ve been covering it. Our review of Instabill gives the company an “A” rating overall and the BBB assigns Instabill an “A+.”
High Risk Holdings
High Risk Holdings is a credit card processor based in Berkeley, California, that claims to have a processing solution for hemp merchants. The company’s products include credit card processing, ACH processing, an online payment gateway, merchant cash advance, QuickBooks integration, point of banking systems, and chargeback resolution tools. High Risk Holdings does not publicly describe the services that it offers to hemp businesses, but it does actively court sellers of hemp and hemp derivatives.
High Risk Holdings appears to offer custom pricing for each merchant and has not received any complaints in the time that we’ve been covering it. Our review of High Risk Holdings gives the company an “A” rating overall and the BBB does not maintain a profile for High Risk Holdings at this time.
Payment Advisors
Payment Advisors is a Charlotte, North Carolina-based merchant account provider that processes payments for new e-commerce hemp businesses as well as marijuana dispensaries. The company’s payment options include debit and credit card processing, eCheck processing, ACH processing, cashless ATM processing, chargeback assistance, and offshore merchant accounts. Payment Advisors emphasizes its specialty in new online hemp ventures, which makes it an appealing option for hemp sellers who lack a robust processing history.
Payment Advisors offers custom pricing depending on each merchant’s business type. Our review of Payment Advisors gives the company an “A” rating, while the BBB does not maintain a profile for Payment Advisors at this time.
CBD Merchant Account
Also known as “CBDMerchantAccount.com,” CBD Merchant Account is a merchant account provider that specifically caters to sellers of CBD and hemp products. The company offers retail, phone, mail order, and e-commerce payment acceptance options for merchants who sell CBD dab products, CBD gel, CBD-infused e-liquid, CBD oil, and more. CBD Merchant Account does not specify its requirements for approval, but it seems to have the broadest acceptance guidelines of any company on this list.
CBD Merchant Account offers custom pricing depending on each merchant’s business type and has not received any public complaints. Our review of the company gives it an “A,” and the BBB does not maintain a profile for CBD Merchant Account at this time.
T1 Payments
T1 Payments is a Las Vegas, Nevada-based merchant account provider that claims to “successfully process millions of transactions a week” for hemp oil merchants. The company’s products include credit card processing, an online payment gateway, multi-currency support, an online shopping cart, and offshore banking. T1 Payments generally focuses on e-commerce merchants and will be a better fit for online hemp vendors than physical locations.
T1 offers custom pricing for each merchant and has received only a few negative complaints in public forums. Our review of T1 Payments gives the company a “B” rating overall, while the BBB gives T1 Payments a “C” rating overall.
If your company supplies merchant accounts for hemp vendors, please let us know in the comment section below or get in touch via our contact page.
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.