r/PaymentProcessing

Hoping the folks here who've survived the high-risk underwriting gauntlet can save me some time.

I'm getting a small research-use-only peptide shop off the ground. US-based, single-member LLC, EIN's done, business bank account open. It's bootstrapped and I haven't launched yet, so I've got zero processing history, which I gather is the part that gets startups auto-declined.

I already know the aggregator route is a trap. Stripe/Square/PayPal will approve me in five minutes and then freeze the balance the second their risk team clocks what I sell. So I'm specifically after a real high-risk merchant account (dedicated MID) from a shop that knowingly writes this vertical and isn't going to drop me in month two.

The basics, in case it helps you point me somewhere:

• What I sell: research peptides, strictly RUO (not for human consumption)
• Entity: US LLC + EIN, US business bank account
• Volume: honestly small to start, around $1,500-2,500/mo with a ~$90 average order. I'd rather under-promise than inflate it.
• Rails: card is the priority. Open to ACH, and I already take crypto.
• I'm assuming reserves and ugly rates. Totally fine if it's spelled out up front.

The reason I think I've got a shot despite no history is that I built the site to be underwritten, not just to sell:

• Whole site is members-only and login-gated, with email-verified accounts before you can even see products
• RUO disclaimers site-wide, a researcher-type + terms attestation at checkout, 21+ gate
• Every product has a real batch-specific COA from an ISO 17025 accredited lab
• Product pages are dry spec sheets (purity, storage, lot). No dosing, no health claims, none of the "how to run it" stuff that gets these stores killed.
• Real business address and phone in the footer, actual Terms/Privacy/RUO policy pages

What I'm hoping you can tell me:

1. Who's genuinely approving research-peptide MIDs for pre-revenue startups right now? Names, ISOs, good or bad experiences all welcome.
2. Is LegitScript certification basically mandatory to get boarded, or are there processors who'll take a small merchant without it?
3. Anything you wish you'd known before signing? Reserve %, rolling vs. capped, ETFs, chargeback thresholds, monthly minimums.

I'll take the good and the bad. Agents and ISOs, you're welcome to comment, but please put real pricing in the thread.

Thanks.

Hey Everyone! I am looking to pivot into payment processing sales.If there are any sales people in this field,can you guys share any tips on how to find a remote job in this industry.Thanks

Hi all, title is straight forward.

Need a new payment processor ASAP. We're doing $100k a month and growing.

Any help would be great appreciated! Feel free to dm or comment here.

I hate Paypal but currently this is my only option and i would like to change that. If there's anybody who lives in VietNam and accept art commissions internationally what do you use? Also i heard Wise is popular but i don't know if they support VietNam

I previously used Stripe as my payment processor. I have a US LLC and a Stripe account, but I live outside the US.

After Shopify's recent changes, I found that I can no longer connect my Stripe account to my new Shopify store the way I used to. Because of that, I started looking into Shopify Payments instead.

During my research, I found several services that claim they can enable Shopify Payments for merchants in unsupported countries. They usually charge around €200–250.

My concern is that I have no idea what they actually do behind the scenes. I've also read many posts here about stores getting suspended or having payouts held because of Shopify Payments compliance issues.

The providers claim they'll supply any required documentation if Shopify or another organization requests proof during verification, but I'm still skeptical.

Has anyone here actually used one of these services? How do they work, and are they legitimate? More importantly, is there a real risk of having your Shopify store or payouts suspended if you go this route?

If there's a safer or more straightforward solution for someone in my situation, I'd really appreciate your advice.

If tomorrow I go to VISA or MasterCard office and ask "hey , can u give me your apis and api key I wanna build a PG ( payment gateway )" they will kick me out , or worse , ask lot's of paperwork

I have been building a website ,not knowing about the payment gateway, like the cashflow in this website is a lot. so I have to take some platform fees from them by automating the payouts.

The problem is ,the main architecture is built and its working and i haven't really published it, I have 0 customers.

