Credit Card Processors: Buying Advice, Tips, and News

Square Point of Sale is an option with a great feature selection for organizations looking for flat, predictable pricing. With all that it offers and a reasonable price, it takes our Editors' Choice award.

Helcim provides credit card processing the way small businesses need it: with complete transparency. All of its pricing is clearly spelled out on its website and if anything confuses you, the company provides a host of online tutorials and how-to guides.

Intuit QuickBooks Payments is a no-brainer if your retail operation is already standardized on QuickBooks for general accounting. If you're not an Intuit customer, then this payment gateway is still a solid choice, though it can get a little pricey for some.

Sam's Merchant Services stands apart because it's one of the few credit card processing services that is upfront about its pricing on its website. However, it falls short again by using proprietary hardware equipment and locking you into a multi-year contract.

Finding the right credit card processing service is crucial to any e-commerce operation. But with a myriad of payment options hitting the market, deciding which service will serve you best is difficult. We rank 10 top players to help you choose.

Flagship Merchant Services has everything most customers will want from a credit card processing service, but its somewhat unclear on what everything costs.

Payment Depot impresses with a wholesale-style pricing structure because that lets customers better predict what they'll wind up paying. But even so, the end price for this service seems a little too high for most small business operators.

National Bankcard has a good reputation for customer service and also offers several forms of payment processing and pricing as well as a full line of hardware. However, like some of its competitors, the company is overly vague about its pricing.

CreditCardProcessing.com falls into a trap that several of its competitors have also tripped: it's great when it comes to offering a full range of pricing plans and processing equipment, but is too vague about exactly what everything costs.

Cayan does a solid job as a payment processor, delivering a good range of hardware and software combined with an open API. While you'll need to negotiate a fair price, if that hurdle doesn't bother you this service is well worth a look.

Payline Data delivers secure payment technology to both small business and enterprise customers. It has a good reputation when it comes to customer service, and its tool kit checks all the boxes that most e-commerce merchants require.

Square is an affordable and easy tool for accepting credit card payments on lots of mobile devices, and the experience is excellent for buyers and sellers alike.

If all your business needs is a basic mobile credit card reader and app, QuickBooks GoPayments is a useful, flexible choice, but there are better options.

PayAnywhere's credit card reader is a quick, mobile way to accept credit cards, but serious sellers should invest in more robust hardware.

The powerful PayPal Chip Card Reader covers all your mobile credit card reader needs, including NFC payment, but it's expensive and bulky.