Established in 1997, Heartland Payment Systems is a popular payment services provider known for its merchant services. Based out of Edmond, Oklahoma, the company offers its heartland merchant services solutions to businesses all over the United States. The company offers a slew of heartland payment system services to its clients, which include point-of-sale (POS) payments, online payment gateways, and mobile payment solutions. The platform also offers heartland credit card processing and business solutions such as payroll services, tax reporting, HR management, and customer engagement.
With over two decades of operations, the United States-based processing company, Heartland has secured a significant customer base that’s spread across a variety of industries. This includes small businesses and large-scale corporations alike. Some of Heartland’s clients include Taco Bell, White Castle, and Caesars Palace.
Despite offering a slew of solutions that cater to the needs of several sectors, Heartland’s services often get labeled as being too expensive. This especially holds true for those businesses with in-depth knowledge or firsthand experience regarding other merchant services providers. With that being said, those businesses that have some capital to spare do not shy away from associating with Heartland’s brand name. The fact that Heartland is currently owned by another famous merchant services firm, Global Payments, only adds to its brand outreach.
This is why you must know the ins and outs of Heartland Payment Systems before choosing the company or one of its competitors as your primary payment processor. To help you through the process, here’s how Heartland’s services hold up compared to other providers such as Stax.
Heartland Offers a Selection of Merchant Services
As mentioned above, Heartland is known for providing its payment processing solutions in various fields. From in-person payments to remote transactions, the company’s services cater to modern businesses’ diverse needs.
If you are looking for reliable payment solutions, it’s essential to go through every payment company’s list of services. This allows you to find something that goes right in line with your requirements and your available budget.
POS Terminals
Keeping in line with other payment processors, Heartland offers various POS terminals for in-person payments. These solutions can be obtained by clients, including but not limited to, brick-and-mortar stores, restaurants, and hospitality services. With wireless equipment, solutions can also be enjoyed by businesses that are not selling their services at a single location. This includes food trucks and delivery services, among other entities.
Through its traditional, wireless, and mobile-based POS hardware, Heartland provides its clients with a way to accept debit card and credit card payments. The company offers its equipment and solutions at various price points. But all of its devices and service come with the utmost security, such as the ability to accept EMV chip cards. Its POS software also comes with additional business management tools, especially for restaurants.
With that being said, the POS terminals from Heartland Payment Systems come with a steep price tag attached to them. While the company mentions that it provides clients with “interchange-plus pricing,” the details are complex and not publicly available to every customer. This means that the pricing may also differ depending upon several factors.
On the other hand, Stax POS integrations offer the same payment processing services at a transparent and affordable price point. This ensures that you are easily able to shop around and make side-by-side comparisons with other providers. In the long run, it also provides you with a better deal and more accessible payment solutions.
Online Payments
Heartland also offers an online payment gateway for businesses to accept payments remotely. This allows any eCommerce or traditional business to process payments securely through an online checkout page. As a result, the business’ clients can pay for their transactions via debit cards and credit cards issued by popular providers. They can also respond to billing requests and set up recurring payments for select services.
With a user-friendly setup and mobile-friendly interface, Heartland’s online payments are ideal for businesses and their clients. This ensures that any company can adopt this modern payment method into its existing operations without any trouble. These systems can also integrate with Heartland’s POS software, which further elevates the software’s delivery and performance mechanism.
But the overall efficacy of these benefits seems dull when you look at them with a perspective of affordability. Heartland Payment Systems provides the exact pricing for its solutions only when it learns about a business’ specific needs. More often than not, the delivered pricing is more expensive than any of its competitors.
Stax online payment solutions come with the same ease of use for businesses and their clients and boast of lower pricing. The overall interface to use Stax’s online payment gateway remains intuitive and secure. However, due to its focus on providing more affordable solutions, the company ensures that its services are delivered without accessibility barriers.
Mobile Payments
With their support for mobile payments such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, Heartland’s solutions stand tall among many other payment providers. The company’s POS equipment and mobile wallet services make sure that businesses can entertain clients who want to use modern payment methods. This provides businesses with a way to expand their solutions without barring any segment of clients.
Heartland’s mobile payment services are included in its latest POS equipment and integrated within its POS software. Since the company’s POS terminal called Terminal+ is wireless, it is operable at any business location without being stuck to a desk. This makes payments faster, easier, and more convenient to clients and overturns the concept of a checkout line for the better.
