Helcim is great for new business owners who are looking for a processing partner

10-second breakdown:

Making the industry easier to understand one article or video at a time, Helcim is a Canadian company that recently entered the American market and immediately made a splash. Their clear and affordable fees make them a great credit card processor that’s worth a closer look.

The good:

Helcim scores major points for helping educate consumers. Whether Helcim is right for your business or not, you should check out their educational resources portal. They do a stellar job at explaining not only the in’s and outs of processing, but also what you should avoid and be on the look out for. This is a top notch resource.

Helcim has great customer service. They have a full time in-house staff that they use to take care of their customers. Phone and email support is available but they recommend you look through their extensive knowledgebase first. This is a great start if you have any questions due to its easy to read and navigate format.

Easy and unfront pricing, no hidden fees or confusing “introductory” rates. Helcim receives top scores in transparency. They use interchange plus pricing and even have charts to explain how they’re different than other processors.

The bad:

Helcim’s fees are more expensive than Square for businesses doing less that $2500/month. Small businesses would save money by looking at another processor.

Given that this is a Canadian company that has broken through to the US, businesses stateside have a few fees that Canadian counterparts don’t have to pay.

How it works:

Credit card processing sounds easy enough, you get a terminal and start taking credit cards right? In theory it’s simple but you’ll be in for a shock when you get the monthly bill. Sometimes it might feel like you need a masters in accounting to make heads or tails of your fees, who gets what percentage and why.

Helcim is helping to put a stop to that, their website is a veritable treasure-trove of information. This includes everything from breaking down complex pricing into crystal clear terms, showing you the pitfalls of the industry and more.

Seriously, even if you don’t go with Helcim, give their website a look. It has everything you need to understand what’s going on behind closed doors in the credit card payment processing industry. They even go through some common scams you might get suckered into like introductory APRs and how to avoid them, or at least understand the true rate you’ll pay after the introduction wears off.

Helcim lets you either outright purchase or rent a terminal from them to take card transactions. They highly recommend going with the purchase route, and have an informative article explaining how renting out a terminal is actually in the processor’s best interest, not yours.

If you don’t need or want a terminal, say if you take your orders over the phone, that’s perfectly fine. There’s a virtual terminal available that you can use for processing credit and debit cards right from your computer. It’s web-based so there’s no need for additional hardware.

Helcim is by far the most consumer friendly and it shows on their website. Many payment processors have services that they offer but don’t necessarily advertise. Helcim puts it front and center, ‘these are your options that could save you money, give them a look.’ One really good example is seasonal accounts. Do you run a business that only stays open during half the year or one specific season, like maybe touring your pumpkin patch during Halloween or selling pine trees in December? No problem, you don’t need to get any fees for canceling your service. Just let Helcim know and they’ll suspend your account until next season.

They also offer a pretty significant discount for non-profits. If you take donations instead of sales Helcim will give you a discount on your rate, and they can even host your website and optimize it to take donations with features like a shopping cart.

In addition to what Helcim does offer, it’s worth noting what they won’t charge you for. With any of their plans, there’s no monthly minimum, PCI-Compliance fees, setup fees, early termination fees, non-qualified fees and other hidden fees. They run through all of the pricing on their site, but what you see really is what you get. Simple, huh?

More of an annoyance than a real problem, the only downside to Helcim is that you’ll never get an assigned account representative. It doesn’t matter how large your account is, you get the same phone number and sales team as everyone else – it’s best not to expect to get on a first name basis with any single Helcim rep.

Helcim can be as friendly as they want, but how are their rates and transaction fees? Breath easy, Helcim leads the pack when it comes to their rates as well. As you might have guessed, everything is laid out nice and clean. Helcim goes by interchange-plus pricing, so you see what charges are going to the issuing bank and credit card associations as well as what their markup is. In addition to no termination fees, they provide a rate guarantee – for the life of your account their margin % will never go up.

There are three main plans offered, first up is Helcim’s ‘Retail’ option – it’s meant for wired or wireless terminals that you use in a storefront. There’s a $12 monthly fee and on top of wholesale interchange rates, you’ll pay an average 0.18% + 8¢ per transaction.

The second plan is intended for payments on your computer or website, it’s the ‘Virtual Terminal’ plan. It has a $25 monthly fee and you’ll pay an average premium of 0.36% + 25¢ per transaction. Virtual Terminal comes with an advanced gateway that you can use to store credit cards, charge recurring payments, email invoicing, ecommerce cart integration and more.

Last but not least is the ‘Mobile’ plan. It’s $30 a month and has a 0.18% + 8¢ fee per transaction like the Retail plan. Mobile is intended to be used on your mobile phone, it’ll cost $45 for a mobile card reader and you need it to get the best interchange rates. On the plus side, the reader is yours to keep and the app they use is completely free.

Helcim made a name for itself as a friendly, down to Earth credit card processor that is on the consumer’s side. Even if you’re already familiar with all the fees, tricks and traps of processors you can still appreciate Helcim’s clear, low fees.

For complete rankings of all credit card processors, go here.

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