Transparent Merchant Services Review
Today, I am reviewing Transparent Merchant Services to give you an insider look at their value. The main reason I chose to review them is because they have a very similar pricing structure as we do at Payment Depot.
Before I go any further, the bottom line is Transparent Merchant Services is good, but not great.
Why? They do not markup the interchange, rather they charge a monthly fee and only charge merchants the interchange rates for processing. Further, they have no contracts or junk fees, but all in all, their monthly fee and per transaction costs are just higher than ours. They also charge their customers a PCI fee.
Let’s do a side by side comparison:
Hypothetical Scenario: A business processes one thousand $100 transactions per month, which would be twelve thousand $100 transactions per year. Below are the annual costs, so we are using Transparent’s Elite and Payment Depot’s Best Value Memberships. These plans are picked based on the hypothetical amount this merchant is processing.
Annual Processing Costs
| Company | Transparent | Payment Depot |
| Plan | Elite | Best Value Membership |
| Annual Plan Price | $1,200 | $600 |
| Per Transaction Cost for the year | $1,080($0.09 per trans) | $1,200($0.10 per trans) |
| PCI fee | $100 | Included in membership |
| Total Yearly Processing Cost | $2,380 | $1,800 |
That’s a $580 difference per year (That’s $5,800 over ten years)! While Transparent does offer no contracts, no cancellation fees or hidden fees, their prices just aren’t as competitive as Payment Depot.
Transparent is better than a traditional processor, but not the best on the market!