What is a merchant surcharge program?

A merchant surcharge program allows businesses to pass credit card processing fees (up to 3%) directly to customers who pay with credit cards. This is fully legal in 47+ states and can save merchants $20,000–$60,000 per year in processing fees.

What is a cash discount program?

A cash discount program offers customers a discount for paying with cash or debit, while customers who pay with credit cards pay the posted price which includes a service fee. This effectively eliminates credit card processing costs for the merchant.

How does Centurion compare to Square, Stripe, and Clover?

Centurion Payment Services consistently beats Square (2.6%+10¢), Stripe (2.9%+30¢), Clover (2.3-2.6%), and Heartland on effective rates. With our interchange-plus or surcharge programs, most merchants save 20-40% over their current processor.

Do you work with high-risk merchants?

Yes. Centurion specializes in high-risk merchant accounts including CBD, firearms, nutraceuticals, vape, adult content, travel, gaming, and more. We have dedicated high-risk banking relationships and fast approval times.

How quickly can I get set up with Centurion?

Most merchants go live within 48 hours of approval. We handle the entire setup process including equipment programming, gateway integration, and staff training.

What credit card processing rates does Centurion offer?

Centurion offers interchange-plus pricing, flat-rate pricing, and zero-fee/surcharge programs. Rates are customized based on your industry, volume, and processing history. We guarantee to beat your current rate or we'll pay you $500.

Is the merchant surcharge program legal?

Yes. Credit card surcharging is legal in 47+ US states. It is currently prohibited only in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Puerto Rico. Centurion ensures full compliance with state laws and Visa/Mastercard regulations.

What types of businesses do you work with?

Centurion works with all business types: restaurants, retail stores, medical practices, law firms, auto dealers, salons, hotels, e-commerce, contractors, healthcare, dental offices, veterinarians, gyms, nightclubs, dispensaries, and more.

What is Centurion Payment Services?

Centurion Payment Services helps you organize, track, and share your work in 1 unified workspace. Built for teams and solo users who want clarity and speed.

Can I use Authorize.net or Stripe's gateway for adult content?

No — mainstream gateways prohibit the category or are bound to processors that do. Adult-capable gateways like NETbilling and RocketGate exist precisely for this vertical and integrate with high-risk acquirers.

What's the most important gateway feature for subscription adult sites?

Portable tokenized vaulting plus a real recurring engine (smart retries, account updater, dunning). Your subscriber base is the business; the gateway must protect it and never hold it hostage.

Do I need 3-D Secure on an adult site?

Risk-based 3DS2 is best practice: challenge new customers, large tickets, and risky geographies; let tokenized rebills flow frictionlessly. Blanket 3DS costs more conversion than it saves in most adult portfolios.

How do fetish & kink platforms stop card testing?

Velocity limits on low-priced SKUs and trials, device fingerprinting, prepaid-BIN rules, CAPTCHA on checkout after failures, and AVS/CVV enforcement. Card testers probe the cheapest entry point — guard it specifically.

Can I migrate subscribers if I switch gateways?

Only if your current provider supports PCI-compliant token migration — confirm this before you board, in writing. Otherwise plan a re-entry campaign; well-run migrations typically retain 60–80% of subscribers.

Fetish Platforms - Payment Gateway Guide

Gateways are where adult merchants win or lose on fraud, rebills, and authorization rates. What a fetish platform needs from NETbilling, RocketGate, and other adult-capable gateways.

Gateway vs. Processor: Untangling the Stack

The merchant account (your MID with an acquiring bank) authorizes and settles money; the gateway is the software that carries transactions to it — checkout, tokenization, subscription engine, fraud screening, and routing. Mainstream gateways (Authorize.net, Stripe's gateway layer, Shopify checkout) either prohibit adult content or are welded to processors that do, so fetish & kink platforms choose from the adult-capable tier: NETbilling and RocketGate are the long-standing specialists, alongside gateway layers built into IPSPs like CCBill and Segpay, and several high-risk-friendly white-label platforms.

The gateway decision matters disproportionately in this vertical because niche content disputes — the gateway's subscription logic, fraud tooling, and dispute integrations are your operational defense, not just plumbing.

The Feature Checklist That Actually Matters

For a fetish platform, evaluate gateways on: native recurring billing with smart retry and account-updater support; tokenized card vaulting you can export (this determines whether you can ever switch providers without losing subscribers); multi-MID routing and cascading (retry a declined transaction on a second MID); velocity controls and device fingerprinting against card testing; 3-D Secure 2 with risk-based triggering; direct Verifi/Ethoca alert and RDR integrations; and clean APIs with webhooks your stack can build on.

Weigh portability heaviest. A gateway that holds your card vault hostage owns your recurring revenue — confirm in writing, before boarding, that tokens migrate out in a PCI-compliant transfer if you leave.

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Fraud Tooling for This Vertical's Attack Pattern

Adult and AI merchants face a specific fraud mix: card testing on low-priced entry points, account takeover on stored-value balances, and friendly fraud dressed as true fraud. Given your tickets ($15–$100 across subscriptions, clips, and custom commissions) and drivers (niche content disputes, custom-content commissions that miss expectations, and privacy-motivated friendly fraud), configure: strict velocity rules on trials and minimum-price SKUs, BIN-level rules (prepaid card blocks where trial abuse concentrates), AVS+CVV enforcement on first transactions with relaxed rules for tokenized rebills, and risk-scored 3DS2 that challenges the risky 10% instead of taxing the safe 90%.

Then close the loop monthly: pull dispute reason codes from the gateway and tune rules against what's actually occurring. The merchants with sub-1% ratios in this industry aren't lucky — they're iterating.

PCI Scope and Integration Choices

Your integration pattern sets your PCI DSS burden: hosted payment pages and iframe fields keep card data off your servers (SAQ A territory — the right answer for most operators); direct API integration where your servers touch PANs pulls you toward SAQ D and real audit costs. Choose hosted fields unless you have a compliance team and a reason.

Also plan the subscription migration path on day one: if you're moving from an IPSP or a terminated platform, subscriber card data usually cannot follow you — rebuild via account-updater enrollment, proactive re-entry campaigns, and dunning flows. Expect to recover 60%–80% of a subscriber base in a well-run migration.

Recommended Architectures by Stage

Starting out (under ~$20k/month): an IPSP's built-in gateway — one vendor, one integration, compliance handled. Scaling ($20k–$100k): dedicated MID + specialist gateway (NETbilling or RocketGate class) with alerts, updater, and 3DS2 configured. Established ($100k+): multi-MID with cascading and geographic routing, network tokens, and a dedicated fraud-rules owner on the team.

Centurion designs and implements this stack alongside the merchant account itself — gateway selection, fraud-rule baselines, and alert integrations included, so the account we place survives. Technical consultation: (561) 221-2273.