PayJunction Review: Features, Pricing, Alternatives

If your small business wants to accept payments, be they in-store or through your online store, you’ll need to select the best payment service provider (or a PSP) for your company’s needs.

This PayJunction review covers everything you need to know about PSPs and dives into the details of PayJunction’s major features and pricing to help you make your best decision.

» MORE: NerdWallet's best POS software

PayJunction’s toolkit includes a payment gateway, a point-of-sale, or POS, terminal that can handle card transactions whether or not the card is present, and a few other features that help automate and streamline essential processes.

Smart terminal: PayJunction’s cloud-based POS terminal can accept EMV, NFC, swipe cards and Apple Pay payments. This plug-and-play terminal digitally stores your customers’ signatures and all transaction histories, which you can then easily search if the need arises down the line; then, your customers will have the option of a printed or emailed receipt. PayJunction also claims that its Smart Terminal processes payments almost four times faster than the average POS terminal, which better ensures a frictionless checkout process for both you and your customers.

ACH payments: In addition to accepting all types of credit and debit cards, PayJunction can securely accept ACH payments at low transaction fees (0.75%, to be exact). If your customer pays via ACH check, you’ll collect their signature digitally and send them an emailed receipt.

E-commerce merchant services: If you run an e-commerce business, PayJunction can act as both your payment gateway and your merchant account so you can securely accept payments online — just customize and embed its hosted checkout button on your business website and let PayJunction handle the PCI-compliant payment processing. PayJunction integrates with over 80 popular shopping carts, like Shift4Shop and Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento).

Mobile app: With PayJunction’s free mobile app, iOS users can accept keyed-in credit card payments right from their phone or tablet.

Additional payment processing features: PayJunction also offers a few time-saving features that streamline and automate the payment process, all while keeping both your customers’ and your business’ security top of mind. For instance, the Smart Terminal can securely store credit, debit and ACH information so you can easily search and refund purchases recharge repeat customers with one click, or to set up recurring billing. Plus, PayJunction can remotely capture signatures for card-not-present transactions to protect you against chargebacks.

Analytics: Use PayJunction’s native analytics tools to view a range of financial reports, like trends and comparisons over time and transactions by card type. And since all your data is securely stored in the cloud, you can easily search and export reports and transaction histories to keep for your records.

PayJunction uses interchange-plus pricing with a markup of 0.75% for all credit card transactions. If you’re already working with a payment processor and you’re looking to switch to PayJunction, PayJunction will provide you with volume-based pricing based on two months of billing statements.

Also, PayJunction has no long-term contracts, so you don’t need to worry about an early cancellation fee. It also won’t charge you a monthly, annual or PCI compliance fee, or a fee for your payment gateway. The only exception is businesses that process under $10,000, which will need to pay a $35 monthly fee.

PayJunction is a truly comprehensive payment processor that should be especially appealing to small-business owners who want to digitize the checkout process and their records. But with so many payment processors available to small-business owners, it makes sense to consider how PayJunction stacks up against the competition.

Square

You’re likely aware of Square, a tech-forward platform that got its start as one of the first end-to-end payment service providers for small-business owners. The merchant services company has since expanded to include even more tools and services for SMBs, like loans, Square Payroll and Square Appointments, but let's focus on Square POS and Square Payments, the platform’s marquee products.

With Square Payments you can accept payments in person, over the phone or on your website. You can either choose to integrate Square Payments with third-party POS hardware or choose among Square’s own range of POS hardware:

Beyond processing payments, Square’s software can help you manage a range of back-end processes, too, like inventory tracking, employee management, analytics, payroll, marketing and CRM tools, though these tools may cost you extra. Square does offer users free basic software with the Square POS app, which is compatible with both Apple and Android devices. Square also provides specialized POS systems for certain types of businesses, like retailers and restaurants.

Square charges flat fees with no long-term contracts.

Clover

Clover is a highly customizable, all-in-one POS solution that can accept all types of payment, including EMV cards, NFC cards, swipe cards, checks and cash. Clover really shines in its in-person payment processing hardware, so e-commerce businesses may do better with another payment processor designed to integrate with online stores.

But if you want to accept physical payments at your brick-and-mortar location, over the phone or on the go, you’ll have the option of Clover’s four POS solutions:

• Clover Station Solo (starts at $1,699): A fully outfitted countertop register, complete with a cash drawer and receipt printer.

• Clover Mini ($799): A smaller version of Clover Station.

• Clover Flex ($599): A handheld, cloud-based POS system that accepts all types of credit cards.

• Clover Go ($49): A cloud-based mobile card reader that lets you accept credit payments on your smart device.

On top of its hardware range, Clover also provides a virtual terminal so you can accept payments online.

Clover offers three tiers of service in each of many different industries, including restaurants and retail. The software includes business management tools, offline payment processing, employee shift planning, financial reports and access to the Clover App Market, which collects hundreds of third-party apps that integrate with your Clover system.

Clover also offers flat-rate transaction fees:

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