Shift4 Payments Review 2023: Fees, Lawsuits, Complaints

Shift4 Payments is one of the most well-known brands in merchant services today. The Pennsylvania-based payments technology provider conducts over a billion transactions every year for approximately 200,000 firms, totaling more than $100 billion in payments. 

Shift4 owns multiple POS brands and interfaces with over 300 other POS and property management systems. Shift4 also has over 7,000 sales partners that resell their goods. Find out more about Shift4 in this special Shift4 Payments Review.  

Overall Summary of Merchant Service

Shift4 Payments Headquarters, Origins, and Owners

Shift4 Payments headquarters is based in Allentown, PA and is a registered ISO/MSP of Citizens Bank of Rhode Island and Merrick bank of Utah. Jared Issacman is the CEO of Shift4 Payments and his family owns Shift4 Payments and Harbortouch.

What Services Do Shift4 Payments Offer?

All the services offered by Shift4 Payments have been summarized for your convenience in this section. 

The Shift4 payment gateway is their flagship product, which can interact with a broad range of POS systems and has excellent security features. 

Restaurant POS solutions, business intelligence tools, POS hardware, and gift cards are also available through Shift4 Payments. Pricing is dependent on a quotation.

• POS Gateway 

In addition to EMV certification, point-to-point encryption, and payment data tokenization, the Shift4 payment gateway also offers several other sophisticated security features. 

All major credit cards and digital wallets such as Google Pay and Apple Pay are accepted through the payment gateway. 

Pre- and post-settlement audits, a 24-month rolling transaction archive, fraud protection services, multi-location administration, and offline capabilities are other features of Shift4’s payment gateway.

• Gift Cards

An electronic gift card program is another product that Shift4 Payments offers to businesses, and those that utilize this feature will get personalized gift cards with their company’s branding.  

Furthermore, this comes with an extension for their point-of-sale system to maintain gift card balances, check for fraud, and track statistics on your gift card program.

• Lighthouse 

The Lighthouse Business Management System is another one-of-a-kind solution offered by Shift4 Payments. 

With this application, you can manage your business from any computer or mobile device. It comes with a slew of reporting and client interaction capabilities and various administration functions.

• SkyTab

One unique payment solution available for purchase via Shift4 Payments is the SkyTab—a portable restaurant point of sale (POS) terminal with an integrated magnetic stripe, EMV, and NFC card reader intended for tableside ordering and payment. 

It is possible to operate SkyTab on the Harbortouch, POSitouch, Future, and Restaurant Manager point-of-sale systems.

• POS Hardware

Shift4’s payment processing platform also interfaces with a wide range of POS hardware manufacturers and devices and mobile devices. 

It is also possible for merchants to mix and match devices from Shift4’s list of devices to fulfill the demands of each of their unique revenue centers. 

Shift4 sells a variety of payment devices, including mobile, handheld, and countertop point of sale terminals and mobile and countertop credit card readers. 

Shift4 Payments offers a variety of payment options that can accept magstripe, chip cards, and contactless forms of payment. Brands of POS hardware that are compatible with Shift4 Payments include, among others, Ingenico, Verifone, ID TECH, PAX, and Innowi, to name just a few.

• POS Software 

In addition to Harbortouch and POSitouch, Shift4 Payments owns the Future and Restaurant Manager brands and several other small businesses. 

Shift4 Payments may be used as a payment processor with merchants’ point-of-sale systems. Each company also provides POS hardware and onsite installation. 

The combined services of these four POS companies are used by some of the biggest foodservice businesses in the world, including Denny’s, KFC, Dairy Queen, Outback, Arby’s, Little Caesar’s, Houlihan’s, and others.

What is the Shift4 Payments Pricing Scheme?

On Shift4 Payments’ website, there is no cost information. The fact that Shift4 Payments offers its goods through sales partners does not surprise us. 

There are a variety of pricing options available to you from these resellers, such as a quote-based pricing model, which may be tailored to the requirements of your organization. 

Dealing with resellers should be approached with caution: Because various resellers may charge different rates for the same items, and you may be the victim of a rip-off.

Look at the prices of Harbortouch and POSitouch, two of Shift4 Payments’ most popular POS products, to get an idea of what they may cost. 

From $29 per month up to $49 per month, Harbortouch subscription plans are available (price does not include hardware costs or payment processing fees). However, POSitouch’s price is entirely quote-based.

Is Shift4 Payments Worth It?

• Restaurant Management Software

Because Shift4 Payments owns four main restaurants POS products, we think it’s a perfect fit for the foodservice sector. 

Payment processing may be integrated with a point of sale (POS) system like Harbortouch, POSitouch, Future, or Restaurant Manager, resulting in cheaper rates than third-party processors. 

POS terminals from all four major manufacturers are available, and the renowned SkyTab POS terminal.

• Dodgy Pricing 

A business, such as merchant services, is often opaque when it comes to pricing, and that’s where Shift4 Payment falls short. A lack of transparency from merchant service providers is a turn-off for us. 

As a result, business owners often find themselves the victims of unfair business practices. Shift4 Payments’ Better Business Bureau website is riddled with consumer complaints regarding contracts with exploitative conditions and costs that are not clearly stated.

The Bottom Line

In this Shift4 Payments Review, we have determined that Shift4 Payments currently has the same rating as Harbortouch for the following reasons: The corporation was formed after Harbortouch’s ownership group purchased Shift4 Corporation, and the ownership group still controls the organization. 

Shift4 offers the entire product range of Harbortouch, with no changes to Harbortouch’s contract conditions. Therefore, the BBB considers Shift4 Payments to be Harbortouch’s new name.