If you’ve been having a hard time getting approved by regular payment processors, you know the struggle. Companies that work with CBD, supplements, travel, subscriptions, gaming, telehealth, online dating, and other industries that banks see as risky have to jump through a million hoops to find a payment processor willing to take them on.
This is exactly what Adaptiv Payments is built for.
They’re not trying to be your basic processor that would work for any small business. Instead, everything they do is geared towards merchants that might have more chargebacks, higher transaction volumes, recurring billing, international customers, etc. You get the gist.
Keep in mind that “high risk” doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something unusual or sketchy with the business itself. It’s just that banks are borderline paranoid, and if you look at a subscription company that might get more chargebacks, banks see it as too risky to be worth the trouble. And with 44% of chargebacks being friendly fraud, you can see where that kind of thinking is coming from.
A business can easily get pushed into that high-risk category simply because of its processing history or average transaction size.
That’s where Adaptiv Payments can be a big help.
They’re a payment processing company based in St. Petersburg, Florida, and their current industry directory lists 40 different industries. You’ll find everything from telehealth and nutraceuticals to logistics, precious metals, pawn shops, gyms, high-volume ecommerce, etc. To be clear, Adaptiv Payments doesn’t define “high-risk” simply by what a business sells. If you look at the FAQ, you’ll see things like poor credit history, a lot of chargebacks, larger transactions, and higher monthly processing volume.
Adaptiv gives an average ticket above $50 (USD) and monthly volume above $20,000 as some examples of factors that can make banks and processors see your business as risky. Of course, those aren’t some universal industry cutoffs, but they give you an idea of how Adaptiv looks at risk, and it’s encouraging. A processor that looks at just the business category and nothing else is certainly a red flag, and Adaptiv Payments goes well beyond that.
That’s actually really important to know because what if you were running a 100% ordinary online business and you needed a high-risk merchant account?
Say you have a travel company.
Nothing sketchy or risky about that, is there? But you might take payments months before your customers receive the service, and banks don’t like that. Or maybe your business sells expensive products, which means there’s more money at stake every time someone disputes a transaction. In other words, a lot of businesses can get labeled as risky, no matter how regular and ordinary they seem.
Adaptiv Payments built everything around those kinds of cases.
Instead of having one standard account and selling that to everyone, the company says it works with different banking and processing partners. That way, they can put together an account based on the merchant’s situation, which is exactly what you want. You always want solutions tailored to your business, especially when it comes to payments. If you process $100,000 or more in monthly sales, you’ll be happy to know that Adaptiv has a separate high-volume merchant account that’s specifically aimed at businesses of this type.
According to the company, it’s approved by more than 10,000 high-risk merchants, and it processes more than $1 billion in merchant transaction volume every year. Also, Adaptiv has more than 10 years of experience in this part of the payment industry. That should give you some idea of the scale Adaptiv works at. To be fair, these are the reports straight from the company, not an independent source.
As for the actual service, it goes well beyond getting an approval for your merchant account. Adaptiv offers payment gateways, ACH processing, virtual terminals, ecommerce integrations, fraud protection, tools for chargebacks, international processing, payment solutions related to HIPAA, and assistance around Visa’s Acquirer Monitoring Program. As a merchant, you can also accept different types of payments (depending on the account). That includes credit and debit cards, ACH payments, and alternative payment methods.
The ecommerce side is also pretty concrete.
Adaptiv can be easily connected to Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Wix, and Shopware platforms. You can actually check whether the store system you use is on the list rather than contacting them because the site only says “major ecommerce platforms supported”.
Another good option is the virtual terminal, especially if your business takes payments over the phone or through other card-not-present channels.
| Card-not-present transactions have an approximately 4 times higher fraud rate compared to card-present ones (16.33 basis points and 4.02 basis points respectively). – U.S. Federal Reserve |
It works through a browser, so your customers don’t have to physically tap or insert a card. Adaptiv’s underwriting review can get some virtual terminal accounts live in as little as 24 to 48 hours, although you should know that this is the best-case scenario. There’s no rule saying your account will work the same because approvals still depend on underwriting and the documents involved in the process.
