by Ben Dwyer GoPayment is a mobile credit card processing service from Intuit that allows a user to process credit card transactions from an Apple or Android-powered device.
GoPayment is consistent with the high rates, bundled pricing and fine print that plague Intuit credit card processing services in general. There are several alternatives to GoPayment that offer lower rates, more transparent pricing, and easier sign up.
- (Published) Rates & Fees
- What You Will Really PayExcessive Surcharging
- Card Swiper & Compatible Devices
- Sign Up
- Contract & Cancellation
- GoPayment Reviews
- Alternatives to GoPayment
- Post Your Review
Rates & Fees
Pricing for Intuit’s GoPayment service depends primarily on whether you use QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop.
If you use QuickBooks Online (QBO), the rates currently show as 2.4% + 25 cents on the company’s website for accepting payments with a card reader, which is what GoPayment would be.
If you use QuickBooks Desktop, there are two plans: Pay-As-You-Go and is targeted at businesses with sporadic or low processing volume. The second plan is called Pay Monthly & Save and is targeted at higher volume businesses.
Pay-As-You-Go
The pricing for GoPayment’s Pay-As-You-Go option is as follows:
Swiped: 2.4% + $0.30 per transaction
Keyed or Invoiced: 3.5% + $0.30 per transaction
Monthly
GoPayment’s Monthly account allows users to pay a $20 monthly fee in exchange for per-transaction lower rates. Pricing is published as follows:
Swiped: 1.6% + $0.30 per transaction
Keyed or Invoiced: 3.3% + $0.30 per transaction
The 1.6% is what raises red flags. A quick look at the Visa interchange table shows that some cards cost more than 1.6% to process at wholesale, meaning that Intuit would lose money any time it processed one of those cards. Since companies aren’t in business to intentionally lose money, it’s extremely unlikely that Intuit is charging you less than it costs them to process your transactions.
Other Charges
The following table lists additional charges that apply to the GoPayment processing service that are not clearly listed on the GoPayment website. These charges can be found in the detailed merchant agreements. (Subject to change at Intuit’s discretion.)
| Providing Any Documentation | $2.00 per page |
| Checking Account (DDA) Change | $25.00 per change |
| Business Name Change Fee | $75.00 each |
| Third Party Payment Admin Fee | $150* (Intuit may charge a fee to implement legally enforceable requests for payment of Merchant funds to parties other than Merchant, such as tax levies, payments to secured parties or other legally enforceable payment requests of a similar nature.) |
| Voice Authorizations | $0.95 each |
| Voice Authorizations (w/live operator) | $1.75 each |
| Referral Authorizations | $2.00 each |
Tiered Pricing
Until August of 2014, GoPayment utilized a form of tiered pricing that allows Intuit to surcharge any transaction that it feels does not qualify for its lowest rate. However, Intuit does not disclose the criteria for specifically determining which types of transactions will be surcharged.
This type of tiered pricing is what makes bait-and-switch tactics possible in the credit card processing industry, and it is best avoided.
After August 2014, Intuit went to what appears to be a flat rate pricing model. However, it’s worth noting that some of their published rates are lower than the wholesale cost of processing, indicating that there may be hidden fees or other costs that aren’t disclosed up front.
What You Will Really Pay
Businesses that use Intuit GoPayment should expect to pay an effective rate of 3.25% or more.
Intuit’s past use of bundled pricing and excessive surcharging resulted in higher than expected charges. CardFellow has analyzed countless GoPayment processing statements, and the typical effective rate is between 3.25% – 4.25%, which is significantly higher than Intuit’s advertised rates would suggest.
Note that Intuit’s new “flat rate” pricing structure may alter the average effective rate, but we can’t specify how as Intuit hasn’t been forthcoming with information about the new rates. We reached out to Intuit to ask about the charges. That exchange is detailed below:
[removed]: The Non-qualified transactions were our old fee structure. The only fees for our current service are the only ones listed on our site.
[CardFellow]: Okay, great, so if I swipe a credit card with the GoPayment reader thing, it’ll be the 1.6% and 25 cents each transaction?
