When To Change Payment Processors

If you’re reading this article, you’re likely considering changing your payment processor — but you need more information before making a move. We get it: Switching your payment processor can feel like a huge headache. Researching options, migrating processors, learning how to use new systems, and the potential for temporary disruptions — all these, plus the fear of not knowing whether it will achieve the goals you have in mind can be extremely discouraging. But think about the challenges you’re currently experiencing with your payment processor. Do you want to continue experiencing subpar services and risk losing business revenue?

If your answer is no, here are five reasons to change payment processors and never look back.

Payment Processor vs. Payment Gateway

First, let’s clear up the difference between a payment gateway and a payment processor. One is a company, and the other is a technology.

A payment processor is an organization that handles the transaction details between the merchant (your business) and the customer’s bank. It facilitates the movement of funds from the customer’s account to the merchant’s.

A payment gateway is a technology that captures and transfers payment data from the customer to the payment processor. It acts as a virtual point-of-sale terminal for online transactions.

Signs It’s Time To Switch Payment Processors

Here’s how you’ll know it’s time to change your payment processor.

You Want Lower Payment Processing Fees

Many payment processors rope in merchants with the promise of “the lowest fees.” However, there can still be sticker shock when you look at your first statement.

Hidden fees are usually the first thing to push you to change your payment processor. Many payment processors will never willingly disclose these fees to you and will bury them deep in the contracts to ensure you don’t notice them. This is because some of these fees don’t scale with your business and can be a way of exploiting you.

Tiered pricing plans are another reason the rates you’re currently paying your payment processor might not make financial sense. While most payment processors market these pricing plans as a way to simplify your billing payments, this usually ends up being very unfavorable. Grouping different types of credit card transactions into a single category and charging one price can lead to overpaying for certain transactions.

Your Current Payment Processor Has Poor Customer Support

Can’t get hold of your payment processor? It might be time to make the switch. When payment issues disrupt your operations, reliable customer support is essential for resolving them. Unfortunately, poor customer support isn’t always evident when signing the contract with your payment processor.

Many payment processing companies promise exemplary support but fail to deliver, even if they have great customer reviews online. But this shouldn’t mean you settle for less — if you feel your current payment processor’s customer support is not very responsive, you have every right to look for better alternatives.

You Need To Handle More Than Level 1 Data

Different data levels require varying amounts of information for a processor to capture the transaction, which can then affect processing costs. Level 1 is the most basic type of data requiring the least amount of information, such as cardholder data, while level 3 is the most advanced type of data. The more data required to process transactions, the more comprehensive the payment processor you’ll require. If your current processor limits you to level 1 data or doesn’t support higher levels, switching to a more advanced processor can optimize your transaction costs and be overall more efficient.

You’re Expanding to New Geographies

If you’re in e-commerce, you might want to expand your business to cater to international customers. While this might be exciting in terms of revenue growth, challenges with your payment processor may come up due to limited support for international transactions. Issues like currency incompatibility and currency conversion issues can make it hard to continue relying on your current payment processing organization. In such a case, you should consider switching to a company that supports more regions and currencies in order to ensure a seamless expansion of your business.

You Need a Backup Processor

At some point, your business will experience growth concerning trade volumes, customers, transactions, etc., that your current payment processor may not be able to handle. When this happens, you want to be prepared so customers don’t become frustrated and leave. And if you experience frequent system outages, that will also negatively affect your business. A reliable backup processor can mitigate these issues.

Make the Switch

If your business stands to lose revenue because the payment processor you’re using isn’t effective, you may no longer have the luxury of waiting for things to change. Make that switch as soon as today! Chargent can help you process payments directly in Salesforce. With Salesforce payment processing, your business can collect payments faster and improve cash flow, which is vital for business growth. You’ll also benefit from over 30 payment gateway integrations, ensuring your Salesforce payment processor is PCI-compliant.

Need more info on how Chargent can help your business? Contact AppFrontier today.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you choose a payment processor?

There are several things you should consider before choosing a payment processor, including fees, security, customer support, scalability, mobile-friendliness, and integration with your e-commerce platform or website.

Can you have multiple payment processors?

Yes. It’s actually recommended to have more than one payment processor. For one, multiple payment processors set you free from vendor lock-in and the hassle of dealing with bad services caused by downtimes or volume limits. Multiple processors can also help improve your conversion rates because they offer additional payment methods and auto-retries and optimize payment flow.

What percentage do payment processors take?

