The weAudit Gateway Scorecard · No. 8
NMI Review: The White-Label Gateway, Its Fees, and Our Rating
The biggest gateway most merchants have never heard of, graded the way we grade everything: by what it actually costs them.
4.25
out of 10
Last updated July 2026
$502B
Processed yearly by a gateway most merchants have never heard of
NMI does not sell to merchants. It sells to the ISOs, software vendors, and payment facilitators who sell to you, as a white-label platform they brand as their own, with NMI removed entirely from the merchant’s view. Over a million merchants run on it, and most of them have no idea. That matters, because you cannot scrutinize a vendor you do not know you have, and the pricing model underneath is built module by module, fee by fee, with your reseller deciding the markup on every one.
The Paper Trail
Who Owns NMI?
2001
Founded in Illinois as Network Merchants
2017
Francisco Partners takes control
Great Hill aboard since 2014
2021
Insight Partners buys ~40%
At 4x the 2017 value
Owned by Private Equity, Three Deep
Three private equity firms share NMI: Francisco Partners, Great Hill Partners, and Insight Partners. Between 2017 and 2021 the company’s value more than quadrupled. Nothing quadruples by accident. A million merchants paying module fees they never itemize, through resellers who set the markup, is exactly the kind of stream private equity pays four times over to own.
Follow the Money
The 4x Question
When Insight Partners bought roughly 40% of NMI in 2021, the deal valued the company at more than four times what it was worth when Francisco Partners invested in 2017. Nothing quadruples in four years by accident. That growth was a calculation investors could verify: module fees and per-transaction charges flowing from hundreds of thousands of merchants who never chose the platform, never see its name, and never itemize its costs.
So ask the question nobody asks: how much must a gateway be making on merchants for its value to quadruple in four years and attract a third private equity firm? Every module fee and every markup on your statement is funding a return model three investment committees signed off on. When a payments company changes hands, the merchants become the payment plan. With NMI, most of the merchants do not even know they are in it.
The Popularity Trap
Why Are So Many Merchants on NMI?
Simple: they never chose it, and most never see it. When an ISO or a software platform offers “their” gateway, roughly 60% of the time in the ISO world what is under the hood is NMI wearing the reseller’s logo. The merchant signs up for the branded portal, the transactions flow, and the name NMI never appears anywhere, not on the contract, not on the statement, not in the support line greeting.
Here is the problem. The reseller wearing the logo controls your pricing, module by module. NMI’s wholesale model is pay-for-what-you-use, which sounds fair until it reaches you as pay-for-everything: a fee to process, a fee to change, a fee for the vault, a fee for the reporting, each one marked up by a party whose name is on your bill and whose margin depends on you not itemizing it. One quoted price on the way in. A fee for everything after.
The Scorecard
How NMI Scores
Nickel and Dime
3/10
A Fee for Everything
You are quoted one price. Then you discover that everything you do has its own fee: processing, changes, modules, features, each a separate billable event. That is not your reseller improvising. It is the architecture: NMI prices its platform modularly to the ISOs and software vendors who resell it, and every module becomes a markup opportunity on its way to your statement. Death by a thousand line items, and no single one big enough to trigger a phone call.
Interchange
3/10
Nothing Bad, Nothing Good
NMI has no data enhancement. It can pass Level 2 and Level 3 fields if your integration supplies them, which makes it just like almost every other gateway: nothing bad that we know of, but nothing good either. For a B2B merchant, “nothing good” is expensive. The roughly 30 fields still have to come from somewhere, the April and October rule changes still have to be maintained by someone, and when neither happens, corporate cards quietly downgrade while the branded portal reports that everything processed just fine.
Invisibility
3/10
The Gateway With No Name
White-labeling is a feature for the reseller and a problem for you. When your gateway wears someone else’s brand, accountability splits three ways between NMI, the ISO, and the processor, and none of them is the name you think you are doing business with. You cannot benchmark fees for a product you cannot identify, you cannot read reviews of a brand that exists only on your statement, and the party marking up your modules is counting on exactly that.
