As a business in CBD and/or cannabis fields, whether it be as a direct seller of products via our eCommerce solution, or as a coach/educator, or anything in-between, we want to take a moment to WARN you about payment processing in this field.
Officially, both Stripe and PayPal DO NOT work with any businesses within the fields mentioned above. This means that while you may apply for accounts at Stripe and PayPal and be accepted, if, and most likely when, they find out that you are associated with CBD or cannabis, they will close your account and hold any funds within that account until the chargeback period is over at the earliest. That equates to six, read them SIX, months of them holding your money. In many cases, businesses will never see the money they earned as you will have broken the Terms of Service for these payment providers.
If you NEVER make a mention of cannabis, and ONLY mention CBD, then Square does have a CBD Program available that you have to apply for. This is NOT a normal Square account, and has to be applied for directly by clicking or tapping here. You will notice that the rates that you are charged for each transaction will be higher than what Stripe, PayPal, and a regular Square account offer, as you are considered a high-risk business.
If you want to play it safe, or are involved with cannabis, your team at Hemp Sites is working with a high-risk business (unfortunately cannabis and CBD are still considered high risk in the payment and bank world) payment processor to get you the BEST rates that we can for your high-risk business. We will soon launch an online application that will go directly to our payment processor partner, and you will have the backing of Hemp Sites to get you through this process and approved. We have already included Authorize.net, the payment gateway that our payment processor uses, as part of our tools for ALL eCommerce/WooCommerce plans.
TL:DR As a cannabis and/or CBD related business, you do not qualify to use Stripe or PayPal. If you only mention CBD then you may qualify for Square’s CBD Program. If you mention CBD and/or cannabis then you will qualify for our high-risk payment processor ; we have negotiated the best rates out there for you and have a streamlined application process. This is COMING SOON!
