Agree with our rating?
Tell us about your experience with Sage Payment Solutions in the comment section below.
UPDATE 2/12/2019: Sage Payment Solutions changed its name to Paya (paya.com) in January 2018. See our Paya review for up-to-date information about this company.
Sage Payment Solutions (na.sage.com/sage-payment-solutions/) is an international merchant account provider that has been in business since 1989. Sage has traditionally specialized in payroll and accounting services for businesses, but it has also managed to carve out a solid share of the payments market in both the U.S. and UK. In August 2017, a private equity firm named GTCR acquired Sage Payment Solutions from the Sage Group.The company is a registered ISO/MSP of BMO Harris Bank N.A., HSBC Bank USA, National Association of Buffalo New York, and of Chase Paymentech Solutions. Sage’s U.S. headquarters can be found at 271 17th Street Northwest, Atlanta, Georgia 30363, and the company also has several other offices located throughout the United States and Canada. Joe Kaplan is listed as the CEO of Sage Payment Solutions.
Key Points
- Sales & Marketing: Sage Payment Solutions appears to hire independent sales agents and has received some complaints about its sales practices.
- Costs & Contract: Sage Payment Solutions appears to offer a multi-year contract with a liquidated damages-style early termination fee.
- Complaints & Service: Sage Payment Solutions has received more than 40 public complaints.
- BBB Rating: Sage Payment Solutions has an “A+” rating with the Better Business Bureau and has received 28 complaints in the last three years.
- Rates & Fees: How Merchants Got The Best Rates With Sage Payment Solutions
Should You Trust Sage Payment Solutions?
Lawsuits, Reviews & Complaints
Complaint Summary
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Total Online Complaints
40+
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Live Customer Support
Yes
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Most Common Complaint
Poor Support
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Considering Sage’s size and time in business, the company has a relatively low amount of complaints. This reviewer located approximately 40 Sage negative reviews on various online forums and consumer complaint websites. Most complained of undisclosed and unexpected fees, poor customer support, high cancellation fees (ranging from $100-$700+), and the company’s auto-renewing contract. The majority of these complaints appear to originate with an agent who failed to verbally disclose important terms and conditions of the merchant account agreement. In particular, ICON Payment Solutions, a now-shuttered sub-ISO, is named in several of the older complaints. Sage earns an above average rating in this section because of its low complaint count in comparison to industry averages for a company of its size and time in business.
Is the BBB Rating for Sage Payment Solutions Accurate?
Better Business Bureau Profile
BBB Summary
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Product & Service Complaints
10
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Billing & Collection Complaints
15
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Advertising & Sales Complaints
3
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Guarantee & Warranty Complaints
0
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Delivery Complaints
0
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Sage Payments is not accredited with the Better Business Bureau and is currently showing an “A+” rating. Sage has received 28 complaints within the last 36 months. Of the total, 10 are regarding problems with products and services, 15 with billing and collection, and three with advertising or sales issues. Sage has successfully resolved 10 of these complaints, while the remaining 18 either were resolved to the dissatisfaction of the merchant or did not receive a final response from the merchant. Given Sage’s complaint total and resolution ratio relative to its size, we agree with the BBB‘s rating at this time.
How Expensive is Sage Payment Solutions Service?
Rates, Fees, and Contract Terms
Cost Summary
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Swiped Rate
Variable
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Keyed-in Rate
Variable
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Early Termination Fee
Liquidated Damages
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PCI Compliance Fee
$100 Per Year
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Equipment Lease Terms
Variable
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Pricing and fees of a Sage Payment Solutions merchant account appear to vary based on a merchant’s business type, processing volume, and the agent or sub-ISO setting up the account. A copy of the company’s standard terms and conditions is available below. Sage scores a lower than average rating in this section due to its high cancellation fees and automatically renewing contracts. Sage Payments charges a Liquidated Damages early termination fee, which is calculated by multiplying the remaining months in a merchant’s contract by $25. This can result in very expensive penalties for termination that essentially force merchants to buy themselves out of contracts. Additionally, the company is reported to charge an annual PCI Compliance fee of around $100. See the Sage Merchant Agreement.
Does Sage Payment Solutions Use Deceptive Marketing?