[CardFellow]: It doesn’t matter if it’s reward cards or whatever?
[removed]: Yes, that’s the swipe rate for the Monthly plan. Reward cards have an additional $.15 authorization fee charged by the bank.
[CardFellow]: Okay
[CardFellow]: Is there anywhere that lists all the fees like those ones?
[removed]: No, it’s only what’s located on our site.
[CardFellow]: Okay, so then there will be extra fees though?
[removed]: No, just those fees.
[CardFellow]: Okay, thanks
[removed]: You’re welcome. Have a good day.
Here we see that Intuit in one breath tells me that there are additional fees (in this case, a $0.15 charge for rewards cards, which is not disclosed anywhere on their site) and in the next breath tells me there are no fees other than what’s published on the site. I decided to try a more direct approach with a follow up chat with a different agent.
[CardFellow]: Your site mentions a 1.6% swiped card rate, and states that there are no extra fees
[CardFellow]: But 1.6% is lower than the wholesale cost of acceptance for some card types, so I’m curious what’s going on there.
[CardFellow]: It looks like Intuit says that this is not a “tiered” pricing model anymore, so how would something like a rewards card be charged?
[removed]: It is either the 1.6% per or the 9.99 monthly fee. You can choose.
[CardFellow]: I’m not sure what you mean? Isn’t the monthly fee charged in addition to the 1.6% and 25 cents per transaction?
[removed]: I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll be right with you.
[CardFellow]: No problem.
[removed]: Sorry, I am not too informed on the pricing logistics of Payments. However, I do know that after the monthly fee, there could only be one more kind of charge.
[CardFellow]: No problem. The main issue I’m seeing is that the costs published on your website are lower than what it actually costs to process, like according to Visa and MasterCard. I’m just trying to determine if there are additional fees other than the published ones.
[CardFellow]: For example, what would I be charged if I swiped a rewards credit card using the GoPayment reader?
[removed]: Not that I am aware of. Although if you are ready for purchase and need pricing info in more depth, I recommend speaking with one of our Payments specialists.
[CardFellow]: Sure, I’d be happy to speak with them. How can I reach them? [removed]: In order for me to arrange for a specialist to call you back in the next 60 minutes, may I please have your first and last name, e-mail address, contact number and business name?
[CardFellow]: Is there any way to do it via email or live chat? I’d prefer that
[removed]: No, sorry.
It’s not encouraging that in 2 separate chats Intuit was either unwilling or unable to provide full disclosure regarding their pricing. For historical purposes, we’re leaving this segment explaining Intuit’s surcharging. Note that this may not apply to accounts opened after August 2014.
Excessive Surcharging
As we have explained in CardFellow’s credit card processing guide, the bundled pricing model that intuit uses allows it to route interchange categories to the pricing tier of its choice. For example, Intuit can choose to route the majority of credit card transactions to higher mid and non-qualified rates, which it typically does.
The following is an actual GoPayment statement provided by a business that used CardFellow’s marketplace to significantly lower its processing cost. As you can see from the highlighted portion of the statement, Intuit routes all credit card volume to mid-qualified (MQUAL) and non-qualified (NQUAL) pricing tiers, which have a rate of 3.75%. So, while Intuit advertises a rate of 2.75%, this rate will not apply to the majority of credit card volume.
Intuit’s processing statements use quite a few deceitful tactics, which we have outline in detail in our article about how to read an Intuit statement.
Intercepted Refunds
Price isn’t the only downfall to the GoPayment service. Intercepted credits are additional considerations. When a business issues a refund to a customer, the processor gets a credit of the fee paid on the original transactions. This credit is supposed to be passed to the business, but Intuit keeps refunds instead of passing them along. This hidden cost of lost refund credit card refund credits can add up even for businesses that only issue a few refunds a month.
Card Swiper & Compatible Devices
The GoPayment application is free; the EMV chip card reader for smartphones is available for $49, with a power stand available for an additional $39. (Or you can purchase them together and save – the bundle will cost you $79.)
Sign Up
Another drawback to the GoPayment mobile processing service is the sign up process.
