If your store is in a restricted vertical, almost everyone will sell you the same thing: a dedicated high-risk merchant account. That is a real product and sometimes the right one. It is also not the only one. Here is what actually differs.
A high-risk merchant account replaces Stripe. You get a new MID with a high-risk acquirer, which then holds your settlements, prices the risk at a typical 8–15% all-in, and commonly withholds a 5–10% rolling reserve for 90–180 days. BrokkrPay does not replace anything. It is software on your own Stripe account: a Pay with Stripe button in your checkout, a Stripe Checkout page for your customer, and the charge settling to your own Stripe balance for a flat 2.5% plus Stripe’s standard rate, with no BrokkrPay reserve.
The BrokkrPay column is our published pricing. The merchant-account column is the typical industry range, not a quote from any named provider.
Merchant-account figures are typical industry ranges for a dedicated high-risk MID. Actual pricing, reserve terms, and underwriting timelines vary by acquirer, vertical, and volume.
It is who is holding your revenue while you wait for it.
A rolling reserve is a percentage of every settlement your acquirer withholds against future chargebacks, released on a schedule that typically runs 90–180 days behind. At a 10% reserve on $50,000 of monthly volume, roughly $15,000 is permanently unavailable to you once the cycle fills. For an inventory-heavy store that is usually the entire restock budget — which is why reserves, not headline rates, are what most often kill restricted merchants.
With BrokkrPay there is no reserve because there is no BrokkrPay-held balance for one to sit in. Charges run on your own Stripe account, settle to your own Stripe balance, and pay out to your own bank on Stripe’s standard schedule. BrokkrPay is a software provider and never holds, routes, or takes custody of your funds.
There is no acquirer application in the path, which is why approved merchants go live the same day.
You add a Pay with Stripe button — or call the HTTP API for a checkout redirect URL — in the checkout you already have.
Between your storefront and the charge, BrokkrPay does the work that makes the transaction an ordinary one by the time it reaches Stripe.
They are sent straight to a Stripe Checkout page and pay with Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, or Google Pay.
The charge settles to your own account and pays out to your own bank on Stripe’s standard schedule. No reserve, no release date.
We would rather say this plainly than pretend one model fits everyone.
BrokkrPay is individually underwritten and approval is never guaranteed. We would rather decline a business than put it live on a model that will not hold for it. What we do not do is price a store as though every sale were fraud, or hold its money for six months to cover the possibility.
If you sell research peptides, the vertical detail is on peptide payment processing, and the keep-Stripe answer to the “Stripe alternative” question is on Stripe alternative for peptides. Full pricing is on the pricing page, and what BrokkrPay is and is not is on about.
You do. A high-risk merchant account puts a new acquirer between you and your revenue, and that acquirer decides when you are paid and how much of each settlement it keeps back as a reserve. With BrokkrPay the charge runs on your own Stripe account, settles to your own Stripe balance, and pays out to your own bank on Stripe’s standard schedule. BrokkrPay is a software provider and never holds, routes, or takes custody of your funds, so there is no reserve for anyone to release.
No. BrokkrPay is not a merchant account, a MID, an acquirer, an ISO, a PSP, a bank, or a money transmitter. It is checkout software: you keep your own Stripe account, add a Pay with Stripe button to your checkout, and BrokkrPay de-risks each transaction and sends the customer to a Stripe Checkout page. If you need a dedicated MID with an acquirer of your own, that is a different product from a different kind of company.
BrokkrPay is a flat 2.5% of processed volume, with Stripe’s standard rate (about 2.9% + 30¢ on US cards) applying on top. There is no BrokkrPay setup fee, no monthly minimum, and no BrokkrPay rolling reserve. A dedicated high-risk merchant account typically runs 8–15% all-in once you add the discount rate, per-transaction fees, monthly gateway and statement fees, and chargeback fees, plus a 5–10% reserve held for 90–180 days. Those are typical industry ranges, not a quote from any named provider.
When you need a MID in your own name for reasons BrokkrPay cannot serve — a vertical we do not underwrite, a jurisdiction outside our coverage, or a business that genuinely needs its own acquiring relationship. BrokkrPay underwrites every merchant individually and does not approve everyone. We would rather say no than put a business live on a model that will not hold.
No — the opposite. Keeping your own Stripe account is the whole point of the model. You connect the Stripe account you already have (or open one, which takes minutes), and every charge is processed on it. There is no migration, no new gateway, and no new bank relationship.
Tell us your vertical and your monthly volume. Approved operators are live on their own Stripe account within a day.