We conduct reviews and assign ratings to nearly every organization that provides merchant accounts and credit card processing to small and medium-sized businesses. Our aim is to help business owners by raising awareness of how credit card processing works and to hold service providers accountable for the way they conduct their card processing businesses.
About CPO
About Us
Our Resources for Business Owners
Statement Analyzer – Find hidden fees and overcharges in your statement.
Cost Consultation – Have one of our merchant fee specialists review your statement and offer advice on how to cut processing costs.
Annual Top Scoring Providers – Find a new merchant account provider that will treat you right.
Resources For Merchant Account Providers
Corrections – Request factual changes to a review.
Complaint Mediation – Respond to complaints in the comment section of your company’s review.
Add Your Voice – Respond publicly directly within our review regarding your company.
How We Make Money
The first and most important thing to know about CardPaymentOptions.com is that we do not take payments or bribes in exchange for favorable reviews or positive ratings. We believe in providing a fair, balanced, and unbiased view on the merchant account industry.
In fact, our integrity was publicly challenged in 2015 during a frivolous lawsuit brought by the now-defunct service provider, ElitePay Global. ElitePay Global attempted to argue that we are a paid subsidiary of payment processors rather than an independent review website. Their complaint falsely claimed that we accept payment for positive reviews and lower the scores of companies that do not pay us. Despite an extensive and prolonged Discovery process, the Court found that there was no evidence supporting such a claim and ruled in our favor via a Summary Judgment. You can read more about this lawsuit here.
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Cost Consultation
Our primary revenue source is our own cost consultation service wherein we help small businesses cut processing costs with their current service providers. This offers advantages over switching service providers as it allows businesses to avoid service interruptions, new equipment costs, re-training, and other time-consuming technology concerns.
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Affiliate Partnerships
Building trust with our readers is our first priority, so we must be transparent in how we generate revenue to support our operations. We also demand it of the service providers we review, so it would be hypocritical to not practice what we preach. With this in mind, a portion of our revenue is generated via affiliate agreements we have entered into with service providers that have earned stellar ratings in our reviews. Under these agreements, we may earn revenue if you obtain services from one of the providers that we recommend. Providers must first earn a high rating before being invited into our affiliate agreement. Once an agreement is established, it does not affect our editorial standards and we will remove a provider from our program if the quality of its service drops. There are numerous highly rated providers that want to work with us, so we are under no pressure to artificially inflate the score of a current affiliate partner. First and foremost, we want to make sure that you as a business owner are getting the best service provider and we will send you to that provider even if we do not get a payment in return.
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Service Provider Programs
We believe that it is important to give the companies we review avenues for dealing with complaints, providing their viewpoint, and potentially improving a poor rating and review. To this end, we offer programs that earn us revenue when providers choose to take part in these services.
Contact Us
We welcome your questions and feedback. Please see our contact page for details.
Contact Page