Developer-first payments infrastructure for internet businesses.
2.9% + $0.30
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$0
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2-day
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SaaS
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Fluid Pay
A partner-only white-label payment gateway for ISOs, agents and software platforms that has never boarded a merchant directly.
No reviews yetFounded 2017Franklin, TN, United States
- Starting rate
- No gateway markup
- Monthly fee
- Not published
- Payout
- Varies
- Contract
- Month-to-month
- PCI level
- Level 1
- Regions
- US
Overview
Fluid Pay is a payment gateway, not a merchant account provider. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee, it is led by Ted Cucci, a founding member of NMI, and it sells exclusively through channel partners. The company states plainly that it has never boarded a merchant directly and does not underwrite. Every account on the platform belongs to an ISO, agent group, acquirer or software company, and the gateway normally appears under that partner's brand rather than its own.
Pricing and how it works
No prices are published. For a white-label deployment Fluid Pay charges a one-time activation fee that covers brand setup, SSL provisioning, subdomain wiring, processor integrations and initial portal configuration, then a flat monthly platform fee covering hosting, support, updates and network certifications. Volume tiers exist for partners boarding hundreds or thousands of merchants. The structural point is that Fluid Pay takes no markup on the transactions themselves. The partner sets the merchant-facing rate and keeps the spread, which is the reverse of how most gateways monetize. As a result, what an individual merchant pays, usually a monthly gateway fee plus a per-transaction fee, is set entirely by the reseller and varies widely from one partner to the next.
What you still need
A Fluid Pay account does not give you an acquiring relationship. You still need a merchant account with an acquirer or ISO, and that contract, not Fluid Pay, sets your discount rate, reserve and funding schedule. Fluid Pay handles authorization, the customer vault, recurring and batch billing, e-invoicing, Level 3 data, surcharging and cash discount programs, fraud filtering through WatchDog and AttackDog, hosted payment fields through Tokenizer, and card-present terminals. It is a PCI DSS Level 1 service provider running on Google Cloud with multi-region failover, and publishes 99.99 percent rolling twelve-month gateway uptime.
Who it is for
ISOs, agent groups, acquirers and vertical software platforms that want a branded gateway without building one, plus merchants already working with such a partner. A business that wants to sign up for a gateway online this afternoon should look at Authorize.Net or an NMI reseller instead.
Best for
ISOs and agents
Software platforms
White-label resellers
Regions
US
Industries
Payment ISOs
Vertical SaaS
Retail and POS
Pros
- Partner-only since 2017 and has never boarded a merchant itself, so resellers are not competing with their own gateway vendor for accounts
- Fees sit in software rather than in the transaction, a one-time activation fee plus a flat monthly platform fee, leaving the partner the whole per-transaction spread
- PCI DSS Level 1 service provider on Google Cloud with 99.99 percent published rolling twelve-month uptime, plus a gateway emulator that lets partners migrate an existing integration without rewriting code
Cons
- Merchants cannot sign up directly, every account has to come through an ISO, agent group, acquirer or software partner
- It is a gateway only, so you still need a separate merchant account and acquiring relationship, and Fluid Pay does not underwrite, hold funds or settle money
- Nothing about pricing is published, and the activation fee, monthly platform fee and volume tiers are all quoted privately by the partnerships team
Pricing
Pricing at a glance
Fluid Pay publishes no prices. White-label partners pay a one-time activation fee plus a flat monthly platform fee that scales with portfolio size, and Fluid Pay takes no per-transaction markup.
- Pricing model
- Subscription, Custom quote
- Contract
- Month-to-month
- Free trial
- No
- Monthly minimum
- N/A
Fee breakdown
| Online card rate | No gateway markup |
|---|---|
| Monthly fee | Not published |
| Setup fee | One-time activation fee for white-label setup, quoted privately |
Features
Payment methods
- Visa
- Mastercard
- Amex
- Discover
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- ACH
- Wallets
Integrations & deployment
- API
- Hosted checkout
- Drop-in UI
- WooCommerce
- Magento
- Virtual terminal
- Payment links
- Invoicing
- POS hardware
Capabilities
- Recurring billing
- Fraud protection
- Tokenization
- Reporting dashboard
- Developer-friendly
At a glance
- Currencies
- Depends on the connected acquirer, with US dollar processing as the primary use case
- Payout
- Varies
- PCI level
- Level 1
- High-risk friendly
- No
Reviews
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Frequently asked questions
- How much does Fluid Pay cost?
- Fluid Pay does not publish pricing. White-label partners pay a one-time activation fee that covers brand setup, SSL and processor integrations, plus a flat monthly platform fee that scales with portfolio size. Fluid Pay takes no markup on transactions, so the monthly gateway fee and per-transaction fee a merchant actually sees are set by the reselling ISO or software partner.
- Is Fluid Pay a payment processor or a payment gateway?
- It is a gateway only. Fluid Pay authorizes and routes transactions, stores cards in a vault, runs recurring billing and handles fraud filtering, but it does not underwrite merchants, hold funds or settle money. You still need a merchant account with an acquirer or ISO, and that relationship determines your discount rate, reserve requirement and funding time.
- Can a merchant sign up with Fluid Pay directly?
- No. Fluid Pay has been partner-only since 2017 and states it has never boarded a merchant itself and does not intend to. Accounts are opened through ISOs, agent groups, acquirers or software platforms, and the gateway is usually white-labeled under that partner's brand and domain. For a gateway you can buy online today, look at Authorize.Net or an NMI reseller.
- How does Fluid Pay compare with NMI?
- Both are channel-focused gateways and the two are closely related, since Fluid Pay's CEO Ted Cucci is a founding member of NMI. Fluid Pay is the newer platform, cloud-native on Google Cloud, and ships a gateway emulator so partners can move an existing integration across without rewriting code. NMI is older and has a much larger installed base.