So, For starting out can I make an escrow that holds money in my own account and after the work is done ,I manually take the fees and send it to multiple people.

or straight up setup razorpay route for marketplace payouts.

like I dont have any ideas ,how the Saas founders ,startup works with payment gateway, everyone talks about razorpay or stripe

And my payouts are not simple like subscriptions ,deducting money monthly

I have to recieve money from one person like a manager and distrubute to numerous people like 20-30 taking the platform fees.

If anyone can give me a insight about the payment gateway ,I will be thankful.

Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators of r/SaaS.

Setting up an 18+ creator platform. Think OnlyFans/Fansly: human creators,

per-creator subscriptions plus one-off PPV unlocks. I need a processor that

actually underwrites adult, not a "we do high-risk" shop that turns out to mean

gambling and nutra and quietly won't touch MCC 5967.

Where I'm at:

- Entity in [EU but outside the EEA, so I need someone who'll actually

contract with a non-EEA company.

- Human creators, explicit behind the paywall. Full 2257 and age/ID verification

on every creator; the public side of the site stays SFW.

- [Pre-launch. Projecting ~$X/mo, ~$Y average ticket, no processing history yet.]

Fine to start small.

What I need:

- Real card acquiring (Visa/MC) for MCC 5967. Apple/Google Pay would be great,

crypto too.

- Recurring subscriptions + one-off unlocks.

- Payouts to a lot of individual creators. Either you handle the split, or I run

payouts on a separate rail. Just tell me which.

- SEPA settlement preferred.

If you reply or DM, it saves us both time if you cover:

1. Are you the processor/MoR, or a broker? If broker, tell me the actual

   acquiring bank.

2. Do you underwrite adult human-creator platforms under MCC 5967? Yes or no.

3. Will you contract with an Andorra (non-EEA) entity?

4. Rough numbers: discount rate, per-tx fee, rolling reserve and hold,

   chargeback fee.

5. Creator payouts: built in, or do I bring my own?

Already been through CCBill, Segpay, Verotel/Bitsafe, Epoch, Vendo and CentroBill,

so no need to sell me the usual names. Tell me where you're better or give me a

real alternative. If you can't name the bank, or you lead with "instant approval,"

we're not a fit.

Hello we got multiple client and we need to setup payment processor for those company, all of them are ecommerce company and selling electronics. So we need options and if any of you have good processor that can do faster onboarding.

thanks

I tried many digital wallets or "payment platforms" like paypal, skrill and airtm all closed my account due to my nationality except for Xtrm, so I wanted to ask if upwork or any other freelancing website accept payment through Xtrm ?

Hey everyone, I run an adult subscription website for a group of adult content creators. We have high levels of traffic to the page and are currently looking for the right payment processor 

requirements:

• monthly recurring payment + one time payments 
• API integration with custom checkout pages that matches website branding 
• Between 5-8% processing fees ideally
• Fiat OR fiat to crypto settlement

 

We are currently residing OUTSIDE the US and do not have a formal company/LLC setup as of yet ( sole trader ) 

If anyone has information or interested in onboarding with us, feel free to PM me.

Many Thanks!

Hello im in the search for a monthly/yearly billing payment processor for a soletrader in germany

We want to process payments for our saas and we cant get Stripe,Dodopayments and Paddle for our business stripe closed us for so called high risk. Dodopayments said they dont conduct business with us due to it being a payment processor. But we only charge people a fee and dont hold any funds or anything we only get a commision from them automatically. Paddle also said no because they thought that we are an payment processor

Please if anybody can help we just started and are an startup in germany as a soletrader the onboarding should be quick if possible

Hey everyone,

My name is Ilias, and I’m building SettleBolt, a non-custodial crypto checkout and invoicing tool for online businesses.

SettleBolt is built for businesses that want a simpler way to accept crypto payments without custody, card-network friction, or percentage-based processor fees. It can be useful for freelancers, agencies, SaaS companies, WooCommerce stores, and legitimate merchants in categories where traditional processors can be difficult or unpredictable.