Payment processors typically charge merchants 1.5%–3.5% for each transaction they facilitate.

What is the difference between a payment processor and an acquiring bank?

A payment processor is an organization that handles the transaction details between the merchant (your business) and the customer’s bank. The acquiring bank is the financial institution where your business’s funds get deposited when you accept payments.

What differentiates payment processors?

Things like fees, customer service, and the ability to facilitate international transactions are some things that can differentiate one payment processor from another.

The Chargent product has streamlined our process for credit cards. Our customers and sales team find it easy to tokenize our credit card payments. Any questions are answered quickly by the customer support team. Chargent was the right partner for my company.

Maria C, October, 2020

We use Chargent to manage all of our sustaining memberships and for sending out payment requests. Makes it so much easier for people to pay their invoices. It is also such an easy tool to get set up and running!

Bonnie S, April, 2020

Chargent works really well and can be configured lots of different ways to fit your business needs. I’ve implemented the product on a few different projects with a variety of requirements and the package is very smooth. The Chargent Support team is also one of the best I’ve ever worked with.

William S, December, 2021

Chargent’s application has provided us the ability to automate a payment process which normally took a person 15 minutes to process, down to less than a minute with the Chargent integration. Handling payments in the past will no longer haunt us since we are now PCI compliant, we know we can rest our client’s minds by letting them know their data is secure.

Nick S, March, 2020

We have received overwhelming support from Robert Ruelas on the Chargent/Accounting Seed integration. Robert stayed with us on our problem until resolved. We don’t find this level of support frequently and would recommend the Chargent App for any organization that handles credit cards when you are using Salesforce and/or Accounting Seed.

Mike M, February, 2020

With Robert’s help my client was able to convert sales to cash and utilize partial payment and recurring payment settings. With Chargent and DBSync integrations, my client is able to integrate QuickBooks Enterprise to record invoices, payments and estimates for progress billing. I highly recommend this integration.

Salesforce Consultant, June, 2019

BEST IN CLASS!! Chargent was a game changer for us. It has allowed a payment automation process for our sales team that we could not live without. The team is quick to respond and eager to help. I could not ask for a better partner.

John D., May, 2022

We have been using devs to handle our connections between FormAssembly, Chargent and Salesforce. I was asked to change our payment methods and was having issues with it being charged to the wrong gateway. Nick and I had a web meeting in which he was able to point out the issue of a different process builder that was changing gateways from the one I thought was. Even though this issue was on our Salesforce end, he was more than willing to help and explain things to me.

Tim P, November 2022

Excellent for all types of payments. We’ve been running recurring and one time billing through Chargent for at least the last five years. They have frequent updates to keep us compliant and there are virtually never any issues with payments. Even better is their support team.

Nick F, October, 2020

This is a great app that helps simplify receiving payments from most popular payment gateways and recording everything in Salesforce. I’m a consultant and set this up for a client who had a very custom requirement. Chargent support was very helpful in guiding me on the configuration.

Kaivalya K, July, 2020

We are using Chargent for handling payment processing. On one click of “Send Pay Request” we can send an email and customer can pay easily just with a link. Customer support team is quick in response and ready to help. I like how Chargent stay ahead and helps update Chargent app according to Salesforce new releases.

Deepika N, June, 2020

I’m a SF Admin recently charged with preparing for the June 20′ release. I am extremely grateful for the support team at Chargent. I am very impressed with the thoroughness of monitoring their product with SF and the proactive approach to keeping ahead of the releases. Thank you Chargent!

Andrew K, May, 2020

Chargent has simplified our billing needs substantially. We are able to charge hundreds of customers with ease while receiving timely support by the Chargent team whenever it is needed. Very satisfied!

Powell N, November, 2020

My client was in search of a Credit Card Chip Reader solution as they were migrating off of old card swipers and their current payment product. In doing research, Chargent Terminal seemed to be a great fit. The whole process of implementation from cradle to grave was seamless and simple. My clients said that Chargent is far more intuitive and has made their lives in processing payments extremely simple.

Arnold C, July, 2020

Chargent is a great payment processing solution! We’ve been using the app for a little over a year now and our end users love the simple ability to send payment links to clients. As an admin, it’s easy for me to add gateways when we open new locations.

Brea G, August, 2021

Chargent has helped streamline our recurring payments. Before we could only automate monthly payments. Now we can automate, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and yearly. We can also automate outreach for declined payments.