The application itself takes about 15 minutes, and it’s done online.
Preliminary approval can come within 24-48 hours, although that ‘preliminary approval’ is important to remember. Nobody’s making any guarantees that every merchant will have a fully live account within 2 days because that would be completely unrealistic.
ACH gives merchants another way to take payments without putting everything on credit and debit cards. Adaptiv supports one-time and recurring ACH transactions, and there’s even next-day funding available for some ACH setups. Also, ACH is cheaper than traditional card processing, although the official website doesn’t show any kind of percentage as far as savings go.
Fraud and chargebacks are talked about a lot, which isn’t surprising when you factor in the businesses Adaptiv works with.
| U.S. consumers disrupted approx. $11 billion in card charges in 2020, which is a 53% increase compared to 2019, which had $7.2 billion disputed. – Visa |
There’s mention of tools like AVS, CVV checks, fraud screening, real-time transaction monitoring, alerts for chargebacks, and automated dispute resolution. Some of Adaptiv’s fraud screening uses AI, but there’s no information on performance for false positives and reduction of fraud.
You’re probably interested in pricing, and you won’t find a public rate that applies to everyone. You might get annoyed by that, but it’s standard practice when it comes to high-risk payment processors. And it makes sense because you could have 2 merchants with completely different levels of risk, so of course one of them will pay a higher price. Basically, if you want a number, you’ll need to ask for a quote.
When it comes to support, everything’s very clear?
Sale hours are Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern. If you send an email, you’ll receive a response within 24 hours, and existing customers get 24/7 support.
Quick Facts
- Based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The office address is 136 4th St N, Suite 201.
- Main focus is on high-risk merchant accounts and payment processing for businesses that frequently get declined by standard processors.
- Wide industry coverage: travel, SaaS, fintech, online dating, pharmacies, supplements, tobacco, logistics, medical billing, precious metals, sports betting, gyms, and more.
- Examples of high-risk: free trials, recurring billing, average tickets above $50, monthly volume above $20,000, large volume of chargebacks, poor credit history.
- Payment options: card processing, ACH, virtual terminals, gateways, retail processing, e-commerce integrations.
- Prevention of fraud and chargebacks: fraud screening, transaction monitoring, alerts for chargebacks, tools for managing disputes. Through Adaptiv’s Nuvei partnership, merchants can get access to Veriif, Ethoca, and Visa RDR tools.
- No single pricing rate that applies to all merchants; you’ll need to ask for a quote to know the price.
Products and Services of Adaptiv Payments
- High-Risk Merchant Accounts – For businesses who can’t get a standard merchant account due to their industry, processing history, billing model, exposure to chargebacks, or transaction profile. All applications are reviewed (no automatic approvals).
- High-Risk Payment Gateway – Online card payments processor with extra focus on fraud control, chargebacks with underwriting high-risk merchants require.
- ACH Processing – Businesses get an alternative option to get paid – straight from customers’ bank accounts. ACH’s cheaper, and next-day funding is available in some cases.
- Virtual Terminal – Businesses can input card details via browser. Useful for phone and mail payments, and some accounts can be live within 24- 48 hours.
- E-Commerce Integrations – Adaptiv can connect to Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Wix, and Shopware; no need for merchants to replace their store platforms.
- Fraud Protection – Fraud screening, real-time transaction monitoring, encryption, tokenization, and other risk controls.
- Prevention of Chargebacks – Alerts for chargebacks and tools for automated resolution of disputes.
- Retail Merchant Accounts – In-person retail processing covered.
- HIPAA and Vamp Support – For businesses that need extra compliance or dispute monitoring.
Also Read :- Choosing The Best Cashless Payment System For Your Laundromat