GoPayment requires a business to open a traditional merchant account with Intuit Payment Solutions. Applicants must provide a date of birth and social security number so that Intuit can perform a credit check.
GoPayment also requires a full personal guarantee from business principal/owner that grants Intuit the right to “proceed directly against me [the account owner] without first exhausting their remedies against any other person or entity.”
Contract & Cancellation
Don’t make the mistake of confusing a merchant account contract with a cancellation fee; they are two completely separate things.
The Intuit GoPayment contract does levy a cancellation fee against any business that closes its account in good standing. However, under section 1.15 of the Terms of Service, Intuit will charge a $500 cancellation fee for any account that it closes due to suspected misuse.
Do not open a GoPayment account without first reading the following agreements in their entirety. These are terms that you are agreeing to by processing with Intuit.
GoPayment Terms & Agreement
Intuit Merchant Processing Agreement
GoPayment Reviews
Despite the opaque pricing and high fees associated with GoPayment, many online reviews of the service give it high marks.
The reason many reviews of GoPayment don’t reflect reality is because Intuit pays the reviewers a commission for referring business its way.
Intuit uses a company called Commission Junction to recruit online marketers. These online marketers, called affiliates, create content that persuades people to sign people up for the GoPayment service. Intuit compensates affiliates by paying a commission in the form of a referral fee for each person that successfully signs up for GoPayment.
So, take overly positive online reviews of GoPayment with a large grain of salt. It’s very likely that the reviewer’s judgment has been clouded by Intuit’s cash incentive for referrals.
For the record, CardFellow is not an affiliate of Intuit.
Alternatives to GoPayment
Many mobile small business credit card processing options exist in today’s marketplace, and most have more favorable pricing and terms than Intuit’s GoPayment service.
The following solutions all utilize an Apple or Android-powered device to process credit and debit card transactions.
ROAMpay & Traditional Merchant Account
Businesses that are processing $5,000 a month of more should look toward ROAMpay coupled with a competitive traditional merchant account.
The key with this solution is to get a competitive merchant account with interchange plus pricing. The easiest way to find the best interchange plus pricing is to sign up free at CardFellow to receive instant quotes from multiple processors.
Businesses that process sporadically or with monthly volume of $5,000 or less should look toward PayPal Here or Square.
PayPal Here & Square
These two services are very similar in terms of pricing, but PayPal Here provides a true traditional merchant account where Square does not.
PayPal Here also has slightly lower pricing and much better customer service than Square. Check out our PayPal Here and Square Up Review on CardFellow for in depth information on these two mobile processing options or check out our PayPal Here vs. Square showdown article.
Visitor Reviews
Please use the form below to post your review of GoPayment. Be be sure to support any claims with details about your experience. Reviews lacking supporting detail will not be posted.
I got intuit, used it twice and regretted them both. Nothing but drama from these people. Customer service is good until there is a problem they’re not willing to fix. I wish I’d never brought this to begin with. It has cost me nothing but money and headaches. They will not own up to anything. They’re a joke, seriously.
This article is not entirely correct. There is no authorization fees for go payment accounts. Sounds like you had a bad experience but did you make sure your phone is on the compatibility chart, and that you have fallowed all troubleshooting steps. I found their help to be more than efficient.
Hi Benjamin,
There is an authorization fee with Go Payment. Intuit leverages tiered pricing to surcharge interchange categories that it does not consider “qualified” under its own rate and fee structure.
The authorization fee charged on Intuit’s non-qualified transactions (which will account for a significant portion of volume) is $0.15. The language directly from Intuit’s Web site states: “Elimination of per transaction fee does not apply to American Express transactions and “Non-Qualified transactions”. Different discount rates for American Express and JCB may apply. A per-transaction fee of $0.15 will be charged for “Non-Qualified” transactions.“
I am dealing with GoPayment right now. It is a nightmare. I signed up for pay as you go and two months later they upgraded me to monthly fee of $19.12. I work sporadically and don’t need that service, I never requested the upgrade, my total sales didn’t go over the limit etc, but they don’t care, I got an unwanted upgrade anyways. I have been trying to have the fee removed and service reversed back to pay as you go, but keep being transferred and hung up on for 2 days straight. One rep said they most probably will not reverse the fee (before transferring me to somebody who hung up on me), I can only change it for the future (unbelievable, they made a mistake and I have to pay for it). I want to cancel the service, but since I am unable to talk to anybody about it, I have to now mail in written request that they will consider and reply in 10 days (according to their website). Really?! they were very quick and efficient when I signed up online, but to cancel I have to go through all that? Oh, and customer service – horrible, the machine tells you “you approximate wait time is 10 min” 30 min later I am still listening to elevator music till my phone goes silent (hang up on me). Beyond irritated.
