Gravity Payments

Who Gravity Payments is for

Gravity Payments is a traditional merchant account provider based in Seattle. You may know them from the headline: in 2015, CEO Dan Price set a $70,000 minimum salary for all employees (now $80,000) and cut his own pay to match. The story went viral. The company got famous. What got less attention is the actual payment processing product.

Gravity works best for brick-and-mortar businesses processing $10,000 or more per month who want a dedicated merchant account with interchange-plus pricing and Clover POS hardware. The dedicated merchant account is the key differentiator from aggregators like Square and PayPal. Your funds go through your own merchant ID, which means no surprise account freezes because another merchant on a shared account did something wrong.

The catch: you have to ask for the right pricing. Gravity’s website advertises flat-rate pricing, which is not competitive. The interchange-plus pricing that actually saves you money requires a phone call, a quote, and some negotiation. If you are comfortable with that process and want a traditional processor with strong phone support, Gravity is worth evaluating. If you want to sign up online in five minutes and start processing, look elsewhere.

The pricing you have to ask for

Gravity offers two pricing models, and the one they show you first is the wrong one for most businesses.

What the website shows (flat-rate):

These flat rates are not competitive. Square charges 2.6% + $0.15 in-person with no monthly fee and no contract. Gravity’s 2.5% + $0.10 looks slightly cheaper on paper, but once you add the Clover plan fee ($0-$85/month), PCI compliance fee ($15-$25/month), and batch/gateway fees, the total cost is comparable or higher than Square for most businesses.

The online rate of 3.5% + $0.10 is particularly bad. Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30. Square charges 3.3% + $0.30. At $10,000/month in online sales, Gravity’s flat rate costs $360 versus $320 with Stripe.

What you get if you negotiate (interchange-plus):

Gravity’s interchange-plus markup averages approximately 0.36% of sales volume on top of interchange and card brand assessments. That is competitive. For a business processing $25,000/month in-person with a typical interchange average of 1.8%, the effective rate on interchange-plus would be roughly 2.16% plus per-transaction fees. That beats Square’s 2.6% by a meaningful margin.

The problem is transparency. Helcim publishes its interchange-plus markup on its website. Gravity requires a call and a custom quote. That means your rate depends partly on how well you negotiate, which is exactly the kind of information asymmetry that costs merchants money.

The fine print

Gravity’s contract terms are more restrictive than most modern processors.

Contract: 12-month initial term, auto-renewing for successive 12-month periods. You must provide 60 days written notice before the renewal date to cancel without penalty. Miss that window, and you are locked in for another year.

Early termination fee: 80% of your average monthly processing fees multiplied by the months remaining on your contract. If your average monthly fees are $200 and you have 8 months left, the ETF is $1,280. That is aggressive. Helcim, Square, Stripe, and PayPal all offer month-to-month terms with zero early termination fees.

Rate increases: Gravity typically raises rates approximately twice per year by about 0.10% each time. Over a 3-year period, that could add 0.60% to your effective rate. A processor that quoted you 0.36% markup on day one could be charging 0.96% markup three years later. Most merchants do not notice the incremental increases because they appear as small line items on statements that are already difficult to read.

Additional monthly fees: Beyond the processing markup, expect to pay for PCI compliance ($15-$25/month), a Clover Merchant Platform fee ($5/month), and potentially batch fees ($0.10-$0.20 per batch) and gateway fees ($0.10-$0.25 per transaction). These fees are not prominently disclosed upfront and add $20-$55 per month to your total cost before you process a single transaction.

Data breach (February 2026): A third-party vendor vulnerability exposed names and Social Security numbers of over 2,200 individuals through Gravity’s CRM system. Gravity has revoked vendor access, engaged cybersecurity specialists, and is offering credit monitoring to affected individuals. Lawsuits are pending as of February 2026.

Bottom line

Gravity Payments is a legitimate processor with competitive interchange-plus rates for businesses that know to ask for them. The dedicated merchant account, 24/7 phone support, and Clover POS hardware make it a reasonable choice for established brick-and-mortar businesses processing $10,000 or more per month.

But Gravity requires more effort and more caution than modern alternatives. You have to negotiate for interchange-plus pricing. You have to read the contract carefully. You have to watch for biannual rate increases. You have to budget for monthly fees that are not included in the headline rate. And if you want to leave, you have to time your cancellation around the 60-day notice window or pay a significant early termination fee.

For most small businesses, Helcim offers a better version of the same value proposition: interchange-plus pricing, no monthly fees, no contracts, no rate creep, and full pricing transparency on the website. A statement audit comparing your current Gravity rates against Helcim’s published rates will tell you within minutes whether a switch saves money.