Competitor Fee Guide

Heartland Credit Card Processing Fees (Now Global Payments)

Researching Heartland's rates? Start with the part most guides miss: the Heartland brand is being retired, and the fees you'll actually be quoted come from Global Payments.

The 30-second answer

Heartland is now Global Payments. As of September 2026, heartland.us redirects to globalpayments.com, whose own brand page says "Heartland Payment Systems is now Global Payments" — and the point-of-sale products are sold under the Genius brand.

Classic Heartland rates were never published. The still-live Heartland fee FAQ lists fee categories — a discount fee, a transaction fee, a monthly "Service & Regulatory Mandate" fee — with exactly one hard number: the first three disputes are free, then $25 each. Everything else is quote-only, set in your individual agreement.

The only published rate is Genius pricing: software tiers at $0, $42, or $129 per month plus 2.6% + $0.10 for certain in-person transactions — numbers Global Payments itself labels illustrative, with processing fees excluded from the software price. The full fee breakdown is below.

Credit Where Due

What Heartland Is Genuinely Good At

Heartland earned its reputation in restaurants. Decades of restaurant POS heritage — product lines like Dinerware, Digital Dining, and pcAmerica — now live on inside Genius, the unified POS platform Global Payments began rolling out in the US in May 2025, with dedicated restaurant and retail editions. If you're a restaurant weighing Genius, you're looking at the part of the Heartland legacy that survived the rebrand most intact.

The scale is real too: Global Payments — which also closed its acquisition of Worldpay in January 2026 — reports serving over 6 million merchant locations. And on paper, Heartland's fee philosophy was admirable: its FAQ states that for interchange-plus customers, Heartland takes no portion of interchange and passes the true wholesale cost through without markup. That's the same pricing model we use — the question, as always, is what your specific agreement actually says. (Worldpay itself has a similar unpublished-rates story — see our Worldpay fees guide.)

The Rebrand

What Happened to Heartland Payment Systems

Three dates explain the current state of the brand, all from primary sources:

  • April 22, 2016 — Global Payments completed its merger with Heartland Payment Systems (per its SEC Form 8-K). Heartland became a wholly owned subsidiary and continued operating under its own name for years.
  • May 2025 — Global Payments began the US rollout of Genius, the single brand that absorbed its POS products, including Heartland's restaurant and retail systems. Its brand page now states plainly: "Heartland Payment Systems is now Global Payments."
  • October 1, 2025 — Acrisure completed its acquisition of Heartland Payroll Solutions, which now operates as Auris. The Heartland payroll ecosystem is historical; payroll is no longer part of what Heartland/Global Payments sells.

Practical upshot for fee shoppers: reviews, rate sheets, and advice written about "Heartland" may describe a company structure that no longer exists. Its sibling under the same roof has a similar story — see TSYS merchant solutions, the other legacy processor brand inside Global Payments.

The Numbers

Heartland's Fees: What's Actually Published

Here's the honest core of this page: classic Heartland processing rates were never published, and they still aren't. The still-live Heartland fee FAQ (observed September 2026) explains its fee structure by category, without attaching a rate to any of them:

Discount fee

The percentage taken from each card sale. No rate is published — pricing is set per merchant agreement.

Transaction fee

A per-transaction charge alongside the discount fee. Again, no published number — quote-only.

"Service & Regulatory Mandate" monthly fee

A recurring monthly fee the FAQ names but does not price. This exact line item also shows up in BBB complaints about unexplained increases (see reviews below).

Value Added Services fees

Charges for optional add-on products, priced per service. No schedule published.

Dispute (chargeback) fees

The one hard number on the page: the first three disputes are free, then $25 per dispute thereafter.

Early termination fee

Global Payments’ pricing FAQ says only that contract terms, "including any potential termination fees, may vary" depending on how you signed up. No amount is published anywhere we could verify.

Genius POS: The One Published Price List

Global Payments does publish pricing for Genius, the POS platform that now carries the Heartland torch. As of September 2026:

Genius tierSoftwareIn-person rate
EssentialsStarting at $0/mo2.6% + $0.10
AdvancedStarting at $42/mo2.6% + $0.10
CompleteStarting at $129/mo2.6% + $0.10

Read the fine print before comparing that to a flat-rate processor, because Global Payments' own disclaimers do a lot of work: the monthly price is for the software subscription only — "payment processing fees—including interchange, assessments, and other applicable third-party charges—are not included" — the 2.6% + $0.10 applies to "certain in-person card transactions" with online and card-not-present rates varying, and "all pricing and rate examples are illustrative," with final pricing subject to underwriting and your agreement.

In other words, even the published numbers are a starting point, not a price. To see what any quoted rate structure actually costs your business, run your volume through our processing fee calculator.

A Telling Detail

Whatever Happened to the Merchant Bill of Rights?

Heartland's most famous contribution to this industry was the Merchant Bill of Rights — a public pledge of transparency, competitive pricing, and fair processing practices that genuinely raised the bar when it launched. The Heartland FAQ still claims it: "We're the only processor to establish a Merchant Bill of Rights."