Advertising & Sales Strategy
Key Points
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Employs Independent Resellers
Yes
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Advertises Deceptive Rates
No
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Discloses All Important Terms
No
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Sage Payments markets its services in a variety of ways, including several different types of partnerships. These include strategic alliance partners, independent resellers and agents, and sub-ISOs, among others. Sage’s sub-ISO program allows other merchant account sales organizations to resell Sage credit card processing services. These third-party organizations can partner with Sage as either a “non-registered ISO” or as a “registered ISO.” Registered ISOs are allowed to operate under their own separate brand names while reselling Sage’s services. A non-registered ISO must sell under the Sage Payment Solutions brand and present itself as an independent representative of Sage Payments.
Several reports from merchants indicate some problems with sales agents using deceptive sales tactics. Although there is no evidence that Sage condones these types of tactics, it’s apparent that company does enforce the contracts in some cases when the merchant claims there was deception. Since this does not appear to be a widespread problem with Sage, we have not lowered the company’s grade in this section. Merchants are encouraged to fully read the service agreement before signing.
Does Sage Payment Solutions Deserve Your Business?
Review Summary & Our Thoughts
Overall, Sage Payment Solutions appears to perform well in comparison to many of its competitors that have similar histories and sizes. The company has a relatively low complaint count, and a decent ratio of its complaints with the BBB have been resolved, which seems to indicate a well-functioning customer support department. Sage can improve its rating in this review by eliminating its automatically renewing contract, liquidated damages cancellation fee, PCI compliance fee, and future merchant complaints.
Anonymous
Awful technical support on the integration side. I’ve been in communication with what is supposed to be a support lead for us, and they just repeatedly ask the question “Is there anything you are looking for from Paya on this at this time?” It’s like they don’t even read the issues we’re communicating. Then they’ll ask for sample web requests that we already provided weeks ago in prior e-mails. This is exactly why we’re leaving them and that day can’t come soon enough.
This post will help: Best Payment Processors for Great Customer Service
-Phillip
Golden Hills Dental
Our practice switched all our recurring and automated patient card transactions to Sage Paya and we couldn’t be more thrilled with our experience. As a merchant we had many accounts to switch over and Sage Paya was extremely helpful in teaching us how to setup their system to work for us. We have now been using them for 4 months and it is extremely simple and user friendly. However the best part is their customer service. I have never encountered such amazing and thorough customer service. They as a company go the extra 10 miles for us to make sure we get what we are looking for. Travis Padilla at Sage is top notch and he has earned a merchant for life.
Pam
I Regret ever using this vendor; nothing balances and I have no idea why or what checks did not go through. Absolute worst check processing system I have ever seen. We are running our checks to the bank now; much easier; less brain damage and guess what? Those deposits actually BALANCE!!! Dump this vendor if you are using; if you are not using… DON’T!
Peter Gregory
Intolerably horrible customer service.
Switching out ASAP.
Had fraud hits against account and can’t reach for 3 days???
What kind of modern company works like this???
Joyce Gibson
You hear a lot from them until you sign up and then the support stops.No more questions answered or help with setup.
bonnie foley
I am writing this because I have been told not only by my bank, but also International Bankcard who is my merchant processer. I have gotten nowhere with this company, and not until January 3, was I even aware of this company after going through a detailed statement and accounting for tax purposes.
This is the letter I wrote to them- this in fact was the 3rd letter I wrote to them, and today they tried to deduct $199.00 from my account after deducting $47.00 a month since June of 2015, an $87.00 a year fee, all while I have not even signed up , used or had any information from this company.
Please investigate thoroughly as this is complete fraud. I am happy to provide you with any either information you deem necessary.
Dear Robert Engelkens
Sage.com
SageSummit Tour 2017
Robert [email protected]
I have spoken with international bank card at length and with one of the corporate officers regarding the situation with this company called Sage. I purchased the check processing machine from international bank card. I paid $190 for it, and at that time it was at my discretion to sign a contract with anyone that would handle my check processing, I know for a fact that I have never dealt with Sage solution, I have never received one single statement from your company I have never signed a contract from your company and from a legal standpoint you must provide me with a copy of my contract, I will not sign anything other than sending you this email that is enough to request for the contract. By law you must provide me with a copy of my contract that I signed and it must be an original. I believe you want me to sign something requesting my contract so you can have my signature and information to commit more fraud. I believe that your company has committed fraud and has somehow gotten my personal and bank information and decided to debit my account. There has never been any activity whatsoever for any checks ever being processed through your company by the machine that I purchased. This machine has never been activated. No such statement has been received by you. No 1099 has ever been issued by your company. No mail has ever been issued to me about your company no email has ever been issued to me about your company there has been zero contact from your company until I contacted you about these alarming fees that have taken place since June 2015. Your company has committed fraud to a small business owner and I find it alarming that I have no emails from this company whatsoever telling me anything. I will continue to fight this through my bank and I will report this to all agencies.
