Learn about and apply for high risk merchant accounts for CBD, hemp oil, Delta-8, kratom

We help companies get merchant accounts, especially for high risk products like CBD, hemp oil, kratom, delta-9, kratom and ethnobotanicals. We can then integrate most any payment processing system into your Woocommerce store. Or, we can custom develop a WordPress payment plugin that meets your needs and that of your gateway/processor.

Apply for a Merchant Account

Frequently asked questions about high risk merchant accounts and payment processing

A high risk merchant accounts are used to accept credit cards when you sell products that are considered “high risk.” When you sell products online or at a retail location, you need to have a company that connects you to the payment processing ecosystem, banks – think Visa, Mastercard

Generally, high risk products are those that tend to be on the fringe of “acceptable” in terms of moral or legal standards. This can include things like CBD and vape, but also adult services and businesses like tech support.

High risk products can also be those that have a higher rate of fraud, returns or chargebacks/disputes.

You need a high risk merchant account if the products or services you sell include or are involved in the following:

  • Adult entertainment
  • Cannabis related businesses
  • CBD and Hemp
  • Fantasy sports
  • Pawn shops
  • Smart shops
  • Paraphrenalia
  • Head shops
  • Vape products (oils or vaporizers).

This list is hardly exhaustive. If you’re not sure if you need a high risk merchant account, please contact us.

There’s a number of factors involved when your application is being reviewed. Here’s some of the most common and that have high “weight.”

  • Credit score – yup, it can matter
  • Business history – do you have a successful track record of your past or current businesses?
  • Documentation – Articles of incorporation, business license
  • Processing history – is this a new store? Your second store? What’s your sales volume? Have supporting documents ready.

We focus on ensuring your high risk merchant account is a fair deal. While it can be more expensive than traditional processing, it should be appropriately priced when you consider in legal and moral factors. You’ll also need to remember that the banks who underwrite your account are taking risks themselves, and they need to mitigate those risks through a detailed review process, and they price their solutions according to the risk of the products and services themselves.

We’ve provided high risk merchant accounts to our clients for 10 years. We invite you to contact us to discuss your processing needs, or fill out an application here.

Firstly, your products need to be legal. While there’s often some “grey area” about legality – for example, CBD is legal but marijuana is federally illegal – your products will still need to be legal in the place you sell and the places you ship.

Some products you can sell include: kratom, CBD, Delta-8, THCa, hemp oils, spores for mushrooms, paraphrenalia, supplements, neutraceuticals and ethnobotanicals.

Yes, assuming you can understand and meet the numerous guidelines of selling spores online, we provide high risk merchant accounts for spores and mycology products. Contact us for details.

Can you help me get me a high risk merchant account for legal Cannabis, CBD, Delta-8, THCa or Kratom?

How we help

We provide payment processing accounts and integrations for high risk or technical clients through our trusted ISO partners and banks. Our US and EU solutions are specifically tailored to working with Ecommerce-based hemp-based oil, digital assets and other alternative goods manufacturers and retailers.

Even if you’ve already been shut down, we have a solution for you and encourage you to get in touch.

We work directly with only a hand-picked, trusted and vetted payment processing partners and ISO to be sure they provide straightforward pricing, upfront business practices and agreements that you can understand.

We work to make sure that you’re getting a fair deal and that you’ll be able to integrate the payment gateway seamlessly and successfully with your Woocommerce or Shopify store, typically via the Authorize.net and NMI plugins.

And once we get you processing we can integrate it into your website and properly configure your risk and fraud settings in your account.

We also help explain and help setup redundant and backup processing options so if one account is closed the next one is already operational and ready to go. The prudent high-risk Ecommerce vendor accepts this reality as a normal course of business and can work on the fly to adapt to new and changing situations. We can help and be your trusted partner.

If you’ve ever had your account closed down you’ve experienced the panic that comes with losing 90% of your business overnight. This can be prevented and we’ll show you how.

Also if you’re just getting started selling online, you need to be aware of the steps you need to take – and the ones you want to avoid – before you get started. This includes the choice of your web development platform and inventory and shipping systems.

We’re happy to help explain the processes, procedures and prohibitions and guide you and keep you informed all the way from developing your website (if you wish) – or simply acting as your advocate agent and getting you set up with a high risk merchant account.

Gateway plugins

No matter who you choose for your ecommerce merchant account, you’ll need to get it integrated into your Woocommerce store with a plugin. It can be a detailed, multi-step process, and complicated –  especially if you’ve never done it before. There’s configurations and setup required on both sides and it’s an exact process – and we can do it all for you. Also, the plugin may need some tweaks or customizations. In some cases, you may need a custom plugin of your own.

