Processor Directory > Gravity Payments
Gravity Payments Review
- History
- What can Gravity Payments do?
- Reporting
- How’s customer service?
- What does it cost?
- Is there a contract?
- Reviews
History
Gravity Payments was founded in Seattle, Washington in 2004. The company offers credit card processing services for businesses in the United States, with an emphasis on small businesses. Gravity currently serves more than 10,000 clients and processes more than $13 billion in transactions each year. Gravity Payments, Inc. is a registered ISO of Wells Fargo Bank.
What can Gravity Payments do?
Gravity Payments provides credit card processing and business financing. Credit card processing includes point-of-sale card processing for traditional brick-and-mortar stores, mobile processing for businesses who accept credit cards in multiple locations or on-the-go. Gravity states that additional options (such as e-commerce sales and gift card programs) are also possible.
In-Store Processing
If you take credit cards in a traditional storefront and would like to use point-of-sale equipment or credit card machines, Gravity Payments offers card processing for all major credit and debit cards. Gravity can provide terminals and equipment to suit your needs for an additional cost. If you already have processing equipment, Gravity Payments may be able to reprogram it for you so you can continue to use it with Gravity. Many major brands of terminals are compatible with processing through Gravity Payments.
Mobile Processing
If you accept or want to accept payments with your smartphone or tablet, Gravity Payments can do that, too. They’ll get you set up to take credit cards by iPhone, iPad, Android tablet, or other mobile devices. Mobile processing may be a great option if you take cards in non-traditional settings, such as craft fairs, antique shows, on deliveries, while performing services like landscaping or plumbing, and more.
Business Financing
If you need money for business expenses, Gravity Payments offers a free application for working capital. Money can be used for almost any business expense, including marketing, advertising, purchasing inventory or equipment, and more. Repayment terms are flexible based on your specific goals and needs, and there is no monthly minimum payment required.
Gift Cards
Gravity offers a mobile gift card solution through Yiftee. You’ll need to accept MasterCard in order to offer Yiftee gift cards. If you’re currently a Gravity Payments customer, you can add a gift card link to your website to offer gift cards. Your customers can purchase gift cards from their mobile device or computer, and the gift card is delivered to the recipient electronically through email, text, or Twitter.
Reporting
To help you run your business effectively, Gravity Payments offers reporting options through their system Gravity Analytics, which can provide insight into several different areas of your business. Gravity Analytics includes sales reports, customer tracking, marketing and social media tracking, and more. Reporting is available through an online portal, meaning you can access it from any device that is connected to the internet. If you’re not at the office or store but still need to see your data, you can log in through your personal laptop, smartphone, or tablet to get your info.
How’s customer service?
Gravity Payments is praised in reviews (including testimonials on Gravity’s website) for available and responsive customer service. The company lists a customer service phone number, email address, and contact form on their website, giving you a choice of preferred contact method, and boasts 24/7 support.
What does it cost?
Gravity Payments doesn’t disclose rates or fees on their website. The company’s FAQ page explains that rates aren’t disclosed because each business’s situation is unique and Gravity prefers to work with the business to create a tailored pricing plan. Many processors set rates and fees on a per-case basis for businesses, so make sure to review quotes thoroughly for all fees.
An easy way to get pricing for your business is to request a quote from Gravity Payments directly through your CardFellow account. Your contact information will not be shared, meaning you won’t have to worry about high pressure sales calls and can review your quote from Gravity Payments in private. Don’t have a CardFellow account yet? You can sign up right now. It’s free and takes less than 5 minutes.
Is there a contract?
Gravity doesn’t disclose information on contract terms. Complaints with the Better Business Bureau refer to a 3-year contract and to an early termination fee, but this information is not confirmed on Gravity Payments’ site. If you work with Gravity Payments, be sure to confirm any contract terms and early termination fees before signing up to avoid costly mistakes.
Reviews
Gravity Payments doesn’t have a lot of customer reviews on third party review sites such as Yelp and Ripoff Report. There are 2 complaints in the Ripoff Report directory, but those refer to problems with Gravity as an employer and as a competitor and can’t be used to make determinations about Gravity Payments’ services for businesses. There are no reviews on Yelp. Gravity Payments does have information at the Better Business Bureau’s website, and includes customer testimonials on their own site.
