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Retail Merchant Services scores a 4.7/5 overall in our research, recognising it as the best choice for low transaction fees on card payments. Simply put, it is a top merchant account for a wide range of businesses.
Our independent research team scored Retail Merchant Services (RMS) across a range of categories, including features, customer support, and price. While RMS performs well in our research, read on to find out if this provider is suited to your business.
If you’re interested in comparing Retail Merchant Services against other payment providers, you can use our free quote tool. With a few brief details about your business, we’ll match you up with trusted suppliers that will contact you with obligation-free quotes.
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| Retail Merchant Services |
| Score 4.7 |
| Best For Low transaction fees on card payments |
How much does Retail Merchant Services cost?
Retail Merchant Services’ transaction fees are the lowest for card payments, charging 0.4% for debit cards and 0.8% for credit cards, while its online transaction fees are 0.79% +10p. Overall, we found it to be the cheapest way to take card payments among the providers we researched.
Its minimum monthly account fee is £10, beaten only by Worldpay’s minimum fee of £9.95. This 5p difference isn’t enough to knock RMS from its top spot in the pricing category in our research, scoring a 5/5. Unfortunately, RMS doesn’t disclose its hardware fees, however, based on our research, the average cost of hardware is around £15 per month.
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| Retail Merchant Services |
| Monthly Fee From £10 + VAT/month |
| Transaction fee
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RMS’ closest competitor for pricing is takepayments, scoring a 4.1/5 for pricing. While it’s not as cheap as RMS, takepayments is fairly affordable when compared with providers in our research, plus, it performs better overall. takepayments scores better for features because it offers more integrations and reporting capabilities than RMS, however, RMS is still a cheaper provider. So, if your business has space in the budget for a stronger overall provider, then takepayments could be a better choice for your business.
Read our takepayments review for more information.
You can compare the cost of other payment providers using our free comparison tool. Our tool will match you up with trusted providers that will contact you with obligation-free quotes.
The pros and cons of Retail Merchant Services
Pros
- Low transaction fees
- Accepts multiple forms of payment
Cons
- Hardware costs undisclosed
- Not PCI compliant
Pro – low transaction fees
RMS offers the lowest transaction fees for card payments in our research, so it’s no surprise it has the highest pricing score (5/5). RMS allows for bespoke pricing for each customer, so you might even be able to negotiate lower fees.
The next cheapest transaction fees belongs to Worldpay, which scores a 3.95/5 for price in our research. While its transaction fees are higher than RMS, its fund transfer time is 30 minutes, much faster than RMS’ time of three to five working days. Worldpay is a good fit for small businesses or startups that want the cash flow, however, if you’re more concerned about keeping costs down, RMS will be the better choice.
Pro – accepts multiple forms of payment
Retail Merchant Services scores a 5/5 for taking payments because it accepts card, online, mail, and checkout link transactions. This is great for businesses that have online stores, or want to provide multiple ways for customers to pay. While Worldpay also offers the same amount of payment methods, RMS’ transaction fees are much cheaper and well suited to small businesses.
Con – hardware costs undisclosed
Retail Merchant Services’ hardware costs aren’t publicly available, making it difficult to give an accurate judgement on whether or not this is the right provider for your business. They typically provide Ingenico card machines. We will say that the average monthly reader fee is around £15 and, with RMS offering the lowest card transaction fees, it’s still one of the more affordable options.
Con – Not PCI compliant
Based on our research, you have to complete the compliance process yourself, so we’ve deemed RMS as not being PCI compliant. Other providers, such as Dojo, only require you to read two documents and answer two questions. The hassle of becoming and staying compliant with PCI is a pain, however, RMS is a much better provider overall when compared with Dojo as it’s cheaper, has more features, and accepts payments online.
Retail Merchant Services’ key features explained
Reporting and integrations
RMS offers several reporting capabilities, including real-time data insights as well as wastage and shrinkage monitoring. While RMS has good reporting options, takepayments offers more, plus, it also has 16 integrations compared with RMS’ one integration. While takepayments has better features than RMS, it’s more expensive, so if want to keep costs down, RMS is a better fit.
