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Worldpay is a strong choice for retailers, businesses building customer loyalty programs and businesses dealing in multiple currencies.
Retail businesses conduct more transactions per day than most other companies. Along the way, things can go wrong, from chargebacks to inventory errors that cause frustrating stockouts. But a lot can go right too, like building loyalty through rewards programs and boosting sales with gift cards. Worldpay helps retailers manage these challenges while keeping costs low for new businesses, not to mention provide powerful inventory management support through its Genius POS system. For these reasons, we’ve named Worldpay our top credit card processor for retail.
Worldpay is our top credit card processor for retail because it empowers businesses to accept credit card payments and digital payment methods and channels while providing the tools to grow and stay organized. With Worldpay, you can also get access to the Genius POS system, which offers useful tools like loyalty program support, predictive inventory management, employee scheduling and sales tax management.
We especially liked that Worldpay helps minimize credit card processing costs, which is crucial when you’re starting out or navigating a slow sales period. Its surcharge and cash discount programs let you pass most processing fees on to customers, and its online transaction rates are highly competitive.
We found Worldpay’s online customer dashboard intuitive and straightforward to navigate. Even less tech-savvy business owners should be able to learn the system quickly without much difficulty. When we logged in, we immediately saw an overview of transactions for the current day, the past week and the past month, along with a billing statement and dispute data on the homepage. Everything else was just a click away in the left-hand sidebar, which we found convenient and well-organized.
We were especially impressed by the level of detail available in the sidebar’s Transactions and Disputes sections, which provided granular data for deeper insights. The true standout, though, was Worldpay’s reporting tool, which let us generate reports on gift card transactions, potential fraud and more. Worldpay makes it easy for retailers to fully understand and manage their transactions.
While testing Worldpay, the following features stood out to us.
With Worldpay, you get Genius POS system’s powerful inventory management tools alongside your credit card processing setup. The inventory suite lets you track stock levels across all locations and avoid stockouts. We were impressed by how much control these tools gave us over what was available to sell, helping ensure customers always had access to the products they wanted.
We were impressed by how easy Worldpay makes it to not only implement loyalty programs but also refine them over time. As more customers join your program, you gain actionable, data-driven insights through Genius’ reporting suite to improve your rewards structure.
Worldpay provides access to several payment hardware options, including:
Worldpay’s payouts arrive the following business day (after settlement), which we found to be a strong safeguard against cash flow disruptions. These transfers are faster than those from competitors like Stripe, U.S. Bank, Helcim and, in some cases, Clover. (Read our Clover credit card processing review to learn more about its POS hardware and integrated payment solutions.)
Worldpay does not disclose its monthly fees online. We found this frustrating, especially when compared with competitors like Helcim that pride themselves on transparent pricing.
There is a standard three-year contract and early termination fees may apply, though Worldpay does not charge a PCI compliance fee like some of the other payment processors we reviewed.
Here’s what you need to know about Worldpay’s pricing and transaction fees:
Interchange-Plus Pricing
Among our 12 picks for the best credit card processors, Worldpay is one of just four with an interchange-plus pricing model. (The others are Helcim, U.S. Bank and North Payments.) With interchange-plus pricing, you pay the card networks’ interchange fees plus Worldpay’s fixed markup. We like that Worldpay offers this model since most experts recommend it for small businesses.
Dual Pricing Program
In our conversation with a Worldpay sales representative, we learned about their Cash Discounts and Fee Surcharging programs. In these programs, most of your processing fees are passed on to customers. For example, with Fee Surcharging, the customer pays up to 4 percent in processing charges.
We encountered no meaningful obstacles to onboarding with Worldpay. The platform is known to approve new customers within an hour, which is exceptionally fast. When we called the sales team to inquire about opening an account, we were connected to an agent within minutes. We were delighted by the quick human attention, and our representative even sent a follow-up email shortly after our call.
After approval, we quickly received an email to sign up, and completing our registration took only a few minutes. Overall, approval, implementation and onboarding were surprisingly straightforward and fast for a credit card processor — especially given that these vendors are known for being risk-averse. We had no complaints.
Here’s what you need to know about Worldpay’s customer support:
While Worldpay has many strengths, we identified a few drawbacks you should keep in mind:
To determine the best credit card processors for small businesses, we viewed product demos, tested platforms via free trials, read user reviews and contacted each vendor’s support team. We also evaluated how easy each vendor’s hardware and software is to use and whether the contract terms felt fair to merchants. Additionally, we compared rates and fees, paying special attention to whether a vendor would customize pricing options to meet a merchant’s needs.
To identify the best credit card processor for retailers, we focused on features tailored to retail operations, such as inventory tracking, employee management, loyalty and gift card programs and reporting tools. We also considered whether processors supported multiple payment methods, accepted transactions across currencies and channels, and offered hardware that fit the needs of in-store sales.
We recommend Worldpay for…
We don’t recommend Worldpay for…