Have your bank dispute the transaction. I explained to my bank that GoPayment skimmed my bank account. Apparently they upgrade you without warning. Luckily, mine was one month for $11.65. Glad I saw it and acted. Intuit gave me a jolly fellow with a run-around speech. Then I went to my bank in person to stop it all.
Intuit cancelled me, and I extended my hearty thanks to Intuit.
I signed up for the “pay as you go” plan and the started noticing $12.95 charges. GoPayment took it upon themselves to upgrade me, and they won’t reverse charges claiming I signed up for that plan. I won’t use them again. Thieves!
Since I am not able to actually talk to a person at Intuit could anyone here answer why intuit is charging my bank account $.25 when I haven’t used the card reader? I was assured the only time I would be charged was when I used the card reader.
I received my card reader in the mail today. I tried to set up an account for a non-profit that I run. When I tried to set up the account it would not acept my EIN number. I called customer service and they were not much help. After reading the reviews here, I am throwing my reader into the trash. We will stick to cash and checks only.
I don’t even know what to say… Not only did Intuit take my income, they followed up and cancelled my account without any warning. They told me that I would lose the money, then their customer service hung up on me.
So, I just tried to go on their website to see how I can get my money back, and they hung up on me again. Any tips on how to get my money back? Isn’t this fraud?
GoPayment is definitely a “Costly Mistake.” After processing with GoPayment for 9 months my business started to pick up. Suddenly, Intuit GoPayment froze my account and put a hold on my hard earned money. I will not see my funds for another 9 months, if they even decide to return my money. Customer service is no help. Without the needed cash I am not able to continue with my business because I am not able to pay my suppliers, my rent, employees and other business expenses. Intuit GoPayment killed my business.
I’ve had many issues with GoPayment as well. The main issue being the swiper doesn’t always actuate, or communicate with the phone. This has been cause of lots of embarrassment in front of customers. Not to mention after many attempts, I end up doing a manual entry – which OF course costs more than a swiped entry!
I hear lots of gloom and doom here, but I’ve been a GoPayment customer for 2 years with no issues. I process between 20 and 30 transactions every weekend in the winter months when I photograph hockey tournaments, and every one has been fine. I had to credit back a few charges and those went well, too.
This service has helped my business immensely. Deposits hit my bank in 1-2 days, and I am fine with that as well. One actually took 3 days, but it was over a holiday, so it was also okay.
It has suited my business well.
It’s nice to see someone has had a good experience with GoPayment, but the exception always proves the rule. I have a promotional business and am new to GoPayment. I have been held hostage similar to the many others, and have also had to endure the lack of customer service. It has been a very unsavory process.
I have been with Intuit for over 3 years. After many large transactions, I have never had any problems. They deposit funds within 2-3 business days. I have never had any chargebacks. Fees are reasonable. No complaints here. I believe if you have an upfront legal business, you will not have any issues.
So what you’re saying is that all the folks who are telling us of their negative experiences with GoPayment do not have upfront legal businesses? Perhaps you’re one of those folks the article mentions that gets a commission from GoPayment for giving a positive review. Now would that make you an upfront legal business? Kettle? Pot?