Fund transfer time
Retail Merchant Services’ fund transfer time is three to five working days, which isn’t unusual for payment providers, but it’s a lot slower than some of the other providers in our research. Worldpay transfers funds within 30 minutes, which is super speedy and great for small businesses, or businesses that want consistent cash flow. However, Worldpay can’t process online payments, which is a problem for businesses with ecommerce stores, whereas RMS allows for online payments.
What kind of business is Retail Merchant Services best for?
Small businesses
Retail Merchant Services is good for small businesses because its card transaction fees and minimum monthly account fees are low. It’s also a great comprehensive provider, scoring a 4.7/5 in our research, offering multiple forms of payment methods, in-depth reporting, and it accepts multiple currencies.
How does Retail Merchant Services compare with its competitors?
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| Retail Merchant Services | Worldpay | |
| Score 4.7 | Score 4.8 | Score 4.7 |
| Best For Low transaction fees on card payments | Best For Best overall | Best For Integrations |
| Monthly Fee From £10 + VAT/month | Monthly Fee Bespoke | Monthly Fee From £19.95 + VAT |
| Transaction fee
| Transaction fee Custom (e.g. 1% + £0.02-2.75% + £0.02 for £50-£100k turnover; average transaction £0-£50) | Transaction fee
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Price
Retail Merchant Services offers the lowest card transaction fees out of all the providers we looked at. Its minimum monthly fee is also fairly low, so it’s a great choice for providers looking to keep costs down. It doesn’t disclose its hardware fees, which can be frustrating and we did note in our market-wide merchant account comparison.
While its card transaction fees are higher than that of RMS, its features are comprehensive, such as having over 16 integrations and it accepts over 170 currencies. If you want the cheapest option, RMS is a good fit because its fees are low and it’s rated well overall (4.7/5).
Features
Retail Merchant Services scores a 4.1/5 for features, the third highest score in our research. RMS offers several reporting capabilities, accepts over 100 currencies, and has one integration (CounterPay). takepayments scores the best for features (5/5) and offers 16 integrations and a similar number of reporting options as RMS, and it accepts over 170 currencies, making it a good option for businesses looking to scale. While takepayments performs better in this area, RMS is still a cheaper option.
Does Retail Merchant Services have good customer reviews?
Retail Merchant Services has a customer score of 3.5/5 in our research. While there are positive reviews about the customer service, there are some complaints about the cancellation fees. RMS can charge around £1,000 if improper notice is given to terminate a contract, so this is something to consider.
We recommend Retail Merchant Services for businesses that want low transaction fees, especially small businesses or startups, as transaction fees are typically the most recurring fees for payment providers.
You will have to complete the compliance process yourself, so if you want to avoid this hassle, takepayments is a similar competitor that is PCI compliant. RMS’s fund transfer times are not the fastest at three to five working days, so, if this is important for your business, Worldpay may be a better option as it transfers funds within 30 minutes.
Overall, Retail Merchant Services is a good provider with affordable fees, but if you still want to look at other options, you can use our free comparison tool. With a few brief details about your business, we will match you with trusted suppliers. You’ll then be contacted by these suppliers with obligation-free quotes.
How We Reviewed Retail Merchant Services
To bring you our reviews, we tested and researched 18 payment services providers, assessing them across five main areas of investigation, and 23 subcategories. These included ease of use, the quality and feel of hardware, and the price of products and services.
Here’s what we looked at:
- Hardware: We looked at the size, weight, and portability of the card machines they offer, and assessed their connectivity, interface, receipt printing, and battery life.
- Software: We tallied up how many payment types and methods each provider accepts, looked at payout times, reporting and security features, EPOS functionality, and what systems it integrates with.
- Pricing: We compared monthly fees, card machine costs, transaction fees and contract lengths against the features of each payment services provider, to determine the value for money of each.
- Ease of use: We had several different average users test each card machine and payment processing system to see how intuitive each one was to use, and how quickly everyday tasks could be completed.
- Help and support: We assessed providers based on how many different channels of support they offered, and how available and responsive the support team was.
We then gave each provider an overall score based on how well they fared in the above assessment categories.
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