Worldpay Review: Payment Processing (2024)

Worldpay is one of the largest payment processing companies globally, and it’s the second-largest non-bank merchant acquirer in the United States.

Using Worldpay to accept card payments comes with its fair share of pros and cons—and whether you’re considering Worldpay or you’re a current Worldpay customer, this review has tons of insider information that you won’t find anywhere else on the web. 

My team has years of experience auditing Worldpay statements and negotiating directly with Worldpay on behalf of our clients. 

MCC Quick Take on Worldpay (Key Highlights)

We recently had a pretty bad experience with a client using Worldpay. I’ll dive into this story a bit more later on, but it’s definitely at the top of my mind while writing this review. 

Putting that aside for a moment, here’s what you need to know:

• Interchange plus pricing is available, and it’s the best Worldpay contract structure
• Worldpay’s rates are 100% negotiable
• Avoid tiered, bundled, or qualified rate contracts from Worldpay
• 0.10% + $0.10 per transaction is a pretty good deal
• Worldpay typically has a $295 to $495 early termination fee
• Expect lots of extra fees and rate increases
• You need to monitor your statements closely because we just recently caught Worldpay increasing rates prior to a contract expiring

Read on for deeper insights and real-world stories based on our experience dealing with Worldpay.

Worldpay Adds Extra Fees to Monthly Statements, But Most Can Be Removed With Proper Negotiation

Like most credit card processors, Worldpay looks for ways to squeeze extra dollars from merchants in the form of hidden fees. Unfortunately, most businesses don’t realize what fees they have to pay and which ones are bogus or negotiable. 

These are the extra fees that we can commonly see on Worldpay statements:

• SaferPayments Basic Fee
• Processor Transaction Risk Fee 
• Processor Per Item Fee
• Network & Access Processor Fee

The SaferPayments Basic Fee can be removed altogether. This is essentially Worldpay’s PCI compliance fee, but they use a different name to make it sound fancier than it actually is. If your business is PCI compliant, there’s no reason why you should be paying this fee every month.

Each of the other three fees can either be removed or at least reduced. 

For example, the Processor Transaction Risk Fee is common for high-risk merchant accounts. But even if you’re a high-risk business, then you can still negotiate that fee. Merchants that don’t pose a high risk for chargebacks shouldn’t be paying it at all. 

The Processor Per Item Fee is typically a flat rate charged per transaction. This is strictly a markup fee for Worldpay to earn a profit over the interchange rate, and  It’s 100% negotiable. 

As for the Network & Access Processor Fee, it’s a semi-deceptive tactic used by Worldpay to sneak this fee onto your statement. Here’s why. Card networks do charge access fees as assessments (which are non-negotiable and paid directly to Visa, Mastercard, Amex, or Discover). But this particular fee isn’t actually from the card network—it’s a processor fee directly from Worldpay. So you can work with them to get that rate reduced or removed from your bill.

Worldpay Offers Interchange Plus Pricing, Which is 100% Negotiable

We like any merchant services provider that offers interchange plus pricing. This is the best contract structure for any business, as it gives you the opportunity to pay lower rates.

However, it does require some negotiation with Worldpay to get the best deal. 

Worldpay doesn’t publicly disclose its rates online. That’s because they give a different rate to nearly every merchant that’s using them. 

We have dozens of different clients using Worldpay, and we see a wide range of rates and fees across the board. 

It’s also worth noting that Worldpay does offer different pricing structures, including a tiered structure with qualified processing rates. Avoid this option at all costs, as you’ll rarely get the lowest possible “qualified” rate and you’ll end up paying significantly more at the “mid-qualified” and “non-qualified” tiers. Stick to interchange plus. 

You Need to Monitor Your Statements to Ensure Worldpay Isn’t Increasing Your Rates—Even if You Have a Contract With Terms “Locked In”

I try to be as fair as possible when I’m writing these reviews, and I don’t like bashing businesses. But what you’re about to read below is just unacceptable and needs to be called out so that other merchants can be aware of it.

Here’s the short version: Just because Worldpay says they’re going to do something or promises to give you a certain rate, it doesn’t mean that they’re actually going to do it. You’ll need to monitor your statements to ensure you’re getting the rate you agreed upon. 

Ok, now the longer version…

We had a client using Worldpay that consulted with us in August 2023. After some conversations with Worldpay on behalf of our client, we negotiated their rate down to 0.10% + $0.10 per transaction. 