I wish I read these reports before I signed up with GoPayment. I have the same story… I just started with Intuit and I made several transactions up to $400. Then, a customer bought a large order for $5K and put it on his card. Needless to say, I received no money in the bank. Instead, they send me an email requesting documents like above. I left out bank statements because I do not have easy access to them, but after 5 hours of being on hold over several days, the girl says they will process the transaction. Two weeks go by with no money, and I ask the customer to cancel the card transaction and wire me money. With that, intuit tells me to issue the customer a credit, which I did. The buyer has still not received his money after a week, and Intuit is telling me these transactions are frozen. Additionally, it appears they want me to send them $5K. I do not have time for this, I have to run my business. But now I risk not ever getting a merchant account because of Intuit and this never-ending transaction.
I will not recommend the GoPayment mobile credit card processing service from Intuit to anyone. I had a very bad experience with its customer service. Please, don’t use GoPayment.
When I signed up I was only told about the 2 rates, the low swipe rate and a higher rate when you keyed in a transaction. I used GoPayment for two sales, which were over $25,000. Intuit took out the correct rate in the month of my sale. Then, the next month, I had another large transaction fee. I called Intuit and was told that they determined the card I took was what they considered “Non-Qualified.” I asked how this was determined, and I was told that cards that pay rewards to the the cardholder were “non-qualified.” I told them the card I took was a government agency, and they said that was still the case. They told me they always charge the swipe rate, but they can come back and take more money later. I lost $1,000 on the 2 transactions. This is a very unethical company that sells you the service based on the two rates. Then, they reveal a third rate when money is taken out of your account without your knowledge.
GoPayment holds my funds regularly for 4-5 days after we accept payment from our customers. I will terminate our relationship with them soon and engage the services of a company that will deposit the funds within a day. Do not use this service. GoPayment’s practices are unreasonable and unprofessional.
I’m so glad there are comments here. We ran in to an interesting snafu with GoPayment. Get this: So they sent us two of their devices to use in our mobile phones & tablets. You know, the swipey thing that plugs into the headphone jack. Pretty cool at first, but then they stopped working after the app update. So the “new” app has the ability to “scan” the card with the device’s camera. Pretty cool, especially if it won’t swipe. Aha, but they actually charge the card as if you do not have it present! A full percentage point higher. (But we DO have the card. How could we scan an image of it if it was not present?)
After two hours on the phone, they could not get any of our devices to work. We found out nearly a year in that we were getting charged the highest rate possible. (Imagine 1 full percent on all charges for nearly a year)
Pretty crappy. Then I asked about getting a new piece of their tech to see if it was the two older ones we already had. They said they’d have to charge me for a third one. What a bunch of hooey. So I don’t know if we can literally “cancel” anything without them charging us more, so we just won’t use it anymore. Ridiculous. So we won’t be using Intuit’s other products either.
Bait and switch. I responded to their offer for the free card reader and the pay-as-you-go, but now discover that they were doing a $12.95 per month ACH debit to my bank account every month. They claim that since they have my personal information, such as my SS# and my bank info, then that proves that I signed-up for the $12.95 plan, even though they require exactly the same info for all their plans. My opinion is that they are crooks. Stay away.
Last week, my mom used her (former) Intuit GoPayment account to process 9 transactions at her shop. All of the transactions came out to over $1,332. Intuit delayed all of the deposits until they performed a review. My mom talked to someone at the risk department and the rep was really snotty, disrespectful and ignorant (the call was recorded for proof). In an extremely unprofessional tone, she told us that we needed to send in proof of the sales, proof that we were in business, and contact information for our purchasers. We sent in proof of our business (open for 17 years, used GoPayment for 3 years with no problems), and receipts of the sales. We couldn’t send contact info because we didn’t have contact info. After a few days, Inuit notified my mother that they were reversing the transactions and closing her GoPayment account, but didn’t specify why. Now, my parents are out over a grand and the merchandise they sold. Stay away from this company, you will be hurting your business if you don’t.
I can’t believe the absolutely horrible customer service! I am being charged $19.95 per month for no reason, so I’m trying to call and cancel my account. Well, that’s impossible considering I’ve been on hold for 3 hours and have now been transferred to someone else with another wait time of 30 minutes.
Usually I assume bad reviews are dramatic or exaggerated.
But, Intuit Go Payments / Intuit Merchant Services *REALLY* is that bad.