Sarah R, September 2022

As someone who has a technical background but is relatively new to working in Salesforce, I have been very impressed with the Chargent product for Salesforce. I was first impressed by the very comprehensive guides and online documentation available. Subsequently, in working to update and upgrade our Chargent implementation, our organization has worked with three different support reps over the past year and each one has been super friendly, very helpful, and very technically proficient. A great example of how to do technical support the right way!

David M., January, 2022

We came across Chargent during our Salesforce implementation. We were having lots of issues with online payments. Chargent solved all our problems in an instance. Highly recommend this product for higher education institutes, especially TargetX CRM users.

Ahmet D, April, 2021

I am the Salesforce Admin for our company. We have a very delicate environment and way too much customization. Our business required a solution that is not out of the box Chargent. The support and quick response I have received is above and beyond what is expected.

Kent B, August, 2021

I am very pleased with the support I receive for Chargent. I have implemented it for several clients and I always have questions regarding each use case. The support team is very knowledgeable and helpful!

Salesforce Consultant, March, 2019

I implemented Chargent for an end customer because of the limitations on the current app that they were using. The Chargent APIs are super simple, the support staff was great and very responsive. We found a great partner in Chargent. The simplicity in setting up multiple gateways and recurring billing configuration options are second to none if you want the go by clicks not code mantra.

Swapnil M, July, 2020

We signed up for the add-on package for the Automated Payments and the same day we signed up we had Nick schedule a meeting with us to get started. He was not only helpful for the initial set up, but he would send helpful training videos for the rest of the team. Usually when you sign up for something new it takes a long time to train everyone and get it set up. I am happy to say that was not the case for us.

Tonya B, November 2022

When our incompetent SF implementation partner dropped the ball, Chargent support was able to login to our account, identify the issue, and have it resolved in less than 24 hours so we had virtually no downtime in processing payments. Excellent job!

Jon A, November, 2021

The Support Team at Chargent was very helpful and diligent in supporting our needs and transition to Chargent. Responses were on time and punctual on a case by case basis and the support team is a pleasure to work with!

John D., March, 2022

We are successfully tokenizing credit cards, sending payment links, and processing credit cards for multiple payment gateways and companies. Setup was easy and tech support was very responsive when needed. Chargent was exactly what our company needed to capture payments via Salesforce. Thanks to the flexibility and security features of Chargent, we have been able to reduce our credit card processing fees by close to 2%.

James C, September, 2020

Seamless app for integrating our donations into our Salesforce platform. Excellent and responsive customer service.

Kate G, February 2023

We love that Chargent is entirely native to Salesforce and allows for a lot of customizations, such as complete control over email templates, invoices, receipts, etc. It makes it much easier in a heavily regulated field, Financial Services. The support quality alone is enough for me to fully endorse this company.

Financial Services, July, 2020

Chargent makes automating our monthly donor payments a snap. Top-notch, extremely responsive service. Thanks!

Amy K, October, 2021

Chargent is very useful, and is able to make complicated integrations much more straightforward. In just a few minutes, the setup wizard is able to connect you to a variety of different gateways to test or process live transactions. There’s also good documentation to walk you through the specifics of integrating with a particular gateway. The few complications I’ve run into have been handled by a capable and friendly support team.

James M, July 2022

I’m a consultant in the Entertainment space and my clients are always looking for a quick/easy way to leverage their existing payment processing provider within Salesforce. I recommend Chargent every single time. The solution is flexible and allows for a great deal of customization.

Charles O, May, 2021

Great integrated solution for capturing payments — and great support! This solution has made it so much easier for our org to track payments and make sure they are tethered to the original deal, and it makes the capturing of payments so quick and seamless for our customers. Also, the support is great! Quick response times and relentless problem solving on the part of the support team!

Katie K., April, 2022

We needed to streamline our Auth.Net connection for our members credit card transactions so that they are viewable and management in SF. Chargent was the perfect application for this to occur. It is very user friendly and is a native SF application, which is also a huge plus. Highly recommend this application!

Kevin K., August, 2022

We needed to streamline our Auth.Net connection for our members credit card transactions so that they are viewable and management in SF. Chargent was the perfect application for this to occur. It is very user friendly and is a native SF application, which is also a huge plus.

Kevin K, August 2022

Chargent is incredible! It makes getting payment so much easier when you can send a link, and the client can click on it and process payment on their own time.

Camille T, January 2023

Payment Processor vs. Payment Gateway