The Best High-Risk Merchant Processors of 2025

High-risk merchants have been underserved by traditional payment processors for decades, often struggling to even obtain a merchant account. When they do, they are often subject to higher fees, sub-par fraud/chargeback protection that doesn’t accommodate their unique needs, and unexpected account holds and freezes. To help these businesses find the right payment processor for them, our third-party research team has analyzed over 40 high-risk merchant processors and ranked them based on the following criteria:

• Value Score: A 1.0-5.0 score that we use to summarize the value a merchant processor offers high-risk clients specifically. This is based on factors like specialized features, fee transparency, variety of industries served, security, and ease of use.
• Year Established: High-risk merchant accounts are a relatively young industry, and those processors that started early and managed to stay successful until now have demonstrated unique stability and consistent client satisfaction.
• High-Risk Specialization: Some traditional generalist merchant account providers support high-risk industries to one degree or another, but high-risk specialist merchant processors offer more value in the form of unique features and pricing models built with the intention of serving high-risk businesses.
• Dedicated Account Manager: High-risk merchant accounts often require more stringent oversight and faster reaction to solve problems that aren’t as common with low-risk clients, and dedicated account managers enable merchants to better offer both.
• Instant Onboarding: It isn’t uncommon for businesses in high-risk buckets to have their merchant accounts frozen or terminated unexpectedly, and instant onboarding allows for immediate transition without lengthy downtime, saving them money and reputational damage from failed payments.

Below are our rankings of the top high-risk merchant processors after considering all of the factors above, including their client specialty:

The Best High-Risk Merchant Processors of 2025

Seamless Chex

Seamless Chex provides the most comprehensive support of any high-risk merchant processor on this list. They serve the widest variety of high-risk businesses, with a 99.1% acceptance rate and upfront underwriting to ensure every business that opens an account doesn’t have to fear losing it down the line. Their specialized high-risk services, like advanced chargeback management, top-of-the-line fraud protection, industry-leading PCI-DSS security standards, rapid dispute regulation, and more, make them a no-brainer for firms looking for the most specialized high-risk merchant account available. 

Furthermore, their transparent, adaptable fee schedules and support for high-volume sellers make their merchant accounts extremely scalable. Dedicated account managers and instant onboarding ensure a rapid, cost-effective transition and personalized support. Everything about Seamless Chex is intentionally designed to support the growth of high-risk businesses of all shapes and sizes.

• Value Score: 4.8
• Year Established: 2012
• High-Risk Specialization: Yes
• Dedicated Account Manager: Yes
• Instant Onboarding: Yes
• Contact: SeamlessChex website

PaymentCloud

PaymentCloud is also a high-risk specialist merchant processor. While they assign dedicated account managers for their clients, onboarding is not instant, leaving a bit of value on the table in the form of downtime during account transition for clients who have lost their previous accounts. As far as their unique specialty and value, they offer chargeback and fraud protection, as well as a unique surcharge model that allows businesses to pass their payment processing fees onto customers automatically.

They have had issues in the past with high-volume merchants, though, with client reviews and notable outlets suggesting that they have sometimes imposed transaction volume restrictions, frustrating holds or freezes during busy seasons, and hidden fees. This may cause issues for businesses that expect or hope to scale.

• Value Score: 4.6
• Year Established: 2015
• High-Risk Specialization: Yes
• Dedicated Account Manager: Yes
• Instant Onboarding: No
• Contact: PaymentCloud website

SoarPay

SoarPay is another high-risk merchant processor, and offers similar features to the others on the list. Unfortunately, they do not serve “ultra-high-risk” industries, which limits their value as a high-risk specialist, and means that their features won’t be geared toward the unique needs of these businesses. These include adult entertainment, gambling (other than sports betting & fantasy), bitcoin, offshore businesses, and more.

As a result, we can recommend them for businesses that fall into their eligibility criteria, but with the understanding that their high-risk specialty features may be less potent, and they may still flag or freeze accounts if certain metrics exceed their risk tolerance.

• Value Score: 4.3
• Year Established: 2015
• High-Risk Specialization: Yes
• Dedicated Account Manager: Yes
• Instant Onboarding: No
• Contact: SoarPay website

Merrco Payments

Merrco Payments is a specialist in cannabis, vape, and liquor merchant accounts that seemingly doesn’t serve other high-risk industries. They are a Canadian company built to serve Canadian clients, though they do work with US companies. They similar PCI DSS compliance and fraud protection to Seamless Chex, a wide range of payment solutions, and easy API and POS integrations for their select few supported industries.

Their quality as a merchant processor would normally put them higher on a “top merchant processor” list for the industries they serve, but on a more general list like this one, their value score suffers as a result of their lack of variety in supported industries.

• Value Score: 4.2
• Year Established: 2016
• High-Risk Specialization: Yes*
• Dedicated Account Manager: Yes
• Instant Onboarding: No
• Contact: Merrco Payments website

Stax Payments

Stax Payments is a generalist payment processor that offers a subscription model as opposed to the traditional per-transaction structure. The subscriptions are tiered, and key support features like dedicated account managers are only offered only to Ultimate subscribers and above. While this may dissuade some merchants, there is still a way to guarantee the service, so we credit them for it on this list. Although the limited access to these services impacts their Value Score.

They do serve some high-risk industries, but don’t specialize in this risk profile, and they don’t offer as many specialty features like chargeback interception that are designed to mitigate the unique costs of high-risk industries. That being said, their subscription model makes them uniquely desirable to some, and they offer quality service to those who partner with them.

• Value Score: 3.9
• Year Established: 2014
• High-Risk Specialization: No
• Dedicated Account Manager: Sometimes
• Instant Onboarding: No
• Contact: Stax Payments website

Stripe

Stripe is the most commonly known merchant processor on the list, but it is a generalist that isn’t built for high-risk industries. It typically provides a good (but expensive) service for small e-commerce businesses, which translates to the few high-risk industries that it will serve. It offers all of the benefits of a premium generalist processor, but it also comes with all of its drawbacks.

The biggest issue with using a payment processor like Stripe is their lack of up-front underwriting that guarantees lasting support for their clients. Instead, businesses open accounts somewhat freely only to find out weeks or months later that their account has been flagged, frozen, or held due to high-risk activity. As a result, we can only recommend them for industries that they commonly serve, and businesses in these industries that don’t expect high payment volumes.

• Value Score: 3.7
• Year Established: 2010
• High-Risk Specialization: No
• Dedicated Account Manager: No
• Instant Onboarding: Yes
• Contact: Stripe website

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