Bonnie Metry-Foley
Christiane Larue
2243 Cole street
Birmingham, Mi. 48009
[email protected]
Bonnie L. Foley
Christiane LaRue
http://www.christianelarue.com
2243 Cole Street
Birmingham, Mi 48009
[email protected]
248-792-6140
Mark W
We are not on 2 year contract. We cancelled via fax, have zero charges going through their processing and they still charge our bank for processing fees. They’ll charge us again next month also, because this is within the 60 day cancellation. This is not fair. We are being charged to stop using their service. There should be a law against this.
Discount Brokers
They will charge you $199 to terminate even if you are going out of business and a minimum charge for 60 days. Also, they will hold all of your company;s money in reserve for 60 days pass expiration. Do not use Sage they also go under the name of GETI.
They will Get You… Stop now do not sign. They also will and can add pages to an old contract that you have never seen.
Mike Herricks
I’ve been with sage for 2 years. Mostly, this was out of necessity as the previous owners utilized the software and the transition was easy. The problems however have been non stop. This isn’t my first small business, but I can assure this is the worst accounting software I have encountered. Customer support is non-existent and good luck starting the software for a few days after a ‘mandatory’ update. Sage has successfully shut down my company for 6-8 business days over the last 2 years. I will not be renewing and I suggest you look elsewhere
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Are you with Sage Payment Solutions? Learn how to resolve this complaint.
Michele
I have been with this company for 15 years, never really ever had a problem till now I closed my account with them three months ago and they are still debiting my bank account and for what ? there have been No transaction threw my account at all… I have called them 4 times and 4 times they were to call back and confirm my cancellation, I have a ticket number to confirm it, they still haven’t done that. So now I have placed a stop payment on my account, Its sad to say how horrible the service has been I’m very disappointed after 15 years being with them.
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Are you with Sage? Learn how to resolve this complaint.
Vanessa
The same thing is happening with us. But we never ever used the services. They still charge the$20 every month and want to charge $199 to stop.
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Are you with Sage? Learn how to resolve this complaint.
E Williams
That stop payment on your account will not stop them from debiting your account no matter what your bank rep tells you.. Only way to stop for sure is to close the account.
Michael
Very simply put you can get a much better rate with much lower fees from many other companies (the discount rate they offer may seem fair but that will literally only be 1/2 of the fees you are charged on any given month). The absolute worst part of this company is the cancellation fees charged. NOWHERE will they disclose this to you but they apparently auto-renew you for three years and then charge $25/month for any early cancellation. I was with them for more than a decade and found myself charged an “early termination fee” which I find beyond insulting and illegal (especially since nothing I read or signed alluded to this). Stay away……………….
Wade
Sage has horrible reporting, webpages, support and the people just don’t seem to care. Their system can not get a report to balance your daily deposits. We have multiple terminals, and therefore need a report to balance each transaction to our deposit. One needs to print the batch reports, then the transactions in each batch. Sage wants me to then combine all of the batch’s in excel and then reconcile. We go through 30 minutes a day just to get the report in a usable format. Deposits take 2 days and credits take 2 to 4 days.
After discussing with 5 people at Sage, asking for a manager and never being transferred to one, someone actually admitted they can’t get the information. How a system calculates the amount of money to deposit into my bank account can’t tell me what transactions make up the deposit is unbelievable. Personally I think they just don’t want to do the work for a customer.
Horrible experience so far. Been using for about 12 months.
Sylvia
I am very disgusted with Sage Payment Solutions. They have taken $575.00 out of my account for “early termination” I’ve been with this company for 3 years & 1 month and they claim that I met my 3 year contract, which by the way: it was automatically renewed for 2 more years.. Therefore, I am being charged a cancelation fee for 2 years. WHAT A RIPOFF!! The reason I cancelled them was because I was able to save 1% with another company. I was told that there was no contract with them and that I would be able to cancel at any time. This company should not be allowed to lie and rip companies off.
