Intro

Stax by FattMerchant (or “Stax” for short) is a subscription-based credit card processing company serving businesses in the retail, professional services and healthcare sectors. Stax offers a range of payment services including Stax Pay (for SMBs), Stax Enterprise (for large businesses) and Stax Connect (for SaaS platforms). This review will focus on Stax Pay.

Payment Depot in Brief

Monthly fee: $49-129

Per swipe fee: $0.07 - $0.15 + interchange

Setup fee: None

Cancellation fee: None

PCI compliance fee: None

Best for: Transparent transaction fees and powerful add-ons

Terminals

Stax offers an all-in-one payment processing solution encompassing the following payment types:

• Swiped payments
• Keyed payments
• Contactless payments
• Mobile payments
• Payment invoicing
• eCommerce

When it comes to traditional countertop payment terminals, Stax offers:

• Dejavoo terminals – Z8, Z9 and Z11 for swiped, dipped, or tapped in-person payments. Most of these terminals are Wi-Fi ready and provide contactless payment options.
• PAX A920 – includes an integrated camera, high-speed thermal printer, and high-capacity battery to meet the daily demands of retail or hospitality businesses.

POS solutions

The Stax mobile app turns your phone into a secure, portable point-of-sale system. Stax also integrates with most POS solutions, which is useful if you already have one.

Stax’s dashboards and advanced reporting tools let you monitor the health of your business in real time. Capabilities include:

• View outstanding invoices, including how much money is owed and which customers have pending payments.
• Real-time visibility on customer payment trends, inventory status, deposits, and more.
• Manage customer records, payment history, manage purchasing frequency, and make smarter business decisions.

Integrations include:

• QuickBooks Online (2-way sync). Make changes to customers, invoices, and payments in your platform and see it reflected on QuickBooks instantly.
• Online reviews. Monitor, request, and respond to Facebook, Google and Yelp reviews from your platform.
• Zapier. Access thousands of third-party tools and applications.

Merchant Services

Stax offers way more features than your average credit card processor. Here are just a few examples:

• Customizable digital invoices. Create invoices that mirror your business branding. Drag and drop multiple fields, select tax rates, and add memos for easy itemization.
• Send digital payment requests. Send payment links via email or text message and configure automatic payment reminders.
• Future and recurring payments. Securely store customer profiles to automatically process future transactions, set recurring billing, and schedule payment reminders.
• One-click shopping cart. Build an online store with custom e-commerce integrations and personalized shopping carts and checkouts.
• Same-day funding. Receive your deposits within a few hours of batching up, simply by using a debit card rather than a bank account.
• Custom branding. Build invoices, receipts, website payments, and more with Stax’s customization tools.
• Digital gift cards. Create and sell gift cards online.

Pricing

Stax is a subscription-based payment processor. While most payment processing companies mark up the wholesale rates set by Visa, MasterCard and the other big card brands, a Stax membership gets you unlimited access to wholesale rates. All you pay is the card brand’s interchange fee + 8c per transaction for swiped payments or 15c per transaction for keyed payments.

Here are the monthly membership fees:

The Starter plan includes lite dashboards and reporting, same-day funding, ACH processing (1% of transaction up to $10), and ticket-based support.

The Growth plan includes standard dashboards and reporting, invoicing, text-to-pay, e-commerce payments, accounting reconciliation (incl. QuickBooks Online), and an API key for third-party integrations.

The Pro plan includes advanced dashboards and reporting, the ability to automatically save your customers’ card information, one-click shopping cart with catalog management, recurring and scheduled payments, data exports, and a dedicated account manager.

Applying and contracts

To apply to Stax Pay, go to the Stax website and click the “Sign Up” button at the top of the screen. You’ll need to provide your name, email, phone number, and business name to proceed.

The great thing about Stax is that there are no contracts, no setup fees, and no cancellation fees. The PCI compliance fee is also built into the cost of your monthly subscription.

Stax works with businesses in the retail, professional services, field services, and healthcare sectors. It doesn’t work with high-risk businesses such as collection agencies, CBD companies, online gambling sites, online pharmaceutical sites, and weapons sellers.

About Stax

Stax was founded in 2014 by entrepreneur Suneera Madhani. After seeing the need for a better payment experience, Madhani decided to solve the problem herself. She built Stax from the ground up, and was soon joined by a team of experienced payment industry professionals. Stax is based in Orlando, FL. It is a registered ISO/MSP in association with Fifth Third Bank, Cincinnati, OH.

Customer Support

Stax by Fattmerchant has an excellent reputation. It currently has a 4.3/5 rating on Trustpilot and is accredited with the Better Business Bureau, where it maintains an A+ rating.

To find out more about Stax, call 833-782-9729, hit the chat button on any page of the Stax website, or go to the Knowledge Base section of the Stax website.

Summary

Stax by Fatt Merchant is one of a number of innovative companies making credit card processing more transparent and more affordable. Thanks to Stax, you can now take payments without having to worry about fluctuating transaction rates or hidden fees. What’s more, Stax offers off-the-shelf POS solutions that give you real-time visibility into your business’s performance.