Host Merchant Services Review

Pros

• Transparent interchange-plus pricing
• No early termination fee
• No setup or application fees
• No monthly minimums
• Good customer support
• Good website and advertising

Cons

• Can be expensive for low-volume merchants
• US-based businesses only

Host Merchant Services Overview

Host Merchant Services (HMS) is a US-based merchant services provider. HMS offers interchange-plus pricing exclusively and will readily admit if its rate structure won’t work the best for your business. (For example, it could be too cost-prohibitive for a very low-volume mobile payment business.)

The company accepts some high-risk industries through a partnership with Electronic Merchant Systems (EMS) and is one of our top recommendations for the best high-risk merchant service providers.

Also, HMS has very few complaints at the BBB and other consumer review sites, directly corroborating its “service first” story — that and the fact that positive testimonies are readily available. Although HMS’s client list could be seen as short (around 6,000), the lack of negative response is not because the company isn’t out there serving any customers.

So even if your business is low-volume, you’ll likely receive excellent customer service with HMS. That can be a huge deal.

Let’s take a closer look at what HMS has to offer.

Products & Services

Host Merchant Services offers a full range of products and services for just about any type of business. Here’s a brief overview of its primary services:

Host Merchant Services Fees & Rates

HMS offers interchange-plus pricing to all clients, with guaranteed rates for the life of your merchant account. HMS’s Pricing page offers extensive disclosures of both processing rates and account fees.

While the published rates are for businesses processing over $10,000 per month, there are no monthly minimums with HMS. According to its website, HMS will customize a rate package for lower volume accounts. You can expect around 0.50%-0.55% + $0.10 as a starting point for volumes under $10K. The published rates for over $10K are a baseline. Higher volume businesses will certainly have the flexibility to negotiate the perfect credit card processing deal.

Processing Rates

• Retail: Interchange + 0.25% + $0.10/transaction
• Restaurant: Interchange + 0.20% + $0.09/transaction
• eCommerce: Interchange + 0.35% + $0.10/transaction

Account Fees

• Application/Setup Fees: $0.00
• 1099 Reporting Fee: $24.00/year
• Account Fee: $14.99/month
• Gateway Fee: $5.00/month (optional)
• Voice Authorization: $0.75/authorization
• Batch Processing Fee: $0.20/batch
• PCI Compliance Fee: $0.00
• PCI Non-Compliance Fee: $0.00
• Chargebacks: $15.00/incident
• Retrievals: $20.00
• PIN Debit/EBT Fee: $0.00
• Address Verification Service (AVS): $0.00
• Early Termination Fee: $0.00
• Cash Discounting Program: $20.00/month (under $5K/month) or $0.00/month ($5K/month or higher)

Overall, Host’s pricing is fair and reasonable, and compares favorably to most of our other preferred providers. You’ll note that rates for restaurants are lower than for retail. This rate variance is due to the generally lower risk/higher volume nature of the food business. Additionally, HMS is specifically looking to attract restaurant owners to its customized POS system.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

Happily, HMS is one of the relatively few merchant services providers that publicizes processing rates on its website.

HMS discloses just about everything on its website, except for the costs of a few hardware devices. While the site’s layout isn’t the most intuitive we’ve seen, it offers an impressive amount of information to help you make a decision about whether the company will be a good choice for your business. Just be ready to click around a bit until you find what you’re looking for.

Although HMS primarily uses an in-house sales team to market and set up accounts, it also uses independent sales agents, disclosing an ISO agent program on its website. Fortunately, this hasn’t resulted in any complaints about the company’s sales practices. Unlike most vendors in the processing industry, HMS appears to keep a tight rein on its independent agents. In this case, it shouldn’t make any difference to you as a prospective merchant whether you work with a company employee or an independent agent.

Contract Length & Early Termination Fee

There are no long-term contracts or early termination fees with HMS. Your merchant agreement includes an attached waiver of any cancellation fees, so keep your eyes peeled for this. In the Partnership FAQ, HMS also guarantees to pay up to $250 in owed early termination fees for referred clients and $500 if that referral client processes over $50,000 per month. Perhaps this deal only applies in a referral situation, but if you’re considering HMS and are facing a merchant account early termination fee with another provider, it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask!

Customer Service & Technical Support

Host Merchant Services offers 24/7 telephone support to all its merchants. There’s also a live chat feature that’s available during regular business hours. After hours, you may be passed to TSYS tech support or another third-party company associated with your account, but HMS reviews and personally follows up on all of these conversations.

Other support literature on the website is a combination of older articles and a more current blog focusing on industry news and topics of interest to card processing merchants. This content is frequently linked on the HMS Twitter and Facebook pages.

HMS also advertises local, on-site troubleshooting for malfunctioning terminals, which it offers within about a 150-mile radius from its offices in Newark (the Delaware one) and Naples. I suspect a large portion of businesses with HMS-installed hardware are in New England or Florida and can benefit from this local touch, which subsequently contributes to the high customer satisfaction rate.

Host Merchant Services User Reviews

Host Merchant Services has great user reviews. Let’s look closer at the feedback.

Final Verdict On Host Merchant Services

Besides referrals from happy customers, HMS gains most of its clients by reaching out directly to local brick-and-mortar companies or by tapping into its network of web-based business connections. HMS is thus able to effectively close those sales by customizing a suite of products and services for each client and by explaining its inherently fair system of interchange-plus pricing. Then, the company enhances client loyalty with attentive customer service and secondary partnerships. HMS does an excellent job at this and has a great reputation to prove it.

Host Merchant Services has received one of our highest scores overall, and it’s one of the best credit card processors for small businesses that we’ve found. We heartily recommend checking out HMS, especially if you are based in Delaware, Florida, or Colorado, or if you run a web hosting or cloud service provider business.

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.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Host Merchant Services	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Host Merchant Services for yourself.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Host Merchant Services	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Host Merchant Services for yourself.

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