I’ve been waiting for a transaction that’s been pending over 2 months. This is from my customer of 20+ years who has a flawless payment record, a perfect FICO score, and a large net worth. Customer said Intuit deducted the money from his account 2 months ago. I haven’t seen a dime. No explanation from Intuit.
Intuit Go Payments / Merchant services stole my money, with zero explanation or recourse. My client never was given a refund, nor was I given a dime.
Avoid Intuit at all costs! It’s just not worth it. They flag transactions right and left, and even when they don’t, you’re unlikely to see your money…. ever. Avoid, avoid, avoid!
All the reviews above have similar bad experiences as Intuit as I have.
I am not going to lie, but intuit is the worse processor out there. I have charged cards from customers, it gets deducted and I don’t see any of that money for nearly a month.
What gives? Turns out that there so called funding is jaded and unclear. Way to go intuit. A multimillion dollar business can’t get a simple policy straight? Absolutely baffles me.
Their customer service is on a whole other level. They pretty much fall inline with Comcast for customer service of the year.
I am a professional wedding photographer and have been with Intuit GoPayment for almost 3 years now. I work with many clients and have done many transactions averaging 2-4,000 per swipe. I recently had my first break this year with a big client for an $8,000 sale.
After finishing the job, I did the transaction, went home only to find out that I had gone over my monthly limit. They flagged the transaction, had me contact their risk department and requested my client’s billing info, number, invoice of sale, proof that I had given the customer the product, and my bank statements. I had given to them everything they requested and have been following up with them every few days for a month now and they have me going in circles saying that they released the funds even though when I log on it says it is withheld.
At first they said they released it and to wait a few days, to “there must be a glitch in the system,” then they said my bank has it, followed by the money is no longer in their hands. Every time I call, I am put on hold for about 2 hours and a risk representative gives me a different excuse. They even gave me an ACH tracing number which I followed up with the bank which they told me does not exist.
The bank said that from a month ago up until now, there was never any amount pending from Intuit.
On my recent call to Intuit in regards to the non-existing ACH number and transaction, a risk representative told me that a manager has to review the documents again and will contact me back Monday. I explained to him that I have been very patient in regards to this matter and have given everything they have requested and more. If this matter does not settle by Monday, I will be taking them to court.
Do NOT do business with Intuit GoPayment!
Same problem here. I’m a retailer that sells electronics and laptops. I use Craigslist to advertise regionally and will deliver products to my customers. I thought to offer credit card service to my customers and signed up with Intuit GoPayment. First transaction I ran for over $400 resulted in a “hold” due to “unexpected activity” on my account. As others have stated, Intuit now requires me to send all this information to them to verify the charge is legitimate. I’m a retailer–how is running a card for the sale of a product “unexpected activity!” The only receipt I have is the run provided by Intuit’s system itself. I tried calling their risk payment team to only be on hold for 15 minutes and eventually had to hand up… Further, asking for “relationship” information with my customers is inappropriate. Most of my customers are new to me and have no relationship with me. If I’m required to provide every customer’s phone number, first and last name, length of knowing them, etc, there’s no point in doing retail with Inuit GoPayment as my credit card processing system. They have made credit card processing SO DIFFICULT, which defeats one of the purposes of providing credit card payment processing. Stay away from Intuit GoPayment at all costs. They clearly have a bad product and customer support team.
Hello,
I am a long time credit card processor. I have processed credit cards with multiple companies in the past. While I won’t speak to your relationship to Inuit, I will tell you that almost any credit card processor will place you in the risk department after your first transition over a few hundred dollars. It’s common to want information to verify that you are a real company and that you deliver a real product. If you were to process a few thousand dollars in credit card transactions and then close your bank account the merchant processing company that handled the processes would be liable for any of the “chargebacks” that would follow. They do it to mitigate their risk. This is an industry standard. Keep all of your order forms, and since you ship a product make sure that you have it sent with a tracking number. As added protection make sure the client signs for the package upon delivery and then you will never have a risk problem.
It would be so helpful if you put dates on your articles and on the reviews.
Thanks for the comment! We actually continually update the articles so that they have current information. If there’s anything specific that you’re concerned is out of date or inaccurate, please feel free to contact us at info@cardfellow.com and we’d be happy to make sure it’s correct.
