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What Are High-Risk Merchant Account Fees?

When negotiating with payment processing companies, every company strives to get the most favorable terms of service, low fees and no additional charges. If a company’s business is low-risk, it has all the chances to choose the payment service provider it wants.

Unfortunately, if the risk is high, it is definitely not possible to count on that. It’s important to understand that high risk merchant account fees will definitely be higher than what companies may offer you if your business is low risk.

That doesn’t mean, however, that high risk credit card processing fees will take all the money out of your budget. Today, many firms are trying so hard to adjust to customers and win in the competition that the average high risk merchant account fees have decreased significantly. What’s more, the firm has gained choice. So high risk trading fees should no longer be considered a verdict.

Remember that you can always negotiate with the company on the terms of service that are acceptable to you. It will all depend on how much the firm needs customers and whether it is willing to compromise.

Of course, some companies still refuse high-risk firms, or offer them simply bondage terms of service and the highest fees. Just wish them luck and look for a provider who is interested in your firm and understands that high risk is a problem, but it is also possible to work with such a firm, and quite successfully.

What commission will you have to pay?

You will not find a specific answer to this question in this article, but you can ask it of the firm you are considering as your payment acceptance partner. What is certain is that you will have to pay a higher commission than when opening a standard account. There are no exceptions to the rules, and the question is how much higher the fee will be. In order it will not be disastrous for your business, you need to negotiate and negotiate again, defending the most favorable conditions for yourself. Remember that the company with which you are now talking about opening a high-risk trading account is not the only one on the market, and you can always be offered alternatives that will suit you to the greatest extent.

Don’t forget to discuss such an important issue as the payment scheme, because if your company’s sales volumes are high, it will simply be unprofitable for you to pay high commissions for each transaction.

The most important fees you will pay

The first fee your company will face will be the setup fee. While low-risk firms often don’t pay such a fee, high-risk firms have virtually no such option.

Read the contract before you sign it and ask any questions you may have, because in the future you will have to comply with the terms of the contract even if you failed to read it carefully.

Commission for sales above the limit. The whole point is that providers set limits on the number of transactions for high-risk companies. If these limits are exceeded, you will have to pay an additional commission.

And don’t forget the monthly fee, as well as the fee for each successful transaction. If your firm is characterized as high-risk, you need to immediately forget about the possibility of paying a low fee in both the first and the second case. It’s extremely frustrating to realize, but that’s the reality that high-risk firms face and there’s nothing you can do about it except choose the vendor that offers the most favorable terms of service, even though the risks are high.

If low-risk firms optimize their payment processing costs, high-risk firms will have to spend up to 10% of each sale, which is very costly.

Penalties for chargebacks. Chargebacks are a major problem for a high-risk company. Chargeback requests are detrimental not only to the seller’s company, but also to the processing firm, so you should ask right away what the penalties are for chargebacks so that it does not come as an unpleasant surprise to you later on.

Peter Christopher

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