Why We Exist
If you sell peptides, research chemicals, nootropics, or supplements online, you already know the pain: mainstream processors don't want your business. Stripe shuts you down overnight. Square sends a 30-day termination notice. PayPal freezes your funds "pending review" — indefinitely.
We started Merchant Processing Guide because nobody was providing honest, comparative information about the processors that actually serve high-risk merchants. The existing review sites are either pay-to-play directories or haven't been updated since 2022.
Our Team
Sarah Chen — Editor-in-Chief. 8 years covering fintech and payment infrastructure. Previously at The Payments Journal and Nilson Report. Sarah leads our testing methodology and editorial standards.
Marcus Rivera — Senior Analyst. Former merchant services consultant who spent 5 years helping high-risk businesses find processors. Marcus runs our hands-on testing of each platform.
Priya Sharma — Research Lead. Background in ecommerce operations and compliance. Priya manages our merchant interviews and data collection.
Our Methodology
Every processor we review goes through a standardized evaluation:
- Approval testing — We submit real applications across multiple business categories to measure approval rates and timelines
- Fee transparency — We document every fee: application, monthly, per-transaction, chargeback, reserve holdback, and early termination
- Chargeback handling — We evaluate dispute resolution tools, prevention systems, and threshold policies
- Platform integration — We test WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento plugins for each processor
- Merchant interviews — We speak with current merchants to validate our findings with real-world experience
- Ongoing monitoring — We check for policy changes, fee increases, and merchant complaints quarterly
Editorial Independence
Some processors on our site offer referral programs. When you click a link and apply, we may earn a commission. This never influences our rankings — our methodology is applied identically to every processor, regardless of commercial relationship.
Processors cannot pay for placement, and we regularly rank processors with no affiliate relationship above those with one. Our revenue model lets us keep this resource free for merchants.
Contact
Have a tip? Know a processor we should review? Reach us at editorial@merchantprocessingguide.com.
For processor PR teams: we don't accept sponsored content or paid reviews. We're happy to include your platform in our next review cycle — send your pitch to the email above.