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5 Best Payment Gateways for High Risk Businesses on Shopify

Last updated: September 01, 2024
Written and researched by experts at AvadaLearn more about our methodology

By Sam Nguyen

CEO Avada Commerce

Shopify marketplace now is popular with a lot of online merchants because it is considered as one of the most potential markets with millions of customers every day. Today the diversity of payment methods allows Shopify store owners to sell their products anywhere around the world. However, the risk of paying with credit or debit cards is unavoidable in payment processing because of many reasons which are represented below.

As an eCommerce entrepreneur, it is essential for them to understand the different categories of Payment Gateways as well as calculate the risk level of their own businesses. When the sellers can recognize which one is High Risk Payment Processing, it is possible for them to choose the best methods to minimize their risk.

If you want to discover more about the High Risk Merchants as well as suitable payment gateways for them, this article Best Payment Gateways for High Risk Businesses on Shopify is the best for you.

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An overview of high-risk businesses

Running an online business in the high-volume marketplace as Shopify is not easy to manage every single transaction. Especially when the size of the business is getting bigger and bigger, the store owners can get lower processing rates depending on the level of financial risk that their processor has.

An overview of high-risk businesses

Definition

This high-risk merchant term could be easily defined as any business that represents an elevated fraud risk to the credit card processor. The reason which causes the risk usually comes from the nature of the business, for example, the businesses in the adult entertainment industry, e-cigarette, and vape shops, and online gambling sites will be judged as a high-risk type. Therefore, it is hard for your business to have customer virtual support.

Unfortunately, if the processors determine merchants as high-risk ones, they can refuse to approve their account. Or they will charge you dramatically higher rates because they are the only one who accepts the risk to have a contract with you. Furthermore, the draconian terms also can be one of the consequences of these long-term contracts.

An overview of high-risk businesses

Examples of high-risk businesses/merchants

As we mentioned above, there are many factors that determine what the high-risk business is. Depending on the industry, the level of risk is different. The below examples will give you a more detail picture of these high-risk business pictures. They usually have not a good reputation and is among the bottom-feeders industry.

  • eCommerce
  • Anything adult-oriented
  • Tobacco
  • Gambling
  • Financial services

Sometimes it also occurs because of financial failure or the risk of fraud. Furniture stores, for example, the business can be classified as high-risk due to their failure in resizing large average tickets. Depending on different processors, they have different criteria to decide what kind of business is high-risk.

High-risk payment gateway on Shopify

The Shopify store owners could have multiple tough tasks when choosing the payment gateways for high-risk business. The processors also should be selective to manage their credit card processing. By choosing the right payment gateways, the high-risk merchants can continue their business without escaping from the Shopify marketplace to find a new platform.

High-risk payment gateway on Shopify

What is high-risk payment processing

Payment processors and payment gateway consider some types of business and industries as high-risk ones. By determining the high likelihood of chargebacks or returns within specific types of industry or merchants unique payment processing history If the business you are working in is defined as a high-risk industry, many of them will not provide the merchant’s account. It is high time for entrepreneurs to work with the processors who are willing to accept the high risks.

After finding out the suitable payment gateway, the shop owners should define the difference between the payment processor and payment gateway. For instance, the T1 Payments will be the tool to transmit between the merchant’s banks and banks where they issued the customer’s payment cards.

Some of the best high-risk payment gateway on Shopify

The high-risk merchants always have difficulties in their accounts such as:

  • The high-risk businesses will hard to place
  • It is a high cost for the payment service processors especially when you are newcomers
  • The processors will be cautious in providing the merchant’s accounts because of the high level of chargebacks or fraud.

Therefore, it is difficult for business owners to have instant approval. They should consider more about their suitable payments that the payment service providers will usually accept. The list of five payment gateways will give you more information about the best choices.

SagePay

Founded with the purpose of providing the payment processing service, Sage Pay is a product of is Sage Group which is a European payment service leader (PSP). Considered as a top 100 FTSE listed Global accounting software company, Sage Pay is one of the most trusted payment gateways.

Through multiple payment methods such as via phone or card machines, Sage Pay process more than 4 billion online payments successfully. Because these transactions which are processed go through powerful fraud prevention tools, the card details have previously been protected from the illegal uses.

Sage Pay takes the top priorities of payment security and fraud prevention so that the cards will not be used by an unauthorized person and keep the customer’s data secure. Therefore, all of the transactions are completely secured with the highest global standards.

SagePay

Authorize.net

Located in California, PaymentCloud is a company starting its business since 2010 designed Authorize.net payment gateway. With the strengths in placing high-risk businesses, this PaymentCloud brought the high-risk merchants a lot of benefits such as a network of third-party processors. For small or medium-sized merchants, they will - with help the high-risk merchants to have the acceptance from processors without charging account setup fees.

In spite of the Authorize.net is just a payment gateway, PaymentCloud also develope this system to be compatible with other third-party gateways. Furthermore, without paying any cost, this Authorize.net allows the user’s account will be integrated with the virtual terminal.

authorize.net

Paykings

As a St.Petersburg-registered PSP, PayKings specializes in providing the payment services for the high-risk merchants. Offering advanced high-risk merchant services, PayKings helps the users have accounts to trace single transactions or batch totals easily. The PayKings can support multiple industries such as adult, vape & e-cigarettes, dating, firearms, nutraceuticals, debt collection, etc.

One of the most effective features of this gateway is supporting international merchant services so that the online sellers enable expanding their business abroad easily. In addition, the security will be ensured because of PCI DSS Level 1 compliance. Another feature is the affordable fees, just 1% plus with cards’ brand interchange fees. Furthermore, the users will be protected with Fraud & chargeback prevention Industries. Last but not least, PayKings allows the merchants to work in various payment methods; for instants, VISA, Discover, MasterCard, gift & loyalty cards, and debit cards.

Ipaykings

DigiPay

The Shopify stores are integrated with this DigiPay gateway so that the online sellers can be supported with the Hemp CBD Payment Processing. For high-risk e-commerce retailers, this processing will contribute the users with multiple advantages. One of the best functionalities is managing the risk, analyzing the customers and chargeback.

DigiPay can create competitive advantages for the high-risk merchants. For example, the payment will be costed less with more solutions because of the largest network. In addition, it can save a lot of time on managing fraud and chargebacks. Especially, the users will easily increase sales by analyzing the customers, ACH check processing, cash discount, currency conversion.

digipay

eMerchant brokers

Such as a force for any high-risk business, the eMerchant brokers payment gate bring by finding the high-risk lover partners via their network. By being offered their merchant accounts, high-risk businesses enable continuing their shops with CBD products. It is easy and time-saving for them to connect with the EMB; therefore, they will be approved very quickly.

With the eMerchant brokers payment gate, every high-risk merchant will be accepted with the lowest rates. Moreover, the Shopify store owners will have full customization of fraud management tool like Fraud Defense tools. All of the data collected will be shown in comprehensive reports. In addition, by increasing the credit card processing speed, EMB clients will help the users to maximize revenue. Besides, there is a 24/7 in-house call center service to support our merchants and their customers via live chat, email, call centers and much more.

eMerchant brokers

Conclusion

For high-risk merchants, credit card processing could be complicated. However, by choosing the suitable payment service providers as well as payment gateways makes their business easier. It is necessary for them to manage fraud & chargeback during their operation.

Thanks to this article Payment Gateways for High Risk Businesses on Shopify give the users a vast choice of payment gateways for their business, especially in high-risk industries. We hope that you will feel helpful will become helpful for you. If you have any questions related to this topic, feel free to leave a comment below.


Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.