Sam’s Club Merchant Services uses the appeal of the bulk-discount warehouse business to bring in merchants, but processing payments through Sam’s Club is costly for most small businesses.
WRITTEN & RESEARCHED BY
Lead Staff Writer
Last updated onUpdated
REVIEWED BY
Expert Contributor
| Total Rating | 2.7 |
|---|---|
| Fees & Rates3.1 | |
| Products & Services3.6 | |
| Contract1.5 | |
| Sales & Advertising Transparency2.6 | |
| Customer Service2.5 | |
| User Reviews2.1 | |
Table of Contents
Sam’s Club Merchant Services was, until recently, a merchant services provider that operated as a subsidiary of Sam’s Club, the well-known chain of membership-only retail warehouse clubs owned by Walmart. Clover recently acquired the subsidiary, and it now operates as Sam’s Club Point of Sale By Clover.
Much like its rival Costco (which operates the very similar Costco Merchant Services), Sam’s Club seems to be trying to use its retail division’s reputation for low prices to entice business owners to sign up for an account under the belief that they’ll save money over more traditional merchant account providers. Just like Costco Merchant Services, however, the company is merely a reseller for mammoth processor Fiserv (formerly First Data), the largest processor in the United States.
Fiserv has a reputation for high prices, and, unfortunately, you won’t get any discounts by signing up through Sam’s Club. With a few exceptions (which we’ve highlighted below), the company uses the same equipment, pricing, and contract terms as its back-end processor.
Because it doesn’t provide any additional features or services beyond what’s available directly from Fiserv, there’s really no reason for us to recommend it over signing up with Fiserv directly.
While the old Sam’s Club Merchant Services website offered some concrete pricing disclosures, the new site buries them so well that it’s unlikely many prospective customers will find them. Pricing for Clover hardware is disclosed (with options to lease or buy outright), but there isn’t any further information regarding account fees or contract terms. In our experience, this lack of transparency is a sure guarantee that you’ll be stuck in a long-term contract and saddled with numerous monthly, annual, and incidental fees on top of your transaction processing costs.
| Products & Services3.6 |
|---|
| Software & Services 4.0 |
| Hardware & Equipment 3.2 |
Everything offered by Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover consists of Fiserv-branded products and services. Sam’s Club Merchant Services earned a pretty good score in this area since they provide Clover POS, which is generally a good product, and they allow you to purchase the hardware outright. However, the product lineup isn’t nearly as extensive as what Fiserv itself advertises.
Sam’s Club Merchant Services offers the following:
If you’re interested in finding out more about Clover hardware, check out our review of the Clover POS System. If you’re looking for an alternative merchant services provider that offers Clover hardware, check out our article on the best and worst companies to get a Clover credit card machine from.
| Fees & Rates3.1 |
|---|
| Pricing 3.0 |
| Affordability 3.2 |
Sam’s Club earned an OK score from us in this category because they now offer flat-rate, month-to-month pricing. However, pricing is hard to find on the website, and you’ll also have to pay for a Sam’s Club membership. Sam’s Club/Fiserv may charge other additional undisclosed fees as well.
Until recently, Sam’s Club offered two pricing plans, a Value Rate Pricing plan and a Simplified Pricing plan. Both of these plans featured tiered pricing but claimed not to require an early termination fee if you closed your account while still under contract. As of this writing, both of these plans have been removed, and the current version of the company’s website avoids disclosing information about any Sam’s Club merchant services rates. However, product description pages for the various Clover products reveal that both the Register and Register Lite plans that Clover offers directly are available. (For more information on Clover pricing, read our piece on Clover pricing.) Here’s what you need to know about these two plans:
This plan is advertised as best for businesses processing less than $50,000 per year in credit card sales. It includes a long list of fairly standard features, including access to the 200+ apps and integrations on the Clover app market.
This plan is advertised as best for businesses processing more than $50,000 per year in credit card sales. It includes all the same features as the Register plan, plus several additional features. Quite frankly, some of these extra features shouldn’t only be available as high-priced options. For example, you’ll need to sign up for the full Register plan to process exchanges, pre-authorize a customer’s credit card, or even add a gratuity to a customer’s check.
Although we’re glad to see that the tiered pricing plans have been discontinued in favor of a more predictable flat-rate pricing scheme, we’re not convinced that either of these plans offers a good value. For one thing, it appears likely that you’ll pay the same rates for debit card transactions as you would for credit cards, even though interchange fees for these transactions are much lower than they are for credit purchases. Although you’ll have access to the expandable Clover app ecosystem, you’ll have to ask yourself whether it’s worth paying $10 (or even $40) per month for credit card processing when you can get most of the same features and rates with no monthly fees through Square.