But as of September 2026, that's the only place it survives. The dedicated page at heartland.us/merchant-bill-of-rights returns a 404, and merchantbillofrights.org — once its own standalone site — now redirects to a Heartland sales page. The transparency pledge that made Heartland famous lives on a leftover FAQ page.

We're not pointing that out to sneer — it's genuinely useful information. A transparency commitment that isn't maintained tells you to weight the current paperwork, not the historical reputation. Whatever processor you're evaluating, judge it by the agreement in front of you. For a side-by-side of how the major options stack up on exactly these dimensions, see our processor comparison.

The Review Picture

What Heartland Merchants Report

All figures as of September 2026, with one important caveat up front: these review bases are thin relative to a processor of this size, so treat them as a sample of unhappy customers, not a census.

  • Trustpilot: 1.4 out of 5 across just 41 reviews, 96% of them one-star. Notably, Heartland's claimed profile carries a company note saying the page "is no longer an official review channel."
  • BBB: A+ rating, but not BBB Accredited — and the A+ grades complaint responsiveness, not customer sentiment. Customer reviews on the same profile average 1.11 out of 5 across 37 reviews, with 123 complaints filed in the last three years.

The recurring themes in those reviews and complaints: rate increases merchants say they weren't clearly notified about; the "Service & Regulatory Mandate" fee specifically — one BBB complaint alleges it jumped 154% in a month with inadequate notice; continued billing after account closure; and customer-service frustration. Those are allegations from individual reviewers and complainants, not adjudicated facts — but the pattern is consistent enough to be worth checking your own statements against. If a line item on yours has grown and you can't say why, that's exactly what a free statement review is for.

Side by Side

Heartland (Global Payments) vs. Payment USA

The core difference isn't a rate — it's how much of the pricing you can see before and after you sign:

Published processing rates

Heartland / Global Payments

Classic Heartland: never published (quote-only). Genius: 2.6% + $0.10 in-person, labeled illustrative

Payment USA

Interchange-plus pricing — the network cost and the markup shown separately

Contract terms

Heartland / Global Payments

Termination fees "may vary" per its own pricing FAQ; no terms published

Payment USA

No long-term contracts, no cancellation fees

Statement transparency

Heartland / Global Payments

Fee categories described on a legacy FAQ; amounts set per agreement

Payment USA

Free statement analysis — every line item named and explained

See the full feature-by-feature breakdown against other major processors on our comparison page.

FAQ

Heartland Fee Questions, Answered

Is Heartland still in business?+

Yes — but not as a standalone company, and the brand itself is being retired. Global Payments completed its merger with Heartland Payment Systems on April 22, 2016, and its own brand page now states "Heartland Payment Systems is now Global Payments." As of September 2026, heartland.us redirects to globalpayments.com, and the point-of-sale products are sold under the Genius brand, rolled out in the US from May 2025. Existing Heartland merchants are Global Payments customers.

What happened to Heartland payroll?+

It was sold. Acrisure completed its acquisition of Heartland Payroll Solutions on October 1, 2025, and the business now operates as Auris. Payroll is no longer a Heartland or Global Payments offering — the Global Payments brand page simply links existing customers to a payroll portal at Auris. If you were bundling processing and payroll through Heartland, those are now two separate vendors.

How much does Heartland charge for credit card processing?+

For classic Heartland merchant accounts, there is no published answer — and there never was. The still-live Heartland fee FAQ describes fee categories (a discount fee, a transaction fee, a monthly "Service & Regulatory Mandate" fee, value-added service fees) without pricing any of them; rates are set in your individual agreement. The only published processing rate in the Heartland/Global Payments world is the Genius POS pricing: 2.6% + $0.10 for certain in-person transactions, on software tiers of $0, $42, or $129 per month — and Global Payments labels those numbers illustrative, with processing fees excluded from the software price. All as observed September 2026.

Does Heartland charge an early termination fee?+

Nothing is published. Global Payments’ own pricing FAQ says contract terms, "including any potential termination fees, may vary" depending on whether you signed directly or through a partner. That means the answer lives in your specific merchant agreement — check the termination section before assuming either way. Dollar figures for a Heartland cancellation fee circulate on third-party review sites, but we could not verify any of them against a Heartland or Global Payments source, so we won’t repeat them.

Sources

Where These Facts Come From

Every claim on this page traces to one of the sources below, each checked on the date shown. Processor pricing and brand structures change; the observed dates tell you how fresh each fact is.

Spot something outdated? Email us at sales@paymentusa.com and we'll fix it.

Processing With Heartland? Find Out What You're Really Paying

When rates aren't published, your statement is the only price list that matters. Send us one recent statement and we'll name every fee on it — the discount rate, the transaction fees, that "Service & Regulatory Mandate" line — and show you what interchange-plus pricing would cost instead. If your deal is good, we'll tell you that too.

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