Is Ups Capital Merchant Services Any Good

Overview:

Capital Merchant Solutions (CMS) is a merchant account provider headquartered in Bloomington, Illinois. First established in 1997 equally a newspaper check processor, they've expanded into a total-service merchant account provider, covering credit card payment processing, eCommerce, and mobile payments.

CMS operates a number of different websites, each aimed at a detail attribute of their business organisation services. TakeCardsToday.com is their primary website, focusing on credit card processing for retail businesses. Amidst their other, more specialized sites are the following:

DowCommerce.com, which markets their proprietary DowCommerce payment gateway for eCommerce merchants,
HolyProcessing.com, a specialized site for religious organizations,
ProcessAway.com, which offers a variety of payment options for mobile businesses,
RateCheckup.com, another specialized site focused on medical and dental offices, and
WebstoreMerchantAccounts.com, which supports Yahoo Stores.

For about people, TakeCardsToday.com will be your first cease if you lot're considering setting up a merchant account with CMS. Regardless of which 1 of their websites you employ, exist aware that Capital Merchant Solutions is the company you'll be doing business with for all of them. Ordinarily, we're highly suspicious of companies that spread their concern over multiple websites. It can easily lead to defoliation on the part of merchants (sometimes intentionally), and information technology can also spread complaints against a business amongst multiple DBAs. That doesn't appear to be the instance with CMS. Each of their websites clearly identifies Capital Merchant Solutions every bit the sponsor of the site, and marketing information is mostly consistent beyond all of their sites.

CMS specializes in supporting small to mid-sized businesses and claims to accept worked with over 25,000 merchants since inception. Despite their large volume of customers, they currently take a remarkably clean slate with the BBB, with but one complaint filed within the concluding iii years, and i complaint in the concluding twelve months. Given the size of their operation, they practise seem to be keeping most of their merchants happy.

Overall, CMS offers such a wide variety of merchant business relationship services that they're a expert fit for just nigh any type of business. Highlights include the introduction of interchange-plus pricing for some accounts (which they currently don't annunciate), competitive rates and fees, and generally offer month-to-calendar month contracts with no early termination fee. At the same time, yous might still have to watch out for a number of additional fees and confusing contract terms that are, unfortunately, still very mutual in the credit card processing services industry.

Products and Services:

CMS offers a total suite of features that cover most, if non all, of the needs of a small business concern. These include the following:

Merchant accounts: While CMS will maintain your merchant account, the bodily credit and debit bill of fare processing is performed by a third-party processor. CMS doesn't disclose which processors it uses on any of its websites, then exist certain to review your contract carefully to know who you'll be doing business organisation with.
Terminals: CMS will include one "free" terminal when you sign up for a merchant account with them. They advertise a number of terminal choices on their website, including the Verifone Vx510le, Hypercom T7Plus, and Nurit 2085 models. More powerful models are too available, but they're not free. CMS too offers the WaySystems MTT 1581 wireless concluding. While the final itself is free, the $20.00 per month information plan that comes with it is not. I wouldn't recommend getting a wireless terminal unless your business really needs this adequacy. All of the terminals currently offered past CMS are EMV-compliant. Exist aware that none of these terminals are really gratis – your $34.95 monthly account fee covers this item without billing yous separately for it. It's yet a much more flexible (and much less expensive) option than the over-priced long-term leases that most providers offer.
Mobile processing: Advertised on their ProcessAway.com site, CMS offers an iPhone-based mobile processing capability. For $24.95 per month, you get a merchant account, a payment gateway, and an iPhone Menu Swiper. Unfortunately, the swiper is a sleeve-style design that connects to Apple's sometime 30-pin connector and volition only fit iPhone 4S and earlier models. If you need (or want) a smartphone-based processing solution, I'd recommend Square instead.
Payment gateway: For eCommerce merchants, CMS offers a pick of either their proprietary DowCommerce gateway or the ever-popular Authorize.net. The DowCommerce gateway includes an integrated shopping cart, recurring billing, and QuickBooks integration. It costs $19.95 per month and there is as well a $0.x per transaction fee. Qualify.Net costs $15.95 per month, but y'all'll have to pay actress to add recurring billing and a shopping cart. Both gateways charge an boosted, undisclosed fee for fraud detection.
Check processing: The CheckMAN check-processing software was CMS' original product, and it's included for complimentary with their merchant accounts. CheckMAN works by transferring a customer'south check data into the plan and and so printing out a check that yous can greenbacks. Information technology allows yous to accept checks via phone, fax, electronic mail, or the web.