May 1, 2017
Not sure how old this article is, none the less….
I have been using Intuit Go Payment for 2 years now. The rates are exactly as they state. I use the $20 month flat rate plan. I pay $20/month and get 1.6% swiped rate on all cards. There is only one fee that seems to affect me and that is the rewards card fee. But is minimal. My funds have never failed to appear in my bank account in more than 2 or 3 business days. Maybe this article is so old that Intuit has restructured the entire gopayment system. I was even with out an android device that would work with their reader, and they gave me 3 months w/o a monthly fee. So I fully recommend Intuit Go Payment. p.s The customer service department has always been a pleasure to work with. I give them 5 stars.
Hi Corey,
Thanks for your comment. All of our articles are regularly updated to keep information accurate. As of May 2017, Intuit still does have customers on opaque and expensive “tiered” pricing, and we often see hidden fees, or bait-and-switch tactics from Intuit/GoPayment. In many cases, the business isn’t even aware of the extras they’re being charged. Intuit’s website lists a variety of possible pricing models (some based on date when the customer signed up) as well as potential additional fees. As Intuit has so many possible pricing options, some with the ability to include extra fees and hidden fees, it’s often difficult for businesses to see what they’re truly paying. This article reflects the expense and lack of transparency we still typically see with Intuit’s merchant services.
I hope this helps!
On 08/22/2017 I had a customer who needed to pay an invoice by credit card, I use intuit QB for my accounts so I decided I would send an invoice through Intuit and my customer would pay online. My customer paid three invoices amounting to $545. The next day I received an email from intuit saying payment had been put on hold. I then get a call and they are requesting my customer’s name, address, and shipping proof. I send it in. The next day they say that they would not deposit the money transaction and ask if I will return the money. At this point I am fuming. I tell them I want the money in my account as they had promised to do she says they wouldn’t and hangs up. I report the matter to BBB. The next day I get a call from a lady by the name Carol from the “office of the president” who says she will intervene and have this issue dealt with. She tells me a manager will call. A manager called Mary called. She said that the card did not correspond with the name and asks if I can return it. I again told her that this was not right and I will speak to my lawyer. On Monday I decided that it would be better to have the money returned instead of wasting my time and effort on this. So we call and they show us how to do the return and we do. Today I receive an email that they need the same information that they had when they held the money in the first place to be able to return it. WTF! I call the lady from the office of the president she laughs and says it must be a technical glitch!! just like the stories above.
I have decided to report this to the FBI and a file a complaint with the Office of Financial regulation as this is fraud and they need to be questioned as to what they are doing with all our money!!
This entire article is a lie, full of exaggerations.
I’m a small business owner that has been using GoPay and Quickbooks since 2014 without any complaints. I’ve checked and double checked my transactions and Intuits fees, and guess what? On average their fees are LESS THAN 1.5%! Just the other day I checked and the percentage rate they took out of a single transaction was 1.35%. No monthly fees… no annoying contracts… no messing around with credit card processing companies…
I think this article was manufactured by an anti-Intuit individual or corporation. Don’t believe everything you read folks!
Update: Okay so not all the numbers are a lie, but some of the horror stories are exaggerated. It’s really not that bad for a small business, but if you’re making 50K or more a year, then yeah you might want to consider a lower-rated service, but be ready to give up your Friday nights filling in printer receipts.
Hi Luth,
1.5% is lower than the cost of interchange for credit cards, so unless you’re taking a lot of debit or Intuit has chosen to lose money on your account, there are likely other fees somewhere. Is the 1.35% you’re referring to just the Intuit fee, not inclusive of interchange and assessments?
We’d be happy to take a look at your statement to confirm the pricing, if you’re interested. Feel free to email me at ecunningham @ cardfellow.com
I just thought I would throw some real world information into the discussion for people as I really like Intuit GoPayments and have been using them for most of 2017 to the present. I was previously using Square. I liked the simplicity of Square as well as the Reports they offer. That being said, I also always watch the bottom line for my business cost-wise so I ran across the new pricing structure for GoPayments and saw the 1.6% flat rate being offered for the $20/mo and a 25 cent transaction fee. I calculated I could save approx. $1000 per year based on my charge history with Square if the rates were accurate and that included the extra fees mentioned.
