Fivestars Credit Card Processing Review 2024

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Ideal For

• Small businesses

• Local businesses

• Industries like retail, service, food, apparel, salons

What’s on Offer

• Kits delivered in 2 days or less

• Built-in setup advice from a marketing expert

• Marketing tools built in

• POS integration

• Signup and rewards program integration

• Customer recognition software

• All major credit cards accepted

• EMV and PCI compliant

• Next-business-day deposits

• 7-days-a-week tech support

• On-screen tipping

• Rate match policy

• No hidden fees

• All-in-one system

Application Process

There are 2 ways for customers to sign up for Fivestars Pay, in-person and online/mobile:

In-person

To sign up for Fivestars Pay accounts, you can visit one of the Fivestars business locations around the country. Enter your phone number into one of the Fivestars touchscreens and you’re signed up. You can also give your details over to a cashier at the signup center.

Online or mobile

Alternatively, you can opt for the online version. Simply go to the website or download the mobile app to sign up.

What’s Unique About Fivestars Pay?

Fivestars Pay is essentially payment processing that’s integrated with your automated loyalty and customer retention system. It’s becoming one of the most popular choices, especially for SMBs. In fact, Fivestars caters exclusively to physical storefronts not online stores, particularly in the service and retail sector, including restaurants, coffee shops, salons, spas, apparel sellers, and bakeries.

The reason it is such a popular choice is because Fivestars Pay offers a more streamlined and inclusive payment processing service than most brands of its ilk. Here are a few reasons we think you’ll like working with Fivestars Pay:

• All-in-one system

Fivestars Pay really is an all-inclusive payment processing system. With a single platform (heck, a single screen for that matter), customers can make payments, add tips, sign up for programs, earn rewards, and use rewards points. And businesses can process those payments, manage customers via an integrated database, keep track of rewards earned, and send out marketing materials all from that same system. So, while other businesses boast all-in-one systems, Fivestars Pay is one of the few credit-card processors we’ve reviewed that delivers on this promise.

• Touchscreen ease

In an ever-evolving, technology-dominated world, keeping up with the tech is vitally important for a business that’s looking to thrive. That’s why we were impressed to see that Fivestars Pay is run via sleek touchscreen card-readers and payment processing hardware (and software of course). The screen is small enough to sit on your countertop, carry from table to table, or take with you on the go. The smooth screen is also highly functional, making the entire process, well, smoother. Customers can swipe their cards or have their EMV chips read instantly. They can also specify a tip directly on the touchscreen with the tap of a finger.

And current customers have confirmed that Fivestars Pay is very easy to work with. The touchscreen we already mentioned makes signups go faster, and the integration provides for a seamless and smooth process. There are other innovative features that speed things up as well. For example, software that automatically recognizes a customer and signs them in as soon as they walk through the door (of your store). This is just another way of saving time and providing more convenience for your customers. And more convenience means more customer retention. Well done, Fivestars Pay.

Unfortunately, Fivestars Pay is a brick-and-mortar storefront-exclusive software. It doesn’t work with online stores at all. At least, not yet. This would be a tremendous benefit to the Ecommerce world, and we’d like to see Fivestars incorporate online businesses into its customer base in the future.

Customer Support

Fivestars Pay doesn’t have award-winning support, but there are a few options. You can send someone an email via the online contact form. There’s also a Help Center that we didn’t find particularly helpful. Fivestars also has a chatbot that you can ask questions to and get answers, and phone support.

Pricing (Software and Hardware)

Fivestars has 2 pricing tiers to choose from. You can opt for the Essentials Plan or level up to the Pro Plan. Frankly, we feel it’s worth the small extra cost as you get a lot more out of the Pro Plan. This is for the fully integrated loyalty program software.

It’s a little annoying that you can’t purchase Fivestars Pay as a standalone, only as an add-on to your regular plan. What’s more, Fivestars doesn’t tell you how much adding Fivestars Pay onto your plan is going to cost you. So, businesses are kind of wandering around in the dark until the customer service rep gets back to them with information. It would be helpful for Fivestars’ potential customers if it added more pricing details onto the website.

You can add the Fivestars Pay feature to either plan or ask for enterprise pricing. This is a customized plan for larger businesses.

Fivestars takes industry-standard precautions to keep information and payment details safe and private.

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Bottom Line

Fivestars Pay is ideal for small businesses, especially in the retail, food, and services industries, and caters specifically to brick-and-mortar businesses. Part of a larger, business management service, Fivestars Pay allows SMBs to process all major credit cards (EMVs) and stay PCI compliant. With sleek touchscreens, Fivestars Pay helps businesses provide a faster, easier, and smoother checkout process for their customers. It’s also great that the service has a full CRM to help retain more customers.

About Fivestars

Founded in 2010, Fivestars is a local business rewards program with a passion. The idea was to harness the power of loyalty programs wielded by large Fortune 500 companies and deliver the same winning results to small, local businesses. One of the most successful startups and reaching its 10-year anniversary, Fivestars has helped more than 14,000 local businesses hold their own against big-brand competitors, using the impactful power of a well-placed rewards program. From discounts to coupons and other more specialized perks, Fivestars empowers small businesses, allowing them to give back to their customers and consequently retain more customers in the process. Today Fivestars also offers more involved business management tools including marketing and analytics platforms.