PAYARC Review: Everything You Should Know as a Small Business Owner

October 11, 2025

We take our role in providing guidance and education regarding the card payment industry very seriously. At our own expense, we have vigorously defended our right to continue expose unethical and predatory practices in the industry, successfully defeating every attempt to silence us. However, fending off frivolous lawsuits is costly. To sustain these efforts, one of the ways we generate revenue is through affiliate partnerships with ethical providers. This means that some of our outgoing links connect business owners to trustworthy, low-cost payment processors, which is what most of our readers seek. We see this revenue channel as a win-win-win for everyone involved. Business owners find good processors, processors get good clients, and we are able to continue to provide a valuable service to the small business community. We also recommend and link to many services that do not compensate us. Our priority is to guide you to the best solutions for your needs, regardless of potential revenue. If you have questions, please feel free to contact us.

All mentions of rate and fee costs are estimations based on publicly available information and client feedback. Actual costs may vary based on a variety of factors unique to your business.

PAYARC

Rating

4/5

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Overview

PAYARC is a Connecticut-based credit card processor that provides merchant services to small businesses in the United States. The company offers POS systems, e-commerce payment processing, and subscription billing services. PAYARC also offers a PCI compliant web-based payment gateway. It appears the company was founded in 2016, but operations did not begin until 2019.

PAYARC Point of Sale (POS)

The company advertises point of sale products on its website developed by Dejavoo Systems. The company advertises some full countertop credit card terminals and an assortment of EMV chip and PIN-based card readers.

payarc pos terminals — **PAYARC appears to utilize POS systems by Dejavoo Systems.**

Customer Reviews & Sentiment

PAYARC Complaints

In some PAYARC reviews, we have located a couple of complaints regarding a poor service experience and an undisclosed early termination fee of $500 that was only mentioned in the fine print of the business owner’s merchant account agreement.

The company has a couple of dozen positive testimonials which this reviewer finds suspicious in nature. Nearly all of the positive reviews were left in 2019, are the first review ever written by the reviewer, and use a lot of marketing buzzwords that seem more likely to come from industry insiders than actual business owners. If you have had a positive experience with PAYARC, please let us know in the comment section below.

PAYARC Lawsuits

We have not found any outstanding class-action lawsuits or FTC complaints filed against PAYARC. Dissatisfied business owners who wish to pursue a non-litigious course of action against the company should consider reporting it to the relevant supervisory organizations and by leaving a review of your own in the comment section of this article below.

PAYARC Customer Service Options

PAYARC’s customer service offers 24/7 customer service through a support email or a support phone number.

Main PAYARC Email Contact: support@payarc.com
Payment processing dedicated Customer Service: 1 (877) 203-6624

Processing Rates & Fees

Unclear Merchant Account Terms

PAYARC does not list any of its merchant account pricing online. Transparency in rates, fees, and contract terms is one of our requirements to be ranked as a trustworthy merchant services provider on this website. While we have located only a handful of complaints associated with fees and contract terms, the lack of clearly presented pricing information prevents PAYARC from receiving a five-star rating.

Negotiate Contract Pricing

We have not been able to locate a PAYARC merchant account contract at this time. New customers who have recently signed up for payment services through PAYARC are encouraged to leave a customer review below describing their experience. Business owners are also encouraged to negotiate their merchant account pricing and contract terms, and to read all documents thoroughly before signing for PAYARC’S merchant services.

Employee Reviews & Sales Practices

No Evidence of Independent Sales Teams

Currently, we cannot locate any concerning job posts or complaints indicating the company utilizes independent or outside sales representatives. We also cannot locate any complaints directly related to its sales practices or indications of misleading merchant account quotes.

PAYARC Termination Fees

We did find one recent complaint pertaining to a $500 termination fee that the business owner was not aware of. A response from the company claims the fee and penalties are clearly laid out in the merchant contract terms.