Lola
DO NOT USE for mobile sales services. I wish I had read the the reviews before I signed up with them.
First, lies and misrepresentation. Believe it, at least believe representatives of Sage Payments are absolutely into it for their cut and will do whatever they can to get you to bite. Hidden fees? Over half of my monthly statements were fees I was not privy to before agreeing to services and were not clearly indicated ANYWHERE in my contract.
Second, the person who set up my account didn’t even get my DBA entered correctly. When I contacted him to fix the DBA “its not a big deal” was his response. Third, the device stopped reading cards after 6 transactions and as manual entries are charged more to process, there was no rush to remedy.
Bad business. Hey Sage, bad business doesn’t survive.
Justin Andrews
The Sage rep that called me and convinced me to switch to Sage was VERY nice. and for a while, I was happy with Sage. But 6 months later, Intuit offered a credit card processing that links into my quickbooks online, making my life easier.
But, little did i know that i was in a 3 year contract with Sage. The salesperson NEVER told me. I never saw that on anything that i signed. They want $700 for me to cancel. I argued and ask them to waive it, they said they will not. Then I told them I will write bad reviews about Sage everywhere I can. They said they don’t care, go ahead.
This company is shady, there are A LOT of other choices out there. I also found that the rates the sales guy bragged about were a manipulation, i ended up paying much higher than he said I would. Its lies and deceit from Sage, AVOID SAGE
Daphne
Small Business Stay far away from Sage Payment Solutions and their lies!
Last summer our kayaking company signed on with them using a virtual terminal because it was going to be so much cheaper than having a hand held unity and all the monthly fees attachec. We were told it would only cost $6 monthly.
This happend for ONE Month only then both the US and Canadia Accts began getting charged $26 per month and the per transaction rate increased from 1.9% to over 2.67% this was NOT the contract we signed on for….
The Agent kept saying he was going to fix it and that it was all Chase Paymentech‘s fault not Sage and that Sage couldn’t do anything about it…. HUH lies… It has been 9 months and dozens upon dozens of phone calls with absolutely NO resolution…. no correction nothing and certainly no apologies. We want out of this contract and no doubt will get dinged with some sort of cancellation fee despite all their lying. How is this even tolerated. Five other business in our Chamber membership have had the same treatment.
I have never been treated so badly in business, and could not be more frustrated or angry. I’d love to go to their office and cause the biggest scene in the history of scenes… but I wouldn’t waste the gas to travel across the country on their pitiful excuse for customer service..
disgusted in BC
OLD ALLEY GIFTS
All i can say is WOW. Go to BBB online and read complaints. They have charged us fees we did not owe for 6 mths. As we are a small business this really hurt us. I have filed a complaint with the BBB today. Basically SAGE’s attitude was “prove it” and said they were keeping the money although they did acknowledge they received our card reader in July 2013. We put the cancellation letter in with the Card Reader as THEY SAID TO DO. Now they say they got card reader but no letter and basically said prove it. What did they think I was going to do without a card reader? I think they “lost” the cancellation notice and scammed me with the charges. It seems their billing practices have been in question on more than one occasions. RUN
Frank
The early cancellation fee is complete nonsense. This is an old school idea that only has one purpose: To force you to continue using a mediocre, antiquated company. Sage, you don’t need early cancellation fees if your products and services are top notch. The customer service rep I talked to tried to compare it to a cell phone contract – except I’ve never wanted to cancel my cell service after 10 years because overall the service is good. This month I’ve whittled our recurring payments down to 4 people, about $100 drafted. Fees for the month? $48. Since when is that a reasonable rate? The reason they are “OK” in the BBB ratings is because business owners don’t have time to register complaints – we have businesses to run. Sage has made thousands of dollars from us over the last 5 years and wants to charge me $300 to get out of the contract. I will never use them again.
Carol Bohrer
Well I have been working with Sage of 2 years. I have talked to Jason Pogue. He is the best.
I think he is extremely professional and I would recommend him and this company to anyone.
When I need to be PCI compliant, they walked me through it. Explained everything very carefully to me.