So bottom line. I just ran a report now since I am doing my 2017 taxes. I charged a total of $82,829.40 last year. The total fees all inclusive was $1,624.29. So that makes the effective rate = 0.0196100659910611 or ~ 1.96%.
Now…the $20 per month I am charged ($240 for the year) accounts for 0.0028975218943998 or ~ .29% of that 1.96%.
Then there is the 25 cent transaction fee per transaction which comes to 251 transactions x .25 = $62.75. That accounts for 0.00075758124 or ~ .07% of that 1.96%.
So if you subtract .29% (monthly $20 fee) and .07% (25 cent transaction fee) from 1.96% (total fees for year) you get 1.6% on the nose. At least in my case the 1.6% rate has been right on the nose. This is actually cool because I haven’t yet bothered to calculate the exact totals as things seemed to be in line based on me eyeballing the fees but this just solidified my happiness in switching to GoPayments.
Also as far as customer service…I have had no holds on any of my swipes and some of the swipes were over $1000. I have only talked to customer service once during setup but I had a good experience then.
The hardware (Bluetooth chip reader) has been reliable and works pretty trouble free with my android phone.
I will say that Square’s reports section of their website is vastly superior to GoPayments but GoPayments has the basic reports I need and I am not missing anything in that arena since moving.
Also Square deposits next business day compared to about a 3 day delay with GoPayments, but my cash flow is such that the difference in deposit speed does not matter to me.
Once last thing I like about GoPayments better than Square. Square subtracts their fees out of the total days deposit prior to transferring the deposit for the day. GoPayments actually deposits the full amount of the deposits and then subtracts the transaction fees separately from your checking account. I like that they are kept separate as it is easier from an accounting standpoint for me. Personal preference, yes, but I like it better.
I still use Square for my invoicing due to the convenience of their interface but I am close to saving the $1K yearly in swipe fees that I was expecting compared with Square so I am a very happy camper.
I hope this helps someone as there is a lot of negative comments listed as well as a negative tone in the blog post above. I just have not personally experienced any of it and the charges look like they are exactly in line with what is promised.
I have three different small businesses that I use GoPayment as my credit card processor. I’ve been happy until now as I’d never encountered any problems. I recently set up my third business account with them and charged 3 different cards for their purchase of a membership into our organization. Intuit contacted me and said that they were putting a hold on the account and asked for documentation. I provided every piece of information they requested immediately to prove that they were legitimate charges. A couple of weeks go by without hearing anything so I called them today. Finally a guy comes on and said that they were closing the account. I asked why and he said he didn’t have to tell me as they were a proprietary company?? Not even sure what that means. So the end result is that they are holding the whopping $150 that was charged until I go online to refund my customers and then it’s up to me to collect somehow from my customers in another manner. I put on horse/rodeo related events 2-3 times a year. I can just imagine that if this had happened during the event when I had racked up $10-15,000 in charges during a day and at the end of the day they email me and say that they are holding it for an indefinite time. Even though they reopened the account, they could not guarantee that this couldn’t happen again. I’m not taking that chance and I hope no one else will either. ps…..I finally got a supervisor to call me about the reopened account, he said what flagged it was that it was new, 3 charges (which is all I had gotten a chance to do as I had just opened it the previous day) were all M/C (geez, on 3 charges what’s the chance of that happening, there’s only Disc, MC, Visa, AMEX out there) and they were for the same amount which was explained when I sent them the info as they were for the SAME thing. Anyhow, I’m cancelling all accounts and hoping that if I go through my bank at least I might have someone backing me if I run into a problem.
I just posted my horrible experience without reading all the other comments. A word to the wise–all you people that are saying I haven’t had a single problem over x # of years, your time may or may not come. I’d used them for probably 5-6 years, no problem. Now that I am aware that they could hold my funds for 270 days and then leave it up to me to “recollect”, I’m not taking that risk.