Fees and Rates:

The fact that CMS actually has a Pricing folio puts them alee of their competitors in an industry where well-nigh companies don't include whatsoever information about processing rates or fees on their websites. Pricing information is by and large consistent beyond all of the numerous websites that CMS maintains, although information technology'due south not 100% perfect.

CMS offers both a traditional, tiered pricing model and an interchange-plus model. The good news is that they're increasingly moving away from tiered pricing in favor of the fairer and more transparent interchange-plus pricing. The bad news is that, with tiered pricing being then prominently shown on their primary website, it'south very like shooting fish in a barrel to sign up for it without existence aware that in that location are other, more than affordable options bachelor. CMS currently advertises the following tiered pricing rates on their TakeCardsToday.com website:

Pay As You Go

No monthly fees
iv.9%
$0.35 per transaction

Retail

$twenty per month
Interchange + $0.15
$0.25 per transaction

Ecommerce

$35 per month
Interchange + 0.20%
$0.25 per transaction

Mobile

$35 per month
Interchange + 0.20%
$0.35 per transaction

Note that these are the disbelieve rates for qualified transactions only. As such, they represent the everyman possible rates you could accept to pay. Mid-qualified and non-qualified transactions will process at significantly higher rates. Because CMS doesn't disclose these rates, the charge per unit data provided is misleading and not useful for estimating your monthly processing costs.

Religious organizations should contact the company through their HolyProcessing.com website for slightly lower rates.

Fees associated with your account are another source of confusion. While CMS is all the same advertising separate fees on their websites, information technology appears that they're signing new merchants upwards for an all-inclusive, $34.95 per month account fee that includes PCI compliance, monthly statements, and use of a "free" terminal. If you're however on the al-la-carte fee system shown on their website, you'll have to pay a Statement Fee of $8.95 per month. The website besides shows a $xiii.99 Internet Gateway Fee, but this is probably outdated information. As noted to a higher place, bones gateway fees are $15.95 per calendar month for Authorize.net and $19.95 per month for the DowCommerce gateway.

CMS doesn't mention PCI compliance fees on their website, but that doesn't hateful you lot won't have to pay them. PCI compliance appears to be included in the new, all-inclusive $34.95 rate plan. However, older accounts may still have a separate PCI compliance fee. As always, review your contract carefully to see exactly what you're paying for.

Contract Length and Early on Termination Fee:

CMS advertises month-to-month contracts with no early on termination fee on their website. For the most part, this is truthful. The sole exception is for loftier-risk merchants, who apparently are however locked into a three-year contract with an early termination fee (ETF) as high as $500.00. You lot'll still see a number of quondam complaints floating around on the internet from unhappy customers who were charged an ETF, but for the most part, this practice has been discontinued. As always, be sure to read your contract advisedly earlier signing up.

Sales and Advertizement Transparency:

CMS scores higher than the manufacture average in this category, more often than not because they disclose at least some of the possible rates and fees you'll be paying on their numerous websites. While the rates advertised on TakeCardsToday.com are conspicuously labeled as discount rates, there'southward no mention of the fact that they're simply the qualified transaction rates, or that the non-qualified transaction rates will be higher. There's as well no mention of interchange-plus pricing, despite the fact that this is now their principal pricing model. Pay close attention to the fine print disclaimer underneath their advertised charge per unit information:

The above rates and fees are not meant to be entirely inclusive; other rates and fees may utilize to certain transaction types. Entire rate and fee schedule will be included in your Merchant Application & Merchant Processing Agreement. These volition be bachelor for review prior the setup of your merchant business relationship.

In other words, be sure you fully understand the pricing model they offer yous and be sure to review your contract very carefully earlier you sign on the proverbial dotted line.

The company'south use of multiple websites to market its services also causes a number of problems, mainly that the data presented isn't 100% consequent from 1 site to another. Sometimes, the information isn't fifty-fifty consistent within the same site. CMS actually needs to update their websites to reflect the newer interchange-plus pricing and the all-inclusive $34.95 monthly fee.

CMS also has something of a presence on social media, but not much. While their Twitter account is dormant, they practise occasionally postal service updates on their Facebook page. They also accept a FAQ on their primary website that really functions more like a web log than a true FAQ. Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since 2011.

