Since passing the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp products have soared in popularity giving rise to one of the fastest-growing markets of our day. Needless to say, hemp products are widely available throughout both brick-and-mortar and online stores, making them accessible to a wide audience throughout the country.
But while businesses might be flocking to take their slice of the hemp oil cake, banks and other financial institutions remain wary. As a sector of the nutraceutical industry, hemp oil businesses are considered high risk. This is mainly the reason why merchant services aren’t quite as available to those operating in the hemp oil sector.
However, all hope is not lost. There are some merchant processing providers out there that consider hemp oil merchants a risk they’re willing to take. So if you were hoping to find the best hemp oil merchant service providers around, this list should steer you in the right direction.
Tailored specifically for hemp and CBD merchants, Evergreen Payments Northwest caters strictly to CBD and hemp merchants to provide a range of merchant services. These include merchant accounts that they set up for businesses through a number of trusted partners and payment gateways for some of the most popular shopping carts available.
What’s nice about Evergreen Payments Northwest is that their features seamlessly integrate with drag-and-drop eCommerce web development software like Wix, Shopify, and even WordPress. And since many of their services are outsourced to well-known payment processing juggernauts like Authorize.net, you can expect to get a range of efficiency and security features with the package.
When it comes to pricing, Evergreen Payments Northwest’s numbers aren’t set in stone. So you might have to reach out to them to find out how much it might cost to set up your account or payment gateway. On the upside, members of the Hemp Industries Association can get discounted rates and more flexible contract terms.
Although they’re not originally a high risk merchant service provider, Square Payments stepped up their game in 2019 by accepting business with CBD and hemp merchants. They do this by setting up aggregate merchant accounts that lump you together with other merchants to reduce the risk associated with your business.
Of course, this means faster approval, but there might also be some stability problems with your account if a partner merchant messes up their chargeback rate.
Nonetheless, Square Payments offers comprehensive solutions that cover all the bases of the payment situation. Providing features like virtual terminals, point-of-sale, loyalty programs, customer management directories, and even product photography tools, all of their solutions can seamlessly integrate with existing websites developed under the most popular shopping carts for small businesses.
Of course, since they’re not technically a high risk merchant service provider, expect Square’s range of services for hemp oil merchants to be slightly more expensive. Nonetheless, their rates are still within industry standards, so you don’t need to expect anything too exorbitant. All of their rates are presented on their website for clients to measure out how much doing business with square would actually cost.
In the sphere of high risk merchant accounts, it’s impossible not to mention Pay Kings. They work with a variety of high risk industries, including hemp and CBD, to provide seamless payment processing services that they achieve through the help of a number of backend partners. The benefit of it all is that they go through the underwriting and application process for you without charging you a cent.
PayKing specifically caters to merchants that might have had their accounts shut down in the past for whatever reason (as long as the business is legal.) And they provide more tailored care with their robust chargeback and fraud protection features that prevent any sort of activity that might put your merchant account in jeopardy.
Their rates are impressively within industry limits, and they provide quick estimates to help you assess their fitness for your business. Customer support also isn’t too bad, as they offer prompt responses with their dedicated team. Perhaps the only downside is that they charge an early termination fee, but that’s something you would expect from any high risk merchant service provider.
Having offered high risk merchant services since 2010, PaymentCloud is what you might call a veteran in the industry. They recently opened their doors to accommodate CBD and hemp merchants, providing access to a range of their intuitive payment processing and merchant services.
Keep in mind though that they only work with merchants that sell topicals and other non-ingestible hemp and CBD products. Oils, edibles, infused foods, and the like are presently prohibited.
On the upside, they integrate seamlessly with well-known payment gateways like Authorize.net and a number of other trusted providers. In terms of their rates, you might have to reach out directly since they offer varying fees depending on each merchant’s unique situation.
What’s perhaps the biggest strength of the PaymentCloud facility is that they offer excellent, ever-present customer support that’s easily accessible for merchants who want a team they can easily reach out to. Their offer solutions for both in-store and online transactions, bur provide more rugged, intuitive options for web-based businesses.
If you’re a hemp or CBD business with a little more experience under your belt, then Easy Pay Direct might be for you. These guys offer their services to merchants with an extensive history and high volumes of successful transactions. So small start-ups with insufficient company history might not be eligible to set up an account with Easy Pay Direct.
Some of the upsides of working with Easy Pay Direct is that they don’t charge an early termination fee, and they don’t impose a monthly minimum, so merchants won’t have to feel pressured to perform just to keep the services active. They also disclose some rates on their website, but they’re mainly for businesses with lower risk ratings than those involved with CBD and hemp.
If you’re a large-scale business, then Easy Pay Direct might be able to help with their load-balancing feature that allows merchants to divide their income across a number of merchant accounts. This helps reduce the risk of exceeding monthly processing volumes that might be stipulated in the underwriting. Of course, this might be best reserved for businesses with significant transaction volume.
Based in Utah, SMB Global is best known for its ability to set up a merchant account for any high risk business, given its extensive network of backend payment processing partners. For the most part, they work with online, eCommerce merchants, offering a range of solutions that work to streamline the shopping experience for buyers online.
They partner up with well-known gateways like Authorize.net and NMI, while integrating with over 175 different shopping carts available. This allows business owners to combine their website with the SMB Global range of services for easy setup and intuitive reports.
Since they have so many different partners, you can’t really expect their rates to be stagnant or the same across the board. If you’re looking to get an offshore merchant account, they require a monthly minimum of $50,000 which can be pretty difficult to achieve especially if you’re new to the game.
And that’s where the tricky part comes in since SMB Global only accepts hemp and CBD merchants through their offshore account offer for the meantime.
So who should you choose? There are several factors that you might want to consider if you’re looking to partner up with a merchant service provider to launch your hemp oil business into stardom.
Of course, this should be your first consideration. Most of these providers won’t offer flat rates, and will instead calculate their fees depending on your business specifics. Shop around for lower rates to pay as little as possible for their payment processing services.
What’s most important to you? To some extent, all providers will offer the same features. But you can’t deny that some of them will perform better in certain aspects than others. Are you more interested in robust security features, or do you want a provider that offers intuitive reports and seamless merchant dashboards?
It’s important to be able to get in touch with your provider as quickly as possible especially when issues arise throughout the payment collection and processing effort. A responsive provider should help you resolve problems and pave the way for hitch-free transactions for both you and your buyers.
The hemp oil market has only recently opened its doors to growth and advancement, so expect financial service providers to still shy away from the perceived risk.
Nonetheless, if you were hoping to integrate efficient payment processing features into your website, then these providers might just be for you. Weigh your options, consider your needs, and don’t forget to negotiate to get the best possible merchant services that are tailored to meet your business needs.
