NMI payment gateway with a merchant account, set up by Stratamize

Is NMI a payment processor or a payment gateway?

A gateway. NMI carries the transaction from your website, invoice or virtual terminal to the processor and back with the approval; it does not settle money to your bank account, and it does not underwrite businesses. The settlement side is a merchant account, which is opened for you by a processor through a reseller like us. The confusion is understandable, because every NMI feature you have read about, from the virtual terminal to recurring billing, only works once a merchant account is connected to it. We set up both together so you are never holding a gateway with nothing behind it.

Do I need a separate merchant account to use NMI?

Yes. An NMI gateway with no merchant account cannot approve a single payment. If you already have a merchant account, we can often connect it; see the next question. If you do not, we board the merchant account and provision the gateway from one application, so you never deal with two companies for one setup. The merchant account is where underwriting happens and where the pricing for your processing is set, so bring your business details, your sales channels and any processing history to the first call.

Can I use NMI with the merchant account I already have?

Often, yes. NMI connects to many processors, and if yours is one of them we can provision a gateway and point it at your existing account. Two things decide it: whether your processor is on NMI's list, and whether your current agreement lets you add a gateway from someone else. Send us a recent statement and we will tell you which is the case. If the account is not compatible, or the pricing on it is the reason you are shopping, we can quote a new merchant account and move the gateway over with it.

Why can I not sign up on NMI's website, and where do I log in?

NMI sells its gateway only through resellers and the processors that embed it, so nmi.com has no merchant signup and no price list; every NMI price you see online is a reseller's price, not NMI's. Stratamize is an NMI reseller. Once your gateway is live you log in at the gateway address we give you with the username we create, and that login is yours: the virtual terminal, reporting, the customer vault and the invoicing tools all live there. If you are already on NMI through another provider, your login may carry that provider's name, because NMI is often white-labeled.

What do I actually get in the gateway?

A virtual terminal for keying phone and mail orders, with its own logins for staff. A customer vault, which stores a card as a token so you can charge a repeat customer without asking for the number again. Recurring billing, with plans and per-customer subscriptions. Electronic invoicing and payment links, so a contractor or a service business can get paid by email or text with no website. A hosted payment page and a pay-by-link or QR option. Website and shopping-cart integrations, from a plugin to a developer-built checkout. ACH, where your merchant account is boarded for it.

Each of those has its own page in this section with the questions merchants ask about it; this page is the overview. Tell us which ones you need on the first call and we enable them before you log in for the first time.

Does NMI work with WooCommerce, Shopify and other shopping carts?

WooCommerce, yes: there are maintained NMI plugins for it, and we will tell you which one fits, since the free and paid versions differ on subscriptions, ACH and the newer card-security features. Most other carts and ordering platforms list NMI as a built-in gateway; bring the name of yours and we will check it. Shopify is a different conversation, because Shopify has its own rules and fees for third-party gateways and the state of the NMI integration has changed over time; we answer that on our Authorize.net for Shopify page rather than guessing here.

Does NMI do ACH payments?

The gateway supports ACH, including ACH in the virtual terminal, on invoices and stored in the customer vault for recurring billing, but ACH is not a gateway switch. It has to be boarded on the merchant-account side, and not every business is boarded for it, so the honest answer is: where boarded. Tell us if you need to take bank payments and we will put ACH in the application from the start rather than adding it later.

Which key goes in the browser with Collect.js, and what does it mean for PCI?

Collect.js is NMI's script for embedding card fields on your own page. It uses a public tokenization key in the browser; the private security key stays on your server or in your cart plugin and never goes in page code. The card fields it draws are hosted by NMI, so the card number is turned into a token before it reaches your site, which reduces your PCI scope compared with handling card data yourself. Hosted checkout keeps your site even further from card data. Which self-assessment questionnaire applies to you depends on the integration you choose; we set up the keys with you and tell you which one you are filling in.

Can I move my customer vault from another gateway?

Often, yes. Stored cards are tokens that belong to the gateway that created them, so moving means an export from the old gateway and an import into NMI, with both providers involved and, in some cases, a fee on the old side. Recurring schedules do not move with the tokens, so they get rebuilt. If you are coming off another NMI reseller it can be simpler, because the gateway account itself may transfer. Tell us where the vault lives today and how many customers are in it, and we will map the sequence before you cancel anything.

Does NMI work for high-risk businesses, and how long does setup take?

NMI is the gateway many high-risk providers use, because it supports more than one merchant account on one gateway, a hosted checkout that keeps your site out of card-data scope, and fraud and card-testing controls. But a gateway does not get anyone approved; the merchant account behind it does, and that is where underwriting looks at your products, your sales channels and your history. Stratamize works with businesses that underwriting reviews more closely; read our high-risk industries pages, then tell us what you sell.

On timing: Approvals usually come back within hours, three days at most. The gateway is provisioned once the merchant account is approved, and on the setup call you get your login, your keys and a test transaction. A hosted checkout link is ready on that call; a cart plugin is a short job; an embedded-fields build runs on your developer's schedule.