Intro

Flow Payments is a payment processing company for high-risk and hard-to-place merchants. According to Flow Payments, 95% of its clients are in verticals that have difficulty being approved by traditional payment processors. Flow Payments promises white glove support, including a dedicated team to accompany your business throughout the life of your merchant account.

Flow Payments in Brief

Monthly fee: Varies

Per swipe fee: Varies

Setup fee: Varies

Cancellation fee: Varies

PCI compliance fee: Not stated

Best for: High-risk merchants such as payday lenders, hemp/CBD vendors, and gambling sites

Terminals

Flow Terminals says it offers credit card terminals with the ability to accept chip-based EMV transactions, but it doesn’t provide any examples at all. It also says it provides easy-to-use payment gateways and shopping carts, again without providing any examples. There’s no other way of saying it: the lack of transparency here is very disappointing.

The better news is that Flow Payments offers a range of alternative payment processing solutions including cashless ATM and e-check. Cashless ATM allows customers to purchase goods and services in a manner mimicking an ATM. The customer swipes their card, follows on-screen prompts, and enters their 4-digit PIN to complete the transaction. E-check stands for electronic check, and allows you to convert a paper check received from a customer into a regular electronic transfer.

POS solutions

Flow Payments doesn’t appear to provide any point-of-sale solutions.

Merchant services

From what we can gather, Flow Payments doesn’t offer any merchant services aside from credit card processing. If you’re looking for help with other service, such as business funding or website development, then we recommend looking to other providers.

Pricing

The Flow Payments website contains no information whatsoever about pricing. Given it caters to high-risk merchants, it’s safe to assume that in most cases it locks merchants into a tiered pricing structure with different rates and fees depending on type of transaction. It’s also reasonable to assume that there are a range of other fees such as monthly fees, cancellation fees, and PCI compliance buried into the contract. On the plus side, Flow Payments claims to charge less than other payments processors catering to high-risk merchants – and from the small number of user reviews that can be found online, it seems customers agree.

Applying and contracts

According to Flow Payments, contracts vary from 1-3 years and rates are determined based on your business history and processing history. To get started, you’ll need to provide a driver’s license, voided check, articles of incorporation, copy of EIN, and completed website.

As mentioned, Flow Payments specializes in serving high-risk merchants. This includes businesses in the following industries:

• Nutraceuticals
• Bad credit
• Debt consolidation & tax relief
• Adult products
• Payday and short-term loans
• Seminars (real estate / self-help / business)
• Tech support
• Credit repair
• Collection agencies
• Health & diet supplements
• Gaming & gambling
• Timeshares
• Insurance
• Hemp & CBD
• Auction and Auction Houses
• Charities with outbound calling
• Digital downloads
• E-cigarettes & vape
• Gift cards
• Ticket agencies

About Flow Payments

Flow Payments was founded by a group led by Brett Husak and boasting a combined 40+ years’ experience in the payment processing industry. The company was founded in 2018 and is based in Boston, MA. It doesn’t disclose any information about which processing banks it works with.

Customer Support

Because it has only existed two years, there aren’t that many customer reviews to assess Flow Payments on. With that said, the handful of Trustpilot reviews are all positive, with customers praising Flow Payments for its level of service and low fees.

To speak with a Flow Payments representative, call (888) 879-7022.

Summary

Given the lack of transparency and customer feedback, it’s hard to give a proper assessment of Flow Payments. With that said, the fact it specializes in working with high-risk merchants makes it worth checking out if you’re in the sort of industry that gets you rejected by traditional processors.