Heartland (Formerly Heartland Payment Systems) Review

Pros

• Full range of products and services
• Uses transparent interchange-plus pricing
• Excellent network security features
• No misleading sales gimmicks

Cons

• Requires three-year contract
• $295 per location early termination fee (ETF)
• Important contract terms are frequently not disclosed
• Numerous reports of steep price increases

What Is Heartland (formerly Heartland Payment Systems)?

Heartland is a merchant services provider that offers many small businesses a full range of products and features transparent interchange-plus pricing. Unfortunately, all Heartland accounts come with an onerous three-year contract and a rather expensive $295 early termination fee (ETF) if you close your account early.

The company has also received a disturbing number of complaints alleging that these terms are often not disclosed during the account setup process. For these reasons, Heartland earns a very mediocre overall score. Unfortunately, the company seems to have adopted many of the dishonest and unfair practices that the merchant services industry is notorious for since its acquisition by Global Payments. For most small-business owners, it won’t be a good choice. Check out our guide to the best credit card processors for small businesses for some much better alternatives to Heartland.

Products & Services

Heartland’s biggest strength is providing a full range of products and services to suit nearly any industry or business type. Here’s a breakdown of the major features available to Heartland customers:

Fees & Rates

Like most traditional merchant services providers, Heartland doesn’t disclose any specific pricing information on its website. Instead, it uses a quote-based system that requires you to contact the company’s sales department and provide enough information about your business for them to generate a customized pricing quote tailored to you and your needs. While we understand that there is too much variability in processing rates from one business to another to post them on a website, we’re disappointed that standardized fees are also not disclosed. These include chargeback fees, PCI compliance fees, annual fees, and many others.

The one pricing disclosure that Heartland does offer is that it now uses interchange-plus pricing exclusively. Most traditional providers will initially offer you an expensive tiered pricing plan — even though interchange-plus is available — in the hopes that you’ll accept it without trying to negotiate a better deal. We’re big fans of interchange-plus pricing, as it transparently separates the interchange fees that get passed on to the issuing banks and credit card associations from the markup your processor keeps for itself. However, it won’t save you money if that markup is unusually high. We’ve found complaints from merchants indicating that Heartland charged them as much as interchange + 0.70%, which is more than twice the industry average for a processor’s markup.

Heartland also has a “Merchant Bill of Rights,” although it’s published separately from the company’s website and is difficult to locate. Taken together, these ten “rights” offer a claim of complete transparency on every fee Heartland charges for using your account. You might question why a company claiming complete and total transparency on its pricing doesn’t disclose any specific fee information on its website. What Heartland is really saying here is that you’ll enjoy complete transparency after you’ve obtained a pricing quote and signed up for an account, not before. Overall, the Merchant Bill of Rights appears to be little more than an attempt by the company to address the high number of complaints about its sales practices.

You should also note that Heartland’s extensive account security features are offered at no additional charge. That doesn’t make them entirely “free,” as at least part of your monthly account fee will go to maintaining those services. Nonetheless, providers such as Heartland have just as much of a vested interest in keeping your account secure as you do, so they’re not going to offer industry-standard security features, such as tokenization and encryption, as an optional add-on.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

Heartland’s website is well-organized and easy to navigate. It includes information about the numerous specialized products and services the company offers but doesn’t go into much detail. There are no pricing disclosures, despite the so-called Merchant’s Bill of Rights stating that you have a right to this information.

Heartland’s sales process is also problematic. The lack of pricing information forces merchants to obtain a quote before they can evaluate whether the company will be a good fit for them. You should understand that this quote is merely an initial offer, and you absolutely should try to negotiate a better deal rather than just accepting it blindly.

Also, be aware that most of the complaints about Heartland relate to disclosure (or, rather, lack of disclosure) issues during the sales process. The company claims that all of its in-house sales team members are salaried, W-2 employees, but no company is going to pay sales representatives for merely trying to sell accounts. There’s most likely a quota that representatives must meet to avoid being fired.

Because of this pressure to perform, it’s unfortunately very common for company representatives to fail to disclose important contract terms. We continue to see numerous recent complaints from merchants alleging that they were never informed about the three-year commitment or the ETF during the sales process. Your best defense against these kinds of problems is to read your contract very carefully and insist on getting a waiver of both the long-term commitment and the ETF before you sign up.

Contract Length & Early Termination Fee

Heartland’s standard contract includes an initial term of three years, with an automatic renewal clause that extends the commitment for one-year periods after that. If you close your account early, you’ll have to pay an early termination fee (ETF) of $295 per location.

While the ETF isn’t the highest that we’ve ever seen, the fact that it’s applied to each business location means that it can add up very quickly if you operate out of multiple locations. It’s also a pretty good indication that Heartland will set you up with a separate merchant account for each operating location — complete with duplicate monthly and annual fees for each account.

There’s no reason to accept this if you don’t have to. Since more and more providers now offer month-to-month contracts with no long-term commitment as a standard feature, you should insist on a waiver of the ETF before agreeing to open an account. Be sure to get it in writing, and keep a copy for your records. Most importantly, review your entire contract thoroughly before you sign anything.

If you do find yourself stuck in a long-term contract, be aware that you’ll need to notify Heartland at least 60 days before the end of your contract term to prevent it from automatically renewing. If you follow this and all other instructions in your contract for closing your account to the letter, you should be able to avoid paying the ETF.

If you operate out of multiple locations, we recommend asking for a single merchant account rather than separate accounts for each location. That will save you a significant amount of money in fees and headaches with PCI compliance requirements. If a payment service provider (PSP) such as Square can aggregate thousands of merchants across the country into a single merchant account, there’s no reason for you to have to juggle multiple accounts just because you have more than one retail location.

Customer Service & Technical Support

Heartland offers email and 24/7 telephone support from a US-based, in-house team. The support page on the website lists multiple phone numbers for different categories, which theoretically means you’ll be transferred less and get the help you need faster. You’ll also find extensive documentation and dedicated support channels for developers. (The documentation is also helpful for providing more information about some of Heartland’s services and features.)

When we look at customer service as a whole, however, we need to look at the entire life cycle of care, including that first sales call. What we’ve found is a disproportionate number of complaints on consumer review sites, all featuring allegations of broken promises, misrepresentation, and what we call in the industry the “runaround.” While we may be looking at a few customers who have had an unfortunate and uniquely bad experience, collectively, they show a pattern of problematic issues with the company.

If you have experience with Heartland’s customer support, please leave us a comment and let us know what you think! Your comments help us better assess each company we review.

Heartland Reviews, Complaints, & Common Problems

Here’s a closer look at Hearland’s most common complaints.

Final Verdict

Owned by Global Payments, Heartland is the fifth-largest merchant services provider in the United States, processing a total of $80 billion in credit and debit card transactions annually. The company has earned a reputation as an industry leader in payment security, mainly due to suffering a massive data breach in 2008.

On a positive note, Heartland offers a truly comprehensive suite of products and services that will meet the needs of most businesses. The company’s exclusive use of interchange-plus pricing and commitment to data security is also commendable. Quite frankly, these are features worth paying a little extra for if they meet the needs of your business.

However, the company’s reputation for saddling new merchants with long-term contracts and failing to disclose them adequately during the sales process is problematic. We’re also very concerned about allegations that Heartland raises its rates and fees for merchants about six months to a year into their contracts. For small or newly established businesses, Heartland will be a poor — and very expensive — choice. The company earns a mediocre score overall. If Heartland isn’t for you, check out our roundup of the cheapest credit card processors in the industry for some recommendations that will save you money.

Credit Card Processor Review Methodology

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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