For CBD clients in the US, there’s some things you must be aware of and some payment services you can not use, such as Stripe, Square and Paypal. You’ll need a high risk merchant account – and we can help you get those too.

To get your payment processing setup, we’ll integrate a payment gateway that will connect your site to the merchant account. We will:

  • Let you know what plugins or systems you need for your gateway. You can’t always rely on the “free” ones and may need to purchase a paid version
  • Install the plugins
  • Configure your merchant account, API and Security Keys
  • Link your website to your merchant account
  • Configure your “risk settings” so you can follow best practice for preventing fraudulent transactions and chargebacks
  • Run test transactions
  • Make it all live

Need help integrating payments into your website? Need a custom woocommerce payment processing plugin for your high risk payment system? Get in touch!

Crypto payment processing

We specialize in finding and implementing the correct crypto payment processing solution for your store. We develop or integrate the simplest options available.

Crypto payment systems are notoriously complex, especially for the end user. On the seller end, they can just be too confusing and complicated to make it worthwhile.

By working with a developer specializing in crypto payment processing for high risk products, you’ll find your path to be a lot easier and your payments more easy to digest, manage and for your customers to understand.

Get paid in BTC, ETH, USD, USDC and many other currencies.

Custom payment gateway plugins for Woocomerce

We build and customize payment processing plugins for Woocommerce. We develop work-arounds for many of the most common bottlenecks or road blocks for getting paid with high risk merchant accounts and alternative products like CBD, cannabis seeds and kratom.

We can work with existing WordPress plugins or API to modify the code to meet your specifications. If needed we can build your custom payment processing plugin for woocommerce from scratch.

Your payment gateway account typically connects to your website via an API/plugin which allows your Ecommerce system to securely send card data for transaction approval. Sometimes it’s super-simple and sometimes needs a little configuration or a lot.

The exact amount of time it will take depends on several factors, but we’ll take a look at your current code, see how it matches with what is required, and then estimate the length of time it would take to get your CBD and high-risk transactions completed securely and to your merchant account’s liking.

Contact us to learn more or start an application.

CBD, hemp oil and hemp seed merchant accounts

Here’s a quick rundown of the steps we take to get started with payment processing for CBD, cannabis and smartshops in the EU.

  • Recommend the types of payment processing we think will suit your acceptable level of risk as well as what type of user experience you wish your customers to have
  • Explain all the ins and outs of high-risk processing – including important things to know, pitfalls and basic outlines of cost
  • Based on our discussion, you’ll fill out our onboarding documentation which we submit to our processing partners. The more thorough, detailed and strong the documentation, the faster it will move and the greater likelihood of acceptance
  • We’ll get you connected directly with the payment processing company to fill out all of the sensitive documentation
  • Upon acceptance, we will integrate the payment platform into your website
  • We can custom code the API or plugins as needed, based on your requirements
  • We will customize your gateway account with your company information in ways that help reduce chargebacks
  • We’ll optimize your credit card settings to avoid fraudulent transactions.

Kratom merchant accounts

Can you help me get a high risk merchant account for selling kratom online?

Yes, we provide kratom merchant accounts. And since we’re eCommerce developers, we can integrate your Woocommerce payment gateway plugin to your online store. We also build or modify API to help online vendors of restricted products to accept payments for legal products.

Woocomerce Vs Shopify For High Risk Websites

Where should you build and host your website? Woocommerce all the way. 

If you build your high-risk website anywhere but Woocommerce, you run the risk of losing your site.

Sites like Shopify have restrictive and ever-changing “Prohibited Items” lists that not only excludes specific products, but also ingredients within that product.

They’ll either send you a warning letter, or shut your site down without notice. We’ve seen it happen all too often.

Woocommerce, on the other hand, is open source and there are no prohibitions on what products you can sell and no one can tell you how to operate your site.

And while Woo sites have a higher startup cost than Shopify you’ll save money in the long run with no subscription fees and a lot of free or lower priced Ecommerce plugins and extensions. Also, since you’re a high risk merchant you’ll already be paying 2% extra to Shopify to use a 3rd party payment system. 

If you’re on the fence or not sure what platform to consider please get in touch. We’d love to hear about your plans and help get you started on the right foot.

Payment Processing is Complex

Need a High Risk Merchant account? Crypto payments?

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