One unusual aspect of Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover is that you’ll need to maintain an active Sam’s Club membership to qualify for the rates and fees mentioned above. The company now offers a $100 Sam’s Club gift card at initial signup — enough to cover the first year of a Sam’s Club Plus membership if you don’t already have one. After that, you’re on your own.
The company’s website doesn’t provide any other disclosures about recurring or incidental fees. These fees are probably highly variable from one merchant to the next. Be aware that Fiserv has a reputation for charging well above the industry average for most fees. For a more in-depth explanation of the fees that might show up on your processing statement, please read our complete guide to merchant account and credit card transaction fees.
| Contract1.5 |
|---|
| Commitment 0.6 |
| ETF & Other Fees 2.4 |
Like most merchant services providers that require long-term contracts, Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover makes no mention whatsoever about them on its website. A standard merchant agreement isn’t available, either. These issues negatively impacted our Contract score for this vendor. What follows is our best-educated guess on contract terms, based on what we know about Fiserv’s standard contract and feedback from merchants.
The standard Fiserv contract includes an initial term of four years. It also includes an automatic renewal clause, which extends the term for successive one-year periods after the initial term is complete. Sam’s Club no longer mentions early termination fees. Previously, the company had allowed merchants to close their accounts within the first 90 days of their contract without penalty. Beyond that initial grace period, an early termination fee of $90 applies. This fee is much lower than what other providers usually charge; it’s also lower than the prorated liquidated damages clause in Fiserv’s standard contracts. However, it’s still not a great deal considering the number of providers on the market who don’t require long-term contracts or charge early termination fees at all.
If you’re considering opening a merchant account with Sam’s Club — or any other provider — we strongly recommend that you read your entire contract thoroughly before signing up. You’ll want to be very clear on the length of your contract, whether it automatically renews, and whether there’s any type of penalty if you close your account early. Sales representatives frequently “forget” to mention these details during the sales process. Also, be aware that the “standard” contract terms are subject to negotiation in some cases. You can often eliminate the early termination clause in your contract if you ask — just be sure to get it in writing and keep a copy for your records.
| Sales & Advertising Transparency2.6 |
|---|
| Sales Practices 3.0 |
| Web Presence 2.0 |
The company’s score in this category was negatively impacted by the lack of information they provided to the public.
In the past, we’ve criticized Sam’s Club for employing misleading sales gimmicks on its website, including a “rates as low as…” claim that teased low-tiered rates that are much lower than what most businesses would actually pay. With the transition to Clover’s flat-rate pricing, however, this is no longer a problem. The only offer that’s still on the website is the one promising a $100 Sam’s Club eGift Card to new merchants at signup. While this is a legitimate offer, it doesn’t provide much of an inducement to choose Sam’s Club merchant processing over a competing provider.
The current version of the company’s website is very basic, offering little concrete information. Most of the site’s content consists of empty marketing fluff, although some of the links to Clover equipment are fairly informative. While we’d certainly prefer to see more specific disclosures about fees and contract terms, Sam’s Club is hardly alone in the processing industry in obscuring the actual costs of its services.
Besides the website, the company also appears to sell accounts through an in-house sales team. We couldn’t find any evidence that it employs independent sales agents. While in-house representatives generally have a much better reputation for honesty and professionalism, we did see quite a few complaints alleging the non-disclosure of important account terms. Our best advice for dealing with Sam’s Club — or any other provider — is simple: never fully trust a sales representative. It’s up to you to read your contract and ask the appropriate questions before you commit to a multi-year agreement. We see too many complaints from merchants that could have been avoided if the merchant had simply read their contract ahead of time.
Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover has no social media presence. While the main Sam’s Club brand itself has accounts on all the major social media sites, its merchant services division does not. It appears to us that the company is content to use the name and the reputation of Sam’s Club for low prices to lure in unsuspecting merchants.
| Customer Service2.5 |
|---|
| Personal Support 1.9 |
| Self-Service 3.0 |
Sam’s Club earned some points in this category for offering 24/7 phone support, but also lost points for poor quality support and not offering any online support resources. However, we didn’t deduct too many points from this category because it is not difficult to find support materials for Clover POS elsewhere online.
| Sam's Club Merchant Services Customer Service | Availability |
|---|---|
| Phone Support | |
| Email Support | |
| Support Tickets | |
| Live Chat | |
| Dedicated Support Representative | |
| Knowledge Base or Help Center | |
| Videos & Tutorials | |
| Company Blog | |
| Social Media |
Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover advertises 24/7 telephone support, available 365 days a year. This support appears to be provided by Fiserv through its Clover division. (This type of arrangement isn’t unusual when two large businesses work together.) A previously offered live chat option is no longer available, but you can contact the company via email.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen many Sam’s Club Merchant Services reviews with complaints alleging rude or incompetent customer service from the company. Be aware that you might be in for a rough experience if you have to deal with something other than a simple technical problem. Fiserv also has a bad reputation when it comes to customer service, so this is no surprise.
