Beanstream Gateway Review

You might have come across Beanstream because you’re in the market for a new payment gateway. Perhaps you heard about sproutPOS, Beanstream’s POS application. Either way, read on to learn more about whether Beanstream’s solutions are right for your business.

What is Beanstream?

Beanstream is a company that offers a payment gateway with included virtual terminal, and a POS app. The company began as an e-commerce software developer and is based in Victoria, British Columbia. Beanstream currently provides payment, risk management, and authentication solutions to companies across North America.

Beanstream has changed owners a lot in the past decade. In 2007, LML Payment Systems bought Beanstream. Digital River acquired the company in 2012, and in October 2015, the Nordic POS system provider Bambora bought Beanstream.

Compatible Processors

Beanstream bills itself as being “bank-neutral.” Its website says that it will work with most of the common processing platforms and financial providers in North America and Europe. Compatible pProcessors include TSYS, TD Bank, First Data, Chase Paymentech, Global Payments, and Elavon.

Beanstream Features

Beanstream’s features include hosted payment pages, a POS application, batch processing/EFT payments, automated recurring billing, and a virtual terminal.

Hosted payments page
For added convenience and security, Beanstream offers hosted payment forms and carts. With Beanstream hosting, customers enter payments through your website which are collected by the Beanstream servers instead of your business’ server, allowing Beanstream to secure the information. Beanstream hosted payment forms are included free with Beanstream’s basic payment toolkit, and are suggested for non-profits and organizations accepting donations online, businesses that are using the internet for event registrations (such as for conferences or tournaments), and more. The Beanstream shopping cart option is recommended for small businesses with limited inventory up to 50 individual items.

POS Application
If you don’t already have a POS solution for your business, Beanstream’s sproutPOS is free to download. You can process transactions on your iOS or Android device wherever you are. The app is designed to be used with Beanstream’s card reader.

Batch Processing/EFT Payments
Do you process a high volume of credit card information? When you use Beanstream, you don’t have to send your customers a form for their credit card details. All you have to do is upload a spreadsheet file, and Beanstream processes everything at the click of a button.

Automated Recurring Billing
Nowadays, it’s popular for customers to subscribe to companies that let them access the goods and services they want. If you offer subscription services to your clients, you know that processing recurring bills can be a hassle. You can customize subscription plans with Beanstream as well as the number of times the system automatically retries credit cards. Also, you can send automated notices letting your customers know their subscriptions are about to expire. And, the reporting function enables payment forecasting while providing insight into customer churn.

Virtual Terminal
A virtual payment is a secured web browser that lets you enter customer credit card details on behalf of a customer. Virtual terminals are ideal for phone and mail order businesses. Beanstream’s virtual terminal minimizes data entry, supports credit card pre-authorizations, has granular security permissions, allows you to restrict specific IP addresses, provides detailed security logs, includes sales analysis tools, and filters high risk transactions.

Accessories

Beanstream sells a card reader for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets if you’re looking to take credit cards on the go. The card reader is compatible with both iOS and Android devices.

Security and Fraud Prevention

Beanstream is a PCI Level 1 service provider. PCI Level 1 is the highest level of compliance a company can achieve.

It offers two levels of fraud protection to clients: basic and advanced. The basic level of fraud protection includes address verification service (AVS), card verification values, a secure badge that verifies the vendor’s relationship with payment processors, and tokenization (which encrypts buyer information, preventing unauthorized access). You’ll also be able to use 3D Secure, the technology for MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa.

Beanstream’s advanced fraud protection includes a risk threshold module to block high risk transactions as well as transaction filtering to restrict purchases based on particular criteria such as location, IP address, and bank information. Transaction filtering restricts credit cards, specifies IP addresses, or limits activities to specific employee workstations.

Beanstream Pricing

Beanstream displays pricing information for its Canadian customers. The only pricing information available for American customers is for transactions processed with the sproutPOS application.

There’s no monthly fee to use sproutPOS. Customers pay a one-time fee of $50 for the card reader. Beanstream charges 2.65% per transactions when the card is present. There is a fee of 2.8% plus $0.30 when the card isn’t present.

These fees may be different depending on the credit card processing solution you use. To get accurate, business-specific pricing to review in private, use the quote request tool.