Guardian Payment Systems Review

• Features
  • Payment Methods
• Gift Cards
• Equipment Options
• Guardian Payment Systems Rates and Fees
• Guardian Payment Systems Reviews

Features

Guardian enables you to accept all major credit and debit cards, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. You can also accept Apple Pay and other contactless payment methods.

GPS offers American Express’ OptBlue program, a pricing model that can potentially reduce costs to accept Amex compared to previous Amex models. Additionally, businesses accepting Amex with OptBlue will receive funds from Amex transactions along with their other card deposits.

Guardian Payment Systems offers next day funding for your card transactions.

Payment Methods

GPS lets you take cards in brick-and-mortar stores and restaurants or online through ecommerce websites. If you’d prefer to take payments on the go, wireless terminals or smartphone and tablet readers can enable that.

Additionally, Guardian offers a virtual terminal for businesses that need to accept payments by phone or mail order.

Gift Cards

Many businesses find that offering gift cards helps increase sales, encourage repeat visits, and provide a great option for last-minute gift-giving occasions. Guardian offers a gift card program so you can take advantage of the revenue options that gift cards provide. GPS’ preferred gift card provider program requires a minimum order of 100 cards, which can be customized for your business. Costs of the cards vary depending on customization options and quantity.

The gift card program incurs separate additional costs aside from the rates and fees of credit card processing. Be prepared for a small monthly fee (currently $5) and a 6-cent transaction fee. You may also have setup and artwork fees, depending on the card options you choose.

Equipment Options

A Verifone credit card machine is pictured on Guardian Payment Systems’ website and references the Clover POS, but the company doesn’t provide any information about available models. The company does reference EMV capable terminals to allow you to accept chip cards. A GPS rep confirmed to CardFellow that the company sells equipment at cost.

For ecommerce payments, Guardian states that it can support multiple gateways, but confirmed to CardFellow that its preferred gateways are PayTrace and the popular Authorize.Net gateway.

Guardian Payment Systems Rates and Fees

GPS specifies that it charges customers on a cost plus pricing model, another name for interchange plus. The company also states that there are no startup or cancellation fees. The screenshot below explains the company’s rationale:

While Guardian promises not to raise your rates, it doesn’t publish those rates, since pricing will vary depending on the specifics of your business. To get a full quote with all costs, try CardFellow’s free quote comparison tool.

Guardian Payment Systems Reviews

Customer reviews are one area where there isn’t a lot of readily available info. The company doesn’t have any Google or Yelp reviews, no Ripoff Report complaints, and no Facebook reviews. Guardian Payment Systems does have a Better Business Bureau profile with an A+ rating, but there are no customer reviews there, either. However, there are also no formal complaints lodged with the BBB.

The lack of customer experiences online makes it more important than ever to hear from current and former clients. If you’ve used this company, help us out and leave a review!