I am a very small business and they help me so much.
Thank you for all your help Jason.
Doctor
This is the worst company that I believe that I have ever delt with. There are all kinds of hidden fees and you will be paying more for their services no matter what the lies they try and feed you before you start with them. Not to mention when there service stinks and you try and quite they do not ever tell you that they are going to tack on a $700+ bill for early cancelation. You find that out a week later on your bank statement. Please take my word for it do not ever go with this company you will not be satisfied in any way. Like you have read above they never disclose any of this information to you before hand. They are very deseptive and should not be in business.
foothills trading hills
Stay far far far away from this company….Hidden lies about early termanation fees….Hard to get salesperson to answer phone….Nothing like it was told to us it would be…..RUN RUN RUN AWAY…..We weren’t told about length of contract even when we asked about it…..This is a scam that will get you in your checking account, because you have to give them access to it, then they will get you….Again Run Run Run Away.
jeremy
They offered me a job, is this sage payment solutions thing a scam or should I give it a go?
Shane Hatch
Ive been using Sage Payment Solutions to process credit card transactions for over 2 years. In december i noticed that i was charged $90 for processing $300 worth of credit card payments. I am a small pest control company and $300 is the most i have ever processed thru them. Last month i was charged $40 for $90 worth or transactions. I called to cancel with them and was told to leave my bank account open incase other payments had not cleared. a week later i noticed a $475 cancellation fee on my bank statement. I was never informed of a cancellation fee or recieved a statement. I called to have the fees reversed since they were charged without my knowledge as was informed that the only person who could do that was out of state.
Heidi King
I am totally disgusted by the service and fees since signing up with Sage. I spent 3 months, questioning and reading the contracts, and was blantantly lied to. When I was asked to sign the contract, I asked to read it, was told that it would be email in a packet later, I wouldn’t sign until I read and went over it. Asked very direct questions about fees, hidden fees and such. There were no misunderstanding on my part, I was totally lied to. My gut told me something wasnt right, but after 3 months, taking notes, and researching signed up, and sure enough hidden fees left and right. This has also happened to two other business I have spoke with. Very unhappy and disgusted by their deceptions.
Doug
Earlier this year, I left Bank of America processing as our terminal was no longer supported, and I was led to believe by my Sage rep that using their processing portal would be a cost effective alternative. He neglected to tell me the expense and complexity of getting PCI compliant using this method, even though we do not keep any card info on our computers. The quote emailed to me had no mention of a term for the agreement. The BOA service I had before could be cancelled anytime. Also, the contract I signed had all the pertinent numbers regarding fees, but again no mention of a THREE YEAR term. About two weeks ago, I decided to go back to using a terminal through a phone line, to make PCI compliance cheaper. I called Sage support and the tech told me that the terminal I was going to buy through EBay could be reprogrammed. When the terminal arrived, I called our salesman to set up reprogramming. He then tells me that terminal cannot be reprogrammed, but I can buy a new terminal from him for $400. So I tell him I will be going back to BOA, who can reprogram the terminal I bout for less the $50. Today, I get an email from my salesman that they will be charging a $725 early termination fee for breaking my THREE YEAR contract. It turns out they buried a the term and fee in the very fine print. Again, no mention was made of any time commitment in the quote or in the main part of the agreement. I am livid about this, and want nothing more to do with a company that conceals vital parts of an agreement to trap customers who are not happy with their service. Admittedly, I should read every letter of all fine print in all the agreements to which I agree, I compared the noted from my initial call to the written quote to the figures in the main body of the agreement. They all matched up, so I signed it and moved on. I wonder if I am the only one who finds this practiced unethical. I just know that if I deliberately concealed vital downsides of an agreement from my customers, I would be out of business pretty quickly. If I had any idea there was a multi-year commitment, or that our business is not a good fit for the Sage portal, I never would have worked with them.
Dave
I was a loyal long-time customer of sage for more than 10 years. I would say we had a good relationship and I only left because the fees ended up being too high. When I signed on part of our deal was that I there would be no cancellation fee, month-to-month strictly. But when I went to cancel the slapped me with a $250 fee! They said that they had added this fee when I asked for a ‘rate review’, to lower my rate. What?? This was of course without my knowledge or consent. Definitely DO NOT go with Sage. Bad business.