What is a Merchant Account / Payment Gateway?

A merchant account is an arrangement that allows your business to accept credit and debit cards, so that proceeds and fees can be deposited or debited from your bank account.

A payment gateway is a service that allows you to use your merchant account to process credit card transactions via the Internet.

To use Credit Card Terminal, you need a Payment Gateway account, which is going to have some kind of Merchant Account associated with it. For the most part, when we say “Merchant Account” we mean both parts combined.

If you sign up for our default plan, you’ll automatically get a Stripe account, whose cost is already reflected in our pricing.