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Join For FreeCardX by Stax is at the forefront of credit card surcharging compliance. But is this processing solution right for your business?
Total Rating | 4.6 |
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Fees & Rates4.8 | |
Products & Services4.5 | |
Contract4.8 | |
Sales & Advertising Transparency4.2 | |
Customer Service3.9 | |
User Reviews4.4 |
Table of Contents
Owned by Stax, CardX is a fully compliant surcharging solution allowing businesses to pass credit card processing fees to customers, thereby reducing the business’s costs associated with accepting credit cards.
Businesses can use CardX to take 0% fee credit card payments in-person, online, or via a virtual terminal. Businesses in Connecticut and Maine cannot legally use credit card surcharging solutions such as CardX.
Products & Services4.5 |
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Software & Services 4.7 |
Hardware & Equipment 4.2 |
CardX is a payment processor that lets businesses accept credit cards without having to pay the usual interchange fees and processor markup. Instead, the customer pays these fees. Note that the customer also has the option of completing the sale via debit card, in which case they pay no fee, and the business pays the processing fee.
CardX offers 0% transaction fee credit card processing via the following methods:
Credit card surcharging services like the one offered by CardX by Stax may appeal to businesses such as convenience stores, service-based businesses (plumbers, landscapers, hairdressers, etc.), pet groomers, automotive businesses, restaurants, and even eCommerce businesses.
When your business implements a surcharging solution like CardX, customers are incentivized to pay by cash or with a debit card—which is less expensive to process than a credit card and deposits in your business bank account quicker.
One thing that’s missing from CardX’s processing services is that the solution currently does not have a POS system integration, which means CardX probably wouldn’t be suitable for businesses that want integrated point of sale features, such as retail inventory management or restaurant order management.
CardX claims to be the only such company that offers a fully compliant surcharging solution—according to the company, most cash discounting processing solutions are non-compliant and can put businesses at risk of legal ramifications.
CardX’s legally compliant solution is a big selling point for larger businesses that want to make sure they are not getting themselves in trouble with the card brands or violating any state laws. In fact, CardX is so trusted that it is Mastercard’s exclusive surcharging partner.
But compliant or not, something to keep in mind is that surcharging is not right for every business and it can leave a bad taste in your customer’s mouth. On its own blog, CardX cites a statistic indicating that 78% of customers think surcharging is unfair.
Fees & Rates4.8 |
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Pricing 5.0 |
Affordability 4.6 |
Overall, CardX offers good pricing and moderately good transparency when it comes to the fees and rates it charges for its credit card surcharging solution.
Sales & Advertising Transparency4.2 |
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Sales Practices 4.4 |
Web Presence 4.0 |
CardX exclusively uses an in-house sales team, which is a big point in its favor when it comes to sales and advertising transparency.
CardX has a professional informative website, which does a good job explaining its product as well as the laws surrounding surcharging. CardX also has its Terms & Services on its website and maintains active social media accounts on LinkedIn and X.
Still, it would be ideal if CardX displayed all of its pricing information prominently on its website. Instead, CardX is repeatedly described on its website as “0% cost,” which isn’t entirely true when considering that merchants will be paying a $29/month fee, at minimum.
Contract4.8 |
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Commitment 5.0 |
ETF & Other Fees 4.6 |
One thing I really appreciate about CardX is that the company has a month-to-month contract, as outlined in the Terms of Service posted on the CardX website. You can cancel your contract at any time as long as you give CardX 30 days notice.
You will need to return your terminal if you’re renting it, but you won’t be charged any other termination or account closure fees.
Customer Service3.9 |
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Personal Support 4.4 |
Self-Service 3.4 |
CardX offers multiple channels of customer support including email, 24/7 technical support via phone, and other channels offered from Stax directly, including a live chat function and an online knowledgebase (though CardX does not have its own dedicated knowledgebase).
CardX By Stax Support | Availability |
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Phone Support | |
Email Support | |
Support Tickets | |
Live Chat | |
Dedicated Support Representative | |
Knowledge Base or Help Center | |
Videos & Tutorials | |
Company Blog | |
Social Media |
Overall, CardX seems to have adequate support resources, and 24/7 phone support is always a good thing. However, some customers have complained about the quality of Stax’s customer service, which is likely the same entity that provides customer service for CardX.
It’s also unclear what level of technical support you will receive if you do not opt for the terminal rental plan.
User Reviews4.4 |
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Customer Feedback 4.0 |
Review Site Aggregate 4.5 |
Frustratingly, there are no user reviews of CardX to be found online. There are plenty of reviews of its parent company Stax, however. Stax reviews are mixed, but mostly positive. As such, we consider Stax to be one of the best small business credit card processors, period.
As CardX is a service of Stax, it makes sense to evaluate the user reviews of Stax when deciding whether to use CardX (especially given the lack of CardX reviews at our disposal).
Here are some positive and negative things Stax merchants have to say online.
On the whole, CardX by Stax can be a good surcharging solution for businesses that want to implement this credit card processing model to save on fees. Just be aware that using CardX does not mean you can process cards without incurring any fees—monthly account fees and debit card processing fees will still apply.
Surcharging is not right for all businesses, but CardX’s automated compliance makes it a good choice if you do want to use this type of processing, particularly if you own a larger business and want to save on processing fees while also protecting your business from possible legal ramifications of noncompliant surcharging or cash discount implementations.
Since CardX doesn’t make its monthly fee structure completely clear on its website, be sure to get in writing exactly what terms and fees you’ll be agreeing to before you sign up—this is actually true for any payment processor. But from what I can tell, CardX’s terms look pretty above-board and merchant-friendly, especially considering the contract is month-to-month.
If you’re interested in ways to reduce your credit card processing fees in general, check out our post on how to offset or reduce your credit card processing fees.
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.
Credit Card Processing With Superior Support
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Credit Card Processing With Superior Support
Helcim ![]() |
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With Helcim, you get everything you need to accept credit card payments online or in-person with a free account, plus high-quality support from real humans. Start For Free.
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The vendors that appear on this list were chosen by subject matter experts on the basis of product quality, wide usage and availability, and positive reputation.
Merchant Maverick’s ratings are editorial in nature, and are not aggregated from user reviews. Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships.
Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone.
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