PAYARC Lacks Rate & Fee Transparency

PAYARC has very little information regarding its pricing available online. This usually indicates that the company markets tiered or “bucket” rate merchant account contracts. Typically, such merchant accounts are more expensive than other pricing models, such as Interchange-plus pricing. At this time we cannot comment on the cost of PAYARC’s rates due to the lack of information supplied by the company. If you have information regarding PAYARC’s credit card processing fees, rate, or contract terms, please leave a comment below.

PAYARC Competitors

Compare PAYARC to competitors that earned top marks.

Pricing

Bottom Line

Needs More Transparency

Generally a company with as many positive reviews as PAYARC has received would rank highly in our review criteria. The overall lack of concrete information is the one major issue concerning PAYARC’s current score. While we would feel PAYARC would serve as a competent payment service provider, it would be more reassuring to have pricing figures available to the public. We will be looking for more PAYARC customer reviews in the future to corroborate their performance. At this time we are awarding PAYARC 4 out of 5 stars. With minor improvements, PAYARC could potentially be a top-rated provider.

Read Actual User Reviews

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All user reviews have been moved to our partner, PaymentPop.com

About Us

CardPaymentOptions.com

Established 2009

My name is Phillip Parker, and I started this website back in 2009 as a simple blog to call out shady credit card processors that were taking advantage of small business owners. At the time, I had no idea this side project would grow into a leading voice pushing for transparency and integrity in the payment processing industry. I also didn't anticipate just how far some of these companies' owners would go to try to silence me.

I was recruited out of college for a sales role with a credit card processor. At the time, I didn't realize the “training” was really about tricking me... into selling business owners expensive processing with hidden fees and long-term service agreements. In my first few sales, I unknowingly cost friends and family thousands of dollars after they trusted me to switch their services. When it finally clicked that something was seriously wrong, I was furious. I quit immediately and made a promise to expose that company and any others operating the same way. That promise is what led to the creation of this website.

As I wrote about these processors, their tactics, and the people behind them, the articles started to spread among business owners. News organizations picked up the stories, readers shared them online, and traffic to the blog took off. Unsurprisingly, that also caught the attention of the companies and individuals I was exposing.

Over the last 17 years, I've received several anonymous death threats and defeated four lawsuits meant to intimidate me into taking my blog down. Their efforts to muzzle me only made my determination to expose them even stronger, leading me to work with state authorities to help shutdown some of the worst offenders.

I'm proud to say that of the millions of people who have read my work, thousands have taken the time to write and thank me for helping them narrowly avoid a very costly mistake. This blog has played a small role in pushing the industry toward more ethical practices - but there are still bad actors out there, which means the work isn't done.

If I can offer one piece of advice, it's this: get every promise in writing, and take the time to review contracts carefully. Tools like ChatGPT can help surface red flags and uncover expensive surprises buried in the fine print.

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading. I truly appreciate you being here, and I wish you every success with your business.

Our Research Methodology

Pricing & Fees

We analyze all costs including rate structures (interchange-plus, tiered, flat-rate, etc), monthly fees, equipment costs, early termination fees, and hidden charges. This data is gathered from service agreements, statements and client feedback.

Features & Technology

Evaluation of POS systems, e-commerce integrations, mobile capabilities, reporting tools, recurring billing..., and developer resources. When possible, we directly test services and hardware. Otherwise, we rely on client feedback and public information.

Customer Support

We evaluate availability across phone, email, chat, and social channels. Measuring hold times, night and weekend availability, and client feedback regarding effectiveness, professionalism, and resolution rates.

Contract Terms & Conditions

We review service agreements and equipment contracts for reasonability, transparency, and fairness. We focus on uncovering any predatory clauses, such as unjustified early termination fees, hidden costs, and unclear cancellation policies.

User Experience

We comb the internet and interview current and former clients to evaluate the overall user experience and identify any common pain points that may impact the user experience.

Sales & Marketing Practices

We evaluate sales tactics, marketing materials, and client feedback to determine the level of transparency and ethical nature of the provider's approach. Does the provider publicly disclose pricing? Do they use teaser rates? We score based on these and other factors.

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