If you’d like to avoid dealing with the company’s human customer service, you’ll find its self-help options to be quite minimal. The company provides a link to Clover’s knowledgebase, but that’s about it. This site might be very useful if you have a technical problem with one of Clover’s products, but it obviously won’t help you if you have a more serious issue, such as an account freeze or a billing problem.
| User Reviews2.1 |
|---|
| Customer Feedback 1.0 |
| Review Site Aggregate 2.5 |
Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover user reviews are below average, and so is our score for them in this category.
Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover does not have its own BBB profile, which makes assessing complaints difficult. You’ll find over 1,000 complaints against First Data/Fiserv on BBB, but only a scattered handful of them are specific to Sam’s Club. Likewise, the BBB profile for Sam’s Club itself is filled almost entirely with complaints about the main company’s wholesale operation. Confusion over the Sam’s Club/Clover/First Data (Fiserv) relationship has also muddied the waters on Ripoff Report, where we found only four complaints related to merchant services.
Fortunately, we’ve found plenty of other complaints in our own Comments section below and comments made on other review sites. Taken together, several trends emerge in Sam’s Club credit card processing reviews, including the following issues:
With the refresh of the company’s website, there is now only a single, very brief testimonial from a coffee shop in Arkansas. That’s it. Apparently, Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover doesn’t consider it important to provide positive feedback from actual users as an inducement for prospective customers to give it a second look. Or perhaps it simply couldn’t find any merchants willing to put in a good word for the company. We’ll let you decide.
We were likewise unable to locate any other positive reviews of the company online, although, given the confusion surrounding the company’s brand name, this isn’t too surprising. If you’ve had a positive experience with Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover, please consider leaving a review in the Comments section below. Thanks!
In assessing Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover, it’s impossible to separate the company from its relationship with Fiserv and Clover. With the transition away from the old Sam’s Club Merchant Services brand name, it now appears to be little more than a Clover subsidiary using the better-known Sam’s Club brand name as a marketing ploy to lure in merchants expecting lower prices than what they’ll actually receive.
If you’ve read our Fiserv review, you’ll know that we don’t recommend it for most small or medium-sized businesses due to the high overall costs. Unfortunately, Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover doesn’t offer significant savings over signing up with Fiserv directly and could be more expensive for some businesses. The transition to flat-rate pricing appears to be a deliberate attempt to appeal to small business owners who want predictable, easy-to-understand pricing and are unaware that it can sometimes be more expensive than interchange-plus or membership pricing plans.
Bundling flat-rate pricing with long-term contracts, undisclosed additional fees, and a high monthly account fee ($49.95 per month in the case of the Register plan) is a poor way to serve the actual needs of small business owners. Yes, you’ll receive a true, full-service merchant account with a unique merchant identification number, unlike the aggregated accounts offered by Square, PayPal, and other payment service providers. However, many providers can provide you with a much better deal, including several Fiserv resellers that also offer Clover hardware products.
Sam’s Club Point of Sale by Clover earns a disappointing score due to its high costs, onerous contract terms, poor customer service, and numerous complaints about its sales practices. If you’re interested in the Clover hardware lineup but want to avoid doing business with Fiserv directly, resellers such as Dharma Merchant Services or Payment Depot can offer you a much better deal — and at a lower cost. You can also check out the best credit card processors for small businesses for several other reputable providers to consider.
We evaluate and test each payment processor that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on certain key characteristics in order to generate our granular ratings for merchant accounts and credit card processors.
For payment processing reviews, we use a 24-point rubric to evaluate the provider. First, we look at pricing structure – interchange plus, subscription-based, tiered, or hybrid – giving the most points to providers that provide fair, transparent pricing and docking those that rely on tiered models. Then we examine rates, the presence and transparency of early termination fees, and any additional fees.
We also look at contract length and fairness and test out sales staff and customer service channels ourselves to ensure that the company uses reputable, above-the-board sales techniques. Finally, we take the company’s online reputation into account, reading customer reviews and comments.
Read more about how we rate payment processors.
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