NMI

Also called Network Merchants Inc, NMI Gateway, USAePay, IRIS CRM, Merchant Central

The independent payment gateway that powers thousands of ISOs and never sells to merchants directly — which is exactly why it matters.

What it is

NMI is a payment gateway and commerce enablement platform that sells exclusively through partners. Its stated position is that it does not recruit merchants directly, and it lets partners customize logos, colors and URLs across onboarding, gateway and reporting. In a market where nearly every other supplier also wants your merchants, that posture is the product. The gateway itself connects to 150+ processors and 125+ shopping carts and ships Collect.js, hosted payment pages, checkout links and QR, the Customer Vault, network tokens, recurring billing, electronic invoicing, Level III Advantage for B2B interchange optimization, a virtual terminal, text-to-pay, Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android, transaction routing across multiple MIDs on one gateway account, P2PE and automatic account updater. Its Fraud Defense Suite includes Kount, which reviews 30 billion transactions annually and scores in real time, plus a lower-cost rule-based tier called iSpy. NMI has also consolidated the back-office layer. It absorbed USAePay — usaepay.com now redirects to nmi.com — and acquired IRIS CRM, now Merchant Central, which handles pipeline management, web-form signup and eSign, ScanX underwriting running over 100 risk checks in minutes, MonitorX continuous monitoring, boarding to 10+ processors, residuals management and white-label lending powered by Parafin.

Why it matters to your business

If a local provider offers you a branded gateway, there's a decent chance it's NMI underneath, and that's a good thing: the gateway is portable across processors, so switching acquirers doesn't mean rebuilding your checkout. That portability is worth asking about explicitly. The features inside a standard NMI subscription are also things most merchants pay separately for elsewhere: recurring billing, electronic invoicing, the account updater, network tokens, Level III for B2B. A merchant paying Recurly $249/month plus 0.9% for subscription billing on a gym membership roll or an HOA dues file is buying something their gateway may already include.

Where it gets contested

NMI publishes no pricing at all — not merchant-facing, not reseller-facing. Third-party reporting puts merchant gateway pricing around $10–$30 per month plus $0.10–$0.13 per transaction, with reseller pricing customized by volume and integration depth. That's a review-site estimate on a low review count, not a published rate. The more specific concern reported by the same source is a $100/month inactivity fee charged to resellers who stop submitting new business, apparently without advance notice. If accurate, that's a meaningful trap for a small partner with a stable book and no new production, and it's exactly the kind of clause that should be verified in writing before building a business on the platform. The structural critique of gateways generally applies here too: the gateway is the stickiest thing in a merchant's stack precisely because removing it means re-integrating a website or an ERP. That's a feature for whoever owns the gateway and a switching cost for the merchant. NMI's version is more merchant-friendly than most because it is processor-agnostic across 150+ connections — you can change processors without re-integrating — but the underlying dynamic is the same.

How to check it yourself

Ask your provider which gateway your account runs on and whether recurring billing, electronic invoicing, the automatic account updater and Level 2/3 data are already included in your subscription. Merchants routinely pay for a separate tool that duplicates what they already own.

Receipts

Claims above that are checkable, with where to check them. Published so you do not have to take anyone's word for it.

NMI states it does not recruit merchants directly and lets partners customize logos, colors and URLs across onboarding, gateway and reporting
nmi.com ↗
The NMI gateway includes 150+ processor connections, 125+ carts, Customer Vault, network tokens, recurring billing, electronic invoicing, Level III Advantage, virtual terminal, text-to-pay, Tap to Pay, P2PE and automatic card updater
nmi.com ↗
Third-party reporting puts NMI merchant gateway pricing at $10–$30/month plus $0.10–$0.13 per transaction and reports a $100/month reseller inactivity fee
paymentpop.com ↗
Merchant Central (formerly IRIS CRM) includes ScanX underwriting with over 100 risk checks in minutes, MonitorX monitoring, boarding to 10+ processors and residuals management
nmi.com ↗