Reviews with the Better Business Bureau
Gravity Payments is accredited with the Better Business Bureau, and currently has an A+ rating. The company has been accredited since 2005. They have only had 3 complaints lodged with the BBB in the past 3 years, with 1 closed in the past year. All three complaints are in the “Billing/Collection Issues” category.
The complaints allege that Gravity continued to charge a monthly statement fee after account cancellation, didn’t deposit funds, and didn’t cancel accounts upon request. In all complaints, Gravity Payments responded to the BBB’s request for resolution, but the customer either stopped replying or wasn’t satisfied with the business response.
Testimonials from Gravity Payments Customers
Gravity Payments includes customer testimonials on their website. Reviews praise the company’s 24-hour customer service, low rates, and personal attention. Testimonials include the reviewer’s name, business name, and location.
What CardFellow Thinks
CardFellow does not “rank” or “grade” processors. (You can read why here.)
CardFellow’s experience with Gravity Payments has been limited compared to many other processors, but the reaction is a mixed from what we have seen.
Gravity seems to go above and beyond touting transparency and simplicity in its marketing, which is evident from the Gravity statements that we’ve reviewed. But we’ve also reviewed a quote that left a little to be desired.
The Gravity Payments credit card processing statements that we’ve reviewed show that they assess charges using interchange-plus pricing, albeit with a significantly higher markup than the businesses that provided the statements were quoted through CardFellow.
Gravity statements show that interchange and assessments are passed at cost, and the company’s markup is posted as a separate line item. This results in transparent billing.
While Gravity’s statements are transparent, its method of quoting doesn’t seem to follow the same standards. The quotes we’ve seen from Gravity Payments, such as this one, show pricing in aggregate without an explanation of the different components of cost.
We’re sure Gravity’s prospective clients would appreciate and benefit from more detail about the actual charges and fees they should expect if they choose Gravity Payments as their payment processor.
Have you used Gravity Payments for credit card processing at your business? Leave a review!
SATISFACTION
RATES & FEES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
0/5
Unlike general web reviews, verified reviews are posted by businesses that have chosen the processor's quote through CardFellow's marketplace, and CardFellow has confirmed with the processor that the business is using its service. Businesses can update verified reviews at any time to ensure the review accurately reflects the processor's performance over time.
SATISFACTION
RATES & FEES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
2.3/5
Unlike verified reviews which are validated by CardFellow, web reviews can be submitted by anyone viewing this profile. While we validate these reviews as best we can, CardFellow does not verify that a reviewer is using or has used a processor's service.
Do you Know this processor? Write a review about it
Posted by Ray Lee on Nov 18, 2016
SATISFACTION
RATES & FEES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
1/5
I founded my own e-commerce business and have now grown it to a business with a revenue rate of seven figure plus. After dealing with Gravity Payments earlier this year, I discovered them to be a highly unreliable partner in scaling and growing my business. I would advise any business with high growth potential to look elsewhere and avoid the agonizing experience I endured with Gravity. We opened the account in May and initially forecasted to process a certain amount. After a few weeks, we implemented a marketing campaign that proved to be extremely successful. We gave our helpful account representative a heads up that we were definitely going to surpass our processing amount exponentially. She congratulated me and told me she would speak to the Risk Department so our processing would continue smoothly. We continued to use Gravity over the week. The following week, we were abruptly told that due to our over-processing, our funds would be held. We got a portion of our funds but a large majority of it remained held. In e-commerce, cash flow is key to the purchasing and selling of merchandise. This period of held funds nearly killed our business, especially at a point in which we were experiencing the absolute peak in our growth rate. We had to appease vendors who gave us credit to support our growth, push out pay cheques to our own employees, etc. I tried several times to reach out to our account representative and the Risk department but they shut me down, citing the possibility of chargebacks or our business going out under. I even tried reaching out to Dan, the founder of Gravity, explaining my situation. While he noted my reply, there was no proactive response. We understand Gravity’s position and the financial risk of being over processing a business. However, we provided all our corporate documents, illustrated the risk prevention systems we use (Signifyd), offered to open up our e-commerce platform so they could see all our sales, and more. We felt we were being extremely flexible but we weren’t being met with a fair chance. Gravity owns the unique ability to manage their own risk (other processors usually have to abide by the underlying processing bank’s risk team). Regardless, they weren’t able to help us which really surprised us given we had such high potential given the numbers we were pulling at that time. This is entirely my unbiased opinion as I do not want the same experience I had to pass on to other fellow business owners. When you’re growing your business, you should be celebrating and seeking to expand the empire- not spending time pulling hair out while nervously wondering what your credit card processing company will be doing. Due to a single credit card processor, I felt that I had lost control of my own business. I am currently using another widely used processor and my experience with them has been excellent. They have been extremely supportive of my growth. At this time, our funds are still held and we have not experienced ONE chargeback since that time. We’ve requested this to them several times. We still haven’t seen our funds back.