However, Heartland Payment Systems follows its steep price point approach with its mobile solutions as well. The POS equipment designed to accept mobile payments doesn’t come cheap, while the transaction charges to process these payments also remain high. This creates various issues for businesses that want to access these solutions affordably.
In comparison, Stax equipment and solutions accept mobile payments without the added weight of extra cost. The services can entertain the latest requirements and trends for mobile payments, and deliver an exceptional experience to demanding clients. This also allows your business to move towards modern payment solutions on a long-term basis without compromising your existing payment infrastructure.
Virtual Terminal
Heartland also offers a virtual terminal to process transactions when a payment card is not physically present. The virtual terminal allows business representatives to take the details of a debit card or credit card and punch the information into the system. This is different from an online transaction, where clients process their payments by themselves.
This is a critical feature for professionals and businesses that often conduct their operations over the phone. By having a virtual terminal by their side, they can process payments during their conversations without turning to other methods. It is also an essential feature for those clients who are unable to access online payment methods.
Heartland Payment Systems offers its virtual payment system through an intuitive interface, ensuring that any professional or employee from a business can operate it without problems. Simultaneously, it makes the system secure, so as not to compromise the clients’ information. Heartland’s virtual terminal also comes with the ability to integrate into its POS software. But it also has comparatively expensive rates when put side-to-side with other providers.
In contrast, Stax ensures that its all-in-one platform is offered at affordable prices, including the transaction charges and related service fees. Simultaneously, the service remains completely secure and incredibly easy to use, which ensures that you don’t have to give up on quality in exchange for affordability.
Heartland Payment Systems Offers Extensive Services But Falls Short of Delivering Them Affordably
With the availability of additional services such as automated clearing house (ACH) transfers, Heartland’s solutions are equipped with a robust infrastructure, reliable payment system, and extensive delivery channels.
But that’s where the stipulation of a high price tag is added into the mix. Since other providers offer similar services at a more affordable price point, this makes the choice a bit trickier for those who find initial appeal in the Heartland brand.
To make sure that you are making an informed decision on your business needs, you must explore all your options, consider the price points of other payment processors, and then pick a merchant services provider accordingly.
Stax Payment Processing Services
Stax, alternatively, understands the customer’s pain points and forms a comprehensive solution that cost-effectively meets those business needs. The innovative United States-based firm differentiates its solutions by honing on customer service and delivering subscription-based merchant services. These two compelling differentiators of customer services and subscription-oriented merchant services create substantial value for the firms growing base of customers.
Here are a few reasons why customer service and subscription open up a whole new world of value for Stax’ current and future customers.
Let us start with the critical aspect of feasibility before moving on to customer relationships.
Cost-Effective Services
Merchants require cost-effective services regarding their business, but this is even more so when processing transactions. It is of greater importance because this is where they capture their revenues. Now, fees present from most merchant service providers may seem like small cuts, but these small and frequent cuts can quickly add up.
The innovative designers at Stax have seen this after their many interactions with customers. They decided that there is a better way. That is why Stax connects merchants to the direct cost of interchange by charging recurring monthly fees.
Business owners appreciate Stax’ flat monthly fee because it’s simple, transparent, and hassle-free. Not only that, they understand that they can take control of their business by viewing their sales and other information through the Stax platform.
Transparency, analytics, and cost-effective Stax solutions enable businesses to process payments and manage the entire payment experience on a simple and comprehensive platform. There are no extra costs for PCI compliance, statements, or moving to another payment processing platform.
Customer Service
More merchants increasingly appreciate Stax customer support. The major differentiation between Stax and other payment providers is that business owners and managers can reach a live person that cares about solving the problem. Indeed, business owners know the excruciating pain of dialing a customer service number, hearing elevator music, being transferred, hearing more elevator music, and then reaching a robot at the automated machine at the end of their wait. It is frustrating at normal times but even more so when it is a pressing business matter.
That is why Stax makes sure to keep it simple when it comes to customer service. If a business representative needs help with merchant payment services, they can merely call and talk to a warm Stax representative that will help solve pressing problems.
Here are a few of Stax Differentiating Features:
- Subscription-based pricing
- Zero contracts
- Transparent pricing
- Stax Platform for Data, Analytics, and more
- Superior 24/7 Customer Service
- Quickbooks compatibility and a wide variety of software integrations
- PCI compliance support
- Mobile processing
- Payment gateways
- Funding with 24 hours of transactions
Finally, business managers appreciate Stax’ simplicity in setup enabling quick payment systems and processing.
Find out more about the Stax payment processing platform and how you can save time and financial resources by working with Stax today.
