The Anti-Brochure Series
The Processor Scoreboard
Independent 0-100 ratings for the credit card processors handling America’s small-business revenue, built exclusively on the documented record: lawsuits, settlements, complaint files, fee specimens, and the companies’ own responses. No processor pays to be here. No processor can pay to leave.
Every score calculated under the published weAudit Rating Methodology · Sorted by score, lowest first · Last updated August 2026
Below 60: documented record warranting extreme caution
60-69: documented pattern of merchant-hostile practices
Not scored: special dossier
The Board · 33 Ratings + 5 Dossiers
Click any company for the full documented profile
Each profile carries the evidence behind every point deducted: case numbers, settlement amounts, statement specimens, and the exact steps to take if you process with them today.
34/ 100
34/ 100
37/ 100
41/ 100
43/ 100
44/ 100
44/ 100
45/ 100
47/ 100
47/ 100
48/ 100
48/ 100
49/ 100
49/ 100
50/ 100
50/ 100
51/ 100
51/ 100
53/ 100
53/ 100
53/ 100
55/ 100
56/ 100
58/ 100
58/ 100
60/ 100
60/ 100
60/ 100
60/ 100
61/ 100
61/ 100
62/ 100
64/ 100
SEE:
43
NOT
SCORED
SEE:
44
NOT
SCORED
SPONSOR
BANK
SPECIAL
REPORT
READER
GUIDE
READER
GUIDE
Fullsteam
Five rate increases in three years, and a statement that never prints your markup. Often billing under names like SC Pay and Merchant Track. Read the rating →CardConnect
Settled for $7.65 million with court-ordered fee limits, then sued for allegedly ignoring them. Read the rating →EVO Payments
Federal complaints named the fee codes: PASSTHRU, APF, NABU. Our own audit found $134,689.38 on its rails. Read the rating →Paysafe
Its own response conceded $9,001 in fees on a dead account, and it billed an exit fee to a merchant it fired. Read the rating →Fiserv
Three across-the-board rate increases in nine months, and securities suits over the forced Clover migration. Read the rating →Clover
Its own agreement prints NON-CANCELABLE on the equipment lease and leaves the number of months blank for the salesperson to fill in. Read the rating →MerchantE
Rates documented growing to 5-7% of every sale, and a $500 fee quoted to make it stop. Read the rating →PayPal
Approved in minutes, reviewed later. A 180-day hold set by algorithm, a $25M CFPB penalty, and refund fees you never get back. Read the rating →Heartland
Wrote a Merchant Bill of Rights against hidden fees. Then a $1,500 monthly pricing action its own manager admitted was an error, and kept drafting. Read the rating →Payroc
Publishes its whole merchant agreement, which almost nobody does. It sets a four year term, a termination fee with no number attached, and 60 days to dispute a charge. Read the rating →Worldpay
A $52 million overbilling settlement behind it, and new fee changes weeks after its latest sale closed. Read the rating →Century Business Solutions
No published pricing, a three year contract, and an ERP integration that cannot be taken to another processor. Read the rating →Global Payments
A junk-fee class action at Heartland, and a documented $22,663.48 “courtesy credit” that speaks for itself. Read the rating →PNC Merchant Services
A $14.5 million settlement over fees, in a suit alleging new customers were opted out of itemized statements. Read the rating →TSYS
A $53 million FTC matter in its history, and its own filings describing fee growth as a revenue driver. Read the rating →FrontStream Payments
Fundraising software that also owns the merchant account. The donor covers the fee, so nobody in the building has ever seen the rate, and two interchange programmes sit unclaimed. Read the rating →Elavon
Sued a family restaurant over a breach its own forensics never found, and billed $879.92 under the code SLVR STD. Read the rating →Priority Payment Systems
Reps can sign you but are “not authorized” to close your account, and the documented exit can end in collections. Read the rating →Wells Fargo Merchant Services
A $40 million fee settlement whose court-ordered fixes mark exactly where the complaint said the harm lived. Read the rating →Shift4
An A+ rating around a one-star record, and fee games our own monthly audits of an NFL client keep catching. Read the rating →Stax
A membership fee our audit files price above pure interchange-plus, and a documented refusal to prove the bill. Read the rating →Paya
A 15-minute approval that defers real underwriting, and a canceled account billed a year under a descriptor naming nobody. Read the rating →Clearent by Xplor
A clean legal record, 9 of 25 points on fees, and a processor sold through your software’s locked door. Read the rating →QuickBooks Payments (Intuit)
The fund-hold evidence lives on Intuit’s own forum: $36K, $47K, 180 days, and class actions recruiting in the threads. Read the rating →Braintree (PayPal)
The cleanest contract on the board, a 50-60 basis point flat-rate premium, and funds frozen a year after disputes were won. Read the rating →Bank of America Merchant Services
Two eras, one lesson: the legacy paper’s two-contract trap, and a reformed model that still deserves an audit. Read the rating →Square (Block)
You don’t have a merchant account. Square does. And the flat rate hides the interchange on every single swipe. Read the rating →Versapay
