Is there any such thing as a free merchant account?

Free merchant accounts are the credit card processing industry's unicorn in the way that they don't exist but people continue to believe in and search for them anyway.

A search for "free merchant account" on any Internet search engine will produce results pages chock-full of businesses that are advertising merchant accounts that supposedly cost nothing. In reality free merchant accounts simply don't exist. It costs money to process credit card transactions and providers still have to make a profit.

You can't blame merchant service companies for advertising using the key phrase "free merchant account" because so many people are searching for one. However, once you begin to read the fine print you'll quickly notice that the "free" part was only talking about a single fee. For example, most companies that advertise free merchant accounts are referring to the set-up or application fees, all other fees such as the discount rates, monthly fees and possible annual fees would still apply.

You're probably wondering if it's possible to accept credit card payments without a merchant account or if perhaps there's a service available that will accept credit cards on your behalf. Both of these types of services exist but neither of them offer credit card processing for free.

It's an awful truth, but time spent searching for a free merchant account would be much better spent searching for a legitimate low-cost processing solution to fit your business needs.

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Summary
Free merchants accounts are one of those things that are just too good to be true. Card issuers, banks and providers charge money to process credit cards and the costs are passed to the merchant along with an increase to account for profit.

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