Client Service and Technical Support:

CMS by and large exceeds the industry boilerplate in the area of customer service. Unfortunately, the industry boilerplate in this surface area is pretty depression, with poor to downright awful client service being a common theme in merchant complaints nearly credit carte processing companies. CMS handles client service and support primarily through a price-complimentary telephone line that'southward available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. While you may not actually be able to accomplish a customer service representative at whatsoever hr of the day, it's worth noting that praise for the availability and quality of their client support was a common theme in many of the positive testimonials I've found nearly CMS.

While CMS' phone-based customer support is pretty proficient, their web-based back up is a little lacking. Their numerous websites all feature cursory FAQs near their service, merely that's nearly it. There'southward no detailed knowledge-base of operations and no live chat feature. This is an area that CMS should put some effort into improving.

Negative Reviews and Complaints:

CMS has been accredited by the BBB since 2004 and has an A+ rating. The company currently has only one complaint filed against it within the past twelve months. Remarkably, this is also the but complaint inside the past 3 years. For a company of their size, this is pretty impressive.

Despite their clean bill of health from the BBB, CMS does take a few unhappy customers on Ripoff Report. While there are currently nine reports overall, all merely one of them are over three years old. Ripoff Reports never takes downwardly complaints, and so they'll probably exist there forever.

With such a low volume of complaints, it's hard to discern a pattern amid them. Nonetheless, the company's advertisement of a "free" Authorize.internet payment gateway seems to have acquired some confusion. While you won't have to pay a license or setup fee (Authorize.net normally charges $49.00 for this), you will even so have to pay a monthly fee (currently $fifteen.95 or higher) to use it. CMS conspicuously discloses this monthly fee on their website, so don't be fooled into thinking that it'southward actually 100% gratuitous.

There are also nevertheless some complaints about a hidden early termination fee, which CMS no longer charges (unless y'all're a high-adventure merchant). Something to be aware of is that while CMS has not enforced an ETF against a non-high run a risk merchant since 2011, the clause might nevertheless be included in your contract whether you're a high-take chances merchant or not. It's probably safer to ensure that this clause is not added to your contract before yous sign up than to hope that this non-enforcement policy volition protect you lot in the event that you decide to close your account. If you're already using CMS and aren't in the high-risk category, now would be a good time to re-negotiate your contract and go this clause removed if it's still there.

Positive Reviews and Testimonials:

CMS's master website, TakeCardsToday.com, features no less than twelve glowing testimonials from satisfied customers. Most of the positive comments heart around their first-class customer service. While the testimonials seem sincere, they're undated and don't include links to contact the commenters for a follow-up. As always, nosotros encourage readers who have had positive (or not-so-positive) experiences with the company to tell us near it in the Comments section beneath.

Final Verdict:

Overall, Capital Merchant Solutions rates an impressive 4 out of v stars. Highlights include competitive rates, the availability of interchange-plus pricing, stiff customer service, and calendar month-to-month contracts (for about merchants). CMS loses a few points overall for their somewhat confusing branding on multiple websites, misleading (and inconsistent) advertizement related to fees, and lack of web-based technical support. The visitor's shift to offering calendar month-to-month contracts and interchange-plus pricing shows that they are responding in a positive way to changes in the credit card processing manufacture brought on by increased competition.

If y'all're a high-risk merchant, I'd approach CMS with caution. While they don't advertise themselves as high-risk specialists – or even use the term "loftier-risk" anywhere in their marketing – it's clear from their appeals to merchants with bad credit and their claims that well-nigh all applications for an business relationship are approved that they're angling for the high-gamble segment of the market. If you fall into that particular category, expect to pay higher rates and be locked into a long-term contract that however includes an early termination fee. In other words, you won't savour the benefits of the contempo positive changes that CMS has taken to brand their services more than competitive. As a better culling, I'd recommend Durango Merchant Services, a truthful loftier-risk specialist and a very solid company.

If you're not a high-risk merchant, CMS is easier to recommend. Small retail businesses that only need one terminal and online businesses that don't really need whatever will benefit from their competitive prices and simplified fee structure. Every bit with any processor, you'll want to negotiate aggressively to get the lowest rates you lot qualify for and the best contract terms available. You lot'll also want to review your contract thoroughly earlier signing up. If you lot're not sure that CMS is correct for y'all, or you want a better idea of what the competition is offer, take a look at our review of the all-time credit carte du jour processing companies. You can as well compare the best processors head-to-caput using our Merchant Account Comparing Chart.

If you're currently using CMS or have been a client in the past, please get out a review and rating in the comment department beneath.

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Check Out Our Preferred Credit Card Processors 🏆

*Our preferred processors utilise fully transparent Interchange-plus pricing.

Nosotros've washed in-depth research on each and confidently recommend them.