Credit Where Due
8/10
A Genuinely Open Engine
Credit where it is due: the engine itself is excellent. NMI connects to 200+ processors and 125+ shopping carts, which makes it genuinely processor-agnostic, the opposite of the lock-in that defines Stripe or Shift4, and it moves half a trillion dollars a year without drama. A merchant on NMI can often fix their situation without replacing their gateway at all, because the flexibility is real. Our issue has never been the engine. It is the bodywork your reseller bolted on and what they charge you for it.
“You’ve never heard of NMI. Your statement has.”
Beyond the Scorecard
Are You Even on the Right Gateway?
A scorecard tells you about the gateway. An audit tells you about YOUR gateway, on your card mix, your industry, and your statements. Every weAudit engagement reveals:
✓Whether you are on the right payment gateway for your business, or quietly paying for the wrong one
✓Missed interchange qualifications and forced downgrades
✓Incorrect setups: interchange flags, MCC codes, shopping carts, and gateways
✓Hidden, inflated, and made up fees buried in your statement
✓Processor markups and kept interchange rebates
✓PCI non-compliance fees you may not even owe
✓Contract traps: auto renewals, exit penalties, and terms working against you
✓Incorrect MCC codes costing you specialty interchange rates
✓And much more. If it is on your statement, we audit it.
Common Questions
NMI FAQ
Does NMI support Level 2 and Level 3 processing?
It can pass Level 2 and Level 3 fields if your integration supplies them, but there is no data enhancement and no auto-population. Your systems must provide roughly 30 correct fields per transaction and keep pace with interchange rule changes every April and October. That makes NMI just like most gateways: nothing bad, but nothing good, and for B2B merchants “nothing good” quietly costs real money in downgrades.
How much does NMI cost?
There is no single answer, and that is the point. NMI prices its platform modularly to the resellers who brand it, and your reseller sets your rates, module by module, markup by markup. Merchants report being quoted one price and then finding a fee attached to everything they do: processing, changes, features, each its own line item. What you pay depends entirely on who sold it to you and how closely you read the schedule.
Am I using NMI without knowing it?
Quite possibly. NMI powers over a million merchants through thousands of ISOs and software platforms, almost always under the reseller’s brand with NMI’s name removed from view. If your gateway came bundled from your ISO, your point of sale, or your industry software, there is a meaningful chance NMI is the engine underneath. Your statement and your gateway’s technical documentation will tell the truth, and so will an audit.
Who owns NMI?
Three private equity firms: Francisco Partners, which took control in 2017, Great Hill Partners, invested since 2014, and Insight Partners, which bought roughly 40% in 2021 at a valuation more than four times the 2017 level. NMI was founded in Illinois in 2001 as Network Merchants Inc. Private equity does not quadruple a valuation on sentiment. It does it on fee streams.
Should I switch away from NMI?
Not necessarily, and this is where NMI differs from the lock-in gateways: it connects to 200+ processors, so the engine itself rarely traps you. The problem is usually the deal wrapped around it, the module fees, the markups, and the missing interchange optimization. Sometimes the fix is repricing or reconfiguring what you have. Sometimes a B2B card mix justifies a data-enhanced gateway instead. Upload a statement and we will tell you which one you are.
Are You on NMI Without Knowing It?
If your gateway came from your ISO or your software vendor under their own brand, there is a good chance NMI is underneath, and an even better chance nobody has ever itemized what the modules and markups cost you. Upload a statement and we will show you, line by line, including whose gateway you are actually on. No obligation. Just answers.
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Written by the team at weAudit, founded by a More Than a Decade as an Executive at Fifth Third Processing Solutions, later Vantiv and Worldpay, now part of Global Payments, the world’s largest card processor. Forbes Business Council. Entrepreneur Contributor.
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