These terms were locked in for 12 months, which we felt was a good deal for our client. It was much less than Worldpay was previously charging them, and it’s a fair markup above interchange.

But eight months later in April 2024, Worldpay hit them with a massive rate increase—even though the contract was supposed to be “locked in” for an additional four months. 

As part of our merchant consulting services, we continue monitoring statements each month for our clients. So we immediately spotted the rate increase on April’s statement, contacted Worldpay, and got a refund issued for $2,241.70 directly to our client. 

The worst part about this situation is that if we hadn’t been monitoring these statements, the merchant would have no idea that Worldpay had increased their rates. 

Think about that for a second. 

If you’re doing business with one of the world’s largest payment processors, and they agree to certain contract terms for a year, would you continue to verify those rates every month? Most people wouldn’t—especially after eight months of getting the rates that were agreed upon. 

It would be nice if you could trust that your credit card processor would honor the terms of your contract. But unfortunately, we can’t say that this is a guarantee with Worldpay. You need to monitor your statements every month to make sure they aren’t doing anything fishy or deceptive. 

Expect Periodic Fee Changes If You’re Using Worldpay to Accept Payments

Processors love to increase rates. After all, this is how they make money to turn a profit, and Worldpay is no exception here. 

Most recently, Worldpay increased its rates by 0.10% + $0.02 per transaction effective September 1, 2024. Also effective in September, Worldpay increased its On File Fee by $1.50 per month and its Batch Fee by $0.10 per instance. 

Worldpay implemented a new $9.95 per month fee for its next day funding service, effective August 1, 2024.

Last year, we saw several new fees and rate changes implemented by Worldpay, including:

• Increased Transaction Risk Fee (TRF) to $0.10 per transaction
• Added a $250 quarterly fee to merchants processing MSD contactless payments
• Updated the MC Excessive Auth Integrity Fee to $15
• Shut down FIS Discounts program

Plus, so many merchants were notified individually about rate increases specifically to their account (similar to the example we talked about in the previous section).

We have a full history of Worldpay’s rate increases and fee updates that you can refer to for more information. 

We Typically Don’t Recommend Switching to Worldpay (But We Also Don’t Recommend Canceling Your Worldpay Merchant Account)

This may seem like a contradictory statement, but hear me out for a minute.

If you’re currently using another processor and thinking of switching to Worldpay, don’t do it.

I’m not saying this because Worldpay is awful and you shouldn’t be using them. Despite their flaws, they’re actually fine for most merchants. However, switching to Worldpay will almost always be more expensive than sticking with your current processor. Here’s why.

Worldpay will likely ask what you’re currently paying to accept credit cards and then undercut that rate to entice you to switch. Sounds good, right?

But as you’ve seen from the stories above, those short-term savings won’t last long. And before you know it, you’ll be paying more to Worldpay than you did with your other processor. 

Instead, you can just negotiate directly with your current processor to get a lower rate. If you want to get a quote from Worldpay to use that as leverage, that’s totally fine. Or you can let our team here at MCC handle those negotiations on your behalf. 

The same concept holds true if you’re currently using Worldpay and you’re thinking of switching to another provider. 

We successfully negotiated a $0.10 + $0.10 per transaction rate with Worldpay for a client that was paying way more. So if you’re paying anything higher than this, reach out to our team and we’ll try to get the same result for you. 

Even though Worldpay has lots of red flags and you need to monitor them closely to ensure you’re not being ripped off, switching processors is expensive. You’re better off just sticking with them and doing everything you can to get a lower rate and get bogus fees eliminated from your statements.

Final Thoughts About Worldpay

Worldpay is far from perfect. 

You’re definitely not “stuck” with them if you’re a current customer. But I still think it’s in your best interest to stick with them instead of switching to another processor. 

Same goes if you’re thinking of using Worldpay instead of your current provider. While Worldpay may dangle a good rate in front of your face, it will likely be short-lived and I honestly can’t even guarantee that they’ll honor it (based on our recent experience). 

All of that said, you can still have a good experience with Worldpay if you’re diligent about monitoring your statement for increases and bogus fees. It takes some extra effort and lots of negotiating, but Worldpay does offer good rates if you know how to work hard for them.

Need some help navigating these waters? Get a free audit and analysis from our team here at Merchant Cost Consulting. 

We’ll help negotiate your rates with Worldpay to ensure you’re getting the best possible deal. Then we’ll monitor your statements each month to make sure Worldpay is honoring your agreement.