Posted by Sophia Tran on Nov 18, 2016
SATISFACTION
RATES & FEES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
5/5
I use Gravity Payments for my business Trudeau Automotive in Tacoma, WA and my mother uses them for her business in Gig Harbor, WA. All my experiences with Gravity Payments have been amazing. Their customer support team is always very responsive, professional, and courteous. I have spoken with their support representative Alyssa many times and she always is able to get me the information I need, not to mention its amazing calling and getting on the phone with a real person. In this day and age that is rare and a huge benefit of Gravity Payments.
Posted by Ray Lee on Aug 12, 2016
SATISFACTION
RATES & FEES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
1/5
I founded my own e-commerce business and have now grown it to a business with a revenue of seven figure plus. After dealing with Gravity Payments earlier this year, I discovered them to be a highly unreliable partner in scaling and growing my business. I would advise any business with high growth potential to look elsewhere and avoid the agonizing experience I endured with Gravity. We opened the account in May and initially forecasted to process a certain amount. After a few weeks, we implemented a marketing campaign that proved to be extremely successful. We gave our helpful account representative a heads up that we were definitely going to surpass our processing amount exponentially. She congratulated me and told me she would speak to the Risk Department so our processing would continue smoothly. We continued to use Gravity over the week. The following week, we were abruptly told that due to our over-processing, our funds would be held. We got a portion of our funds but a large majority of it remained held. In e-commerce, cash flow is key to the purchasing and selling of merchandise. This period of held funds nearly killed our business, especially at a point in which we were experiencing the absolute peak in our growth rate. We had to appease vendors who gave us credit to support our growth, push out pay cheques to our own employees, etc. I tried several times to reach out to our account representative and the Risk department but they shut me down, citing the possibility of chargebacks or our business going under. I even tried reaching out to Dan, the founder of Gravity, explaining my situation. While he noted my reply, there was no proactive response. We understand Gravity's position and the financial risk. However, we provided all our corporate documents, illustrated the risk prevention systems we use (Signifyd), offered to open up our e-commerce platform so they could see all our sales, and more. We felt we were being extremely flexible but we weren't being met with a fair chance. Gravity owns the unique ability to manage their own risk (other processors usually have to abide by the underlying processing bank's risk team). Regardless, they weren't able to help us which really surprised us given we had such high potential given the numbers we were pulling at that time. This is entirely my unbiased opinion as I do not want the same experience I had to pass on to other fellow business owners. When you're growing your business, you should be celebrating and seeking to expand the empire - not spending time pulling hair out while nervously wondering what your credit card processing company will be doing. Due to a single credit card processor, I felt that I had lost control of my own business. I am currently using another widely used processor and my experience with them has been excellent. They have been extremely supportive of my growth. At this time, our funds are still held and we have not experienced ONE chargeback since that time. We've requested this to them several times. We still haven't seen our funds back.
Posted by CardFellow on Mar 31, 2016
SATISFACTION
RATES & FEES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
2/5
Ah, yes. Who can forget about Gravity Payments? After all, it’s the company that made it abundantly clear to the world just how much money credit card processors make when it raised its company’s minimum wage to $70k. The tactic was marketing candy that was gobbled up by many less-than-thorough journalists all around the Internet. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation isn’t so glamorous. Gravity Payments is like any other processor in that it will make margins where it can on vulnerable businesses. Gravity is an ISO of TSYS, and it sets its pricing on a per-business basis. The more you know about the fundamentals of processing fees, the more competitive the pricing you’ll be able to negotiate with Gravity. The less you know, the more you’ll pay.