SettleBolt is software, not a custodian:

• Merchants create payment links and invoices
• Customers pay in supported crypto
• Funds go directly to the merchant’s own wallet
• SettleBolt never holds, moves, or controls customer funds
• We charge a flat SaaS subscription instead of transaction fees

Current features include:

• Hosted checkout pages
• Branded invoices and receipts
• Live/Test mode
• WooCommerce gateway
• Telegram controls for creating links/invoices
• Webhooks and API access
• Support for USDC, USDT, DAI, ETH, SOL, BTC, and TRX
• Direct wallet settlement

The goal is to give online businesses a cleaner way to accept crypto payments, without forcing them into a custodial processor or a percentage-based fee model.

I’d really appreciate feedback from people in payment processing:

• Does non-custodial checkout make sense for online merchants?
• What would you want to see before trusting a tool like this?
• Which risk controls would matter most?
• Would flat monthly pricing be more attractive than transaction fees?

Genuinely looking for feedback, not trying to hard sell. Payments are messy, and I’d rather build this with input from people who understand the space.

Settlebolt is not live or open for public business yet. I am looking for feedback and guidance from you!

Happy to answer questions here. You can also find me on Twitter/X at @ ebogiatzis and @ settlebolt.

If anybody is willing to help shoot us a dm and I will answer to see what we can do.

I run a logistics business for new businesses to get work - they sign up. Sign paperwork. Meet their manager / handler and start getting 5k to 15k AVG. worth of work every single week. We charge only 1k a month for our services.30 day cancelation window (were reducing to 15 days) F*cking amazing. I loved building it. Every painful second. Our downfall was chargebacks. Due to clientele we would help them for 3-6mo the on avg before they had some issue (maintenance, not answering the phone anymore, burnout, family, employee, you name jt I’ve heard it) and then they stop or pause- they then will chargeback months worth of payments to us. I’m talking 3k to 6k+ in chargebacks from clients. When call they dont answer. They abused chargebacks. Consumer theft. We had all the receipts, communication, legal docs, and i always challenged the charge backs and won 70% of the time - but due to chargeback ratio would be kicked of payment platform - they payment processor would hold funds for 90+ days (sometimes 10k+) . No warning just locked out. Bullshit. They know what they are signing up for. They love the work we provide. They are committing consumer fraud.

It’s a beautiful business and I want to make it work. I’ve tried 3 different payment processors and the last one was a “high risk” but still got shut out within a few months. Even after explaining our situation and client’s- they said they would help but no luck and their pms was horrible.

Q- anyone/ payment processor who understands and can help and hypothetically make it so we cant loose to this and can solve this problem.We are happy to change/ alter as long as the system works.

Very passionate about this and want to make it work - thank you 🙌

what chargeback automation do you use

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Need a payment processor for rev share based marketing agency (we market for solar and cctv and water softeners) - we only bill on commissions only for completed sales so minimal to no chargeback risk

Business has never had a payment processor, will be about $3,500-6,500/week about $500 at a time per ticket

Need to be able to bill via payment links

Personal credit is about 580-620

Last time we tried with someone in here a year ago they ran us thru 50 different options for another LLC and completely messed it up , please only comment if serious

Hi, I run an adult UGC subscription platform (fan-site model, similar to OnlyFans). The site itself is done and growing — the only missing piece is proper card processing.

What we need:

- Card processing for adult content (UGC platform, we handle performer verification/compliance)

- API integration: we create the charge/checkout programmatically from our backend and get webhooks back. On-site or white-label checkout strongly preferred — hosted checkout pages with the processor's branding killed our conversion before

- Recurring billing (monthly subscriptions) with dunning

- Real card rails — not a "card checkout" that silently redirects users to a crypto on-ramp. We've been burned by two of those already

Our structure: US LLC (foreign-owned) + a Brazilian company behind it. One processor already declined us because they required a US-resident director with 10%+ ownership and a US bank account — is that a common requirement in this vertical, or specific to that processor?

We're already in talks with a couple of the classic adult IPSPs (SegPay etc.). I'd love to hear real-world experience: approval times, API quality, and how they handle foreign-owned LLCs.

Hello,

I'm looking for a payment processor for two social-media shops that supports Stripe and PayPal. I'm not happy with Digitel Media. Currently we process about $5K, but that could grow to $10K+ with additional options.

Does anyone know where I can sign up?