A rate-optimization brand that, in our own audit files, raised client fees 30 basis points and held firm. Read the rating →Toast
The cleanest legal record on the board, and a contract that lets Toast reprice your rate on 30 days’ notice while your silence counts as yes. Read the rating →Stripe
In one documented case, the account closed in days, the hold ran months, and the only money that moved was Stripe’s fee. Read the rating →CyberSource
Visa’s own gateway: no published prices, no BBB profile of its own, and merchants documented auto-enrolled in processing they didn’t choose. Read the rating →Chase Paymentech
Interchange billed under internal codes that prevent validation. Your largest expense, unverifiable by design. Read the rating →Helcim
Published rates, premium prices. A payment facilitator on Elavon’s rails, and no way to bring a data-enhanced gateway. Read the rating →43
FIS
Out of merchant processing since the Worldpay separation. Legacy FIS merchants are on Fiserv or Worldpay paper now; this routes you to the rating that covers it. Read the rating →SCORED
Vantiv
Dissolved into Worldpay in 2018. The dossier traces five owners and tells legacy merchants whose paper they’re on. Read the dossier →44
Merchant e-Solutions
Rebranded as MerchantE. Same company, same paper; this dossier routes legacy merchants to the full rating. Read the dossier →SCORED
Cielo
Brazil’s largest processor owned MerchantE for a decade, then went home. The dossier maps where its US merchants landed. Read the dossier →BANK
Pathward
Formerly MetaBank. The member bank on your paperwork that never quoted you a rate, caps what it can owe you at $10,000, and is being sued by merchants over retained chargebacks. Read the dossier →REPORT
The Merchants Are the Merchandise
What a buyer actually buys when a processor is sold, and why every ownership change should send you to your statement. Read the report →GUIDE
My Processor Rating Is Missing
Thousands of ISOs and agents call themselves processors. How to read the footer disclosure and find who is really behind your account. Read the guide →GUIDE
Your ISO Has No Record
A clean file on a small sales organization measures visibility, not conduct. Where your price is really set, and why nobody publishes it. Read the guide →
Their record is on this board. Your money is on your statement.
weAudit is America’s #1 Credit Card Processing Auditing Firm, founded by a Former Executive for the World’s Largest Credit Card Processor. We audit your statements every month for a low fixed fee, never a percentage, and we answer to no processor. Ever.
Get Your Statement Audited
Right of response: Every company rated in this series is invited to respond to any finding on its profile. Responses received will be published unedited. Contact: [email protected]
How these ratings work: Every score is calculated under weAudit’s published Rating Methodology, applied consistently to every company. Profiles report documented information from government agencies, court records, the Better Business Bureau, review platforms, and independent published analysis, with sources linked throughout. Allegations from lawsuits are reported as allegations and are not adjudicated facts; settlements are not admissions of wrongdoing; complaint data is reported as the accounts of the merchants who filed it. Scores change when the documented record changes, in both directions.
Independence: weAudit accepts no compensation, referral fees, or advertising from any payment processor. No company can pay for placement, scoring, or removal. Our only clients are merchants.
Corrections: Documented errors are corrected within 48 hours of verification. Last updated August 2026.
What you are actually being charged
- Credit card processing fees and ratesWhat a merchant pays once interchange, assessments and processor margin are added up.
- Interchange fees explainedThe wholesale rate the card networks set and who keeps it.
- Current interchange ratesThe full Visa, Mastercard and Discover interchange tables for the current schedule.
- Processing savings calculatorEnter your own volume and effective rate and see what the gap is worth over a year.
- Credit card processing glossaryPlain English definitions of 69 statement terms, fee names and abbreviations.
- Chargeback insurance and what it really costsWhy paying a monthly premium to cover disputes leaves the underlying cost, and the ratio, exactly where it was.
What the fees on your statement actually are
- The Statement DecoderEvery line item that can appear on a merchant statement, explained one at a time.
- Interchange on your statementWhat the largest line on your statement pays for, who sets it, and why the same sale can settle at different rates.
- Gateway feeWhat the gateway charge covers, what it should cost, and where processors add margin to it.
- PCI DSS compliance feeWhy it appears, how the non-compliance charge works, and which PCI charges can be removed.
- Monthly statement feeThe recurring administrative charge that is nearly always pure margin.
- Visa assessment feeA genuine network cost, and how to tell whether yours is being passed through at cost.