Helcim: point of sale software platform

Helcim is the rare point of sale vendor whose cost you can model before a sales call. Checked 16 October 2026, it publishes an interchange plus rate card with no monthly account fee: 0.40% and 8 cents per in-person transaction at the lowest volume band, falling as volume rises. Buy it for published economics, not for restaurant depth.

Rajat GuptaEditorial LeadReviewed 16 October 2026Pricing checked 16 October 2026 against the Helcim pricing page

Helcim in brief

Helcim is the rare point of sale vendor whose cost you can model before a sales call.

Price: No monthly fee; interchange plus 0.40% and 8 cents in person · Interchange plus, with the margin set by monthly card volume
Best for: Counter-led retail and service businesses that want a checkable card rate
Watch out for: You give up a single number you can quote to your board.

The short answer

Buy Helcim if you take most of your money across a counter, you want the card rate written down rather than negotiated, and you would rather pay nothing fixed each month than buy into a software tier. The published card is interchange plus a margin that starts at 0.40% and 8 cents in person and steps down automatically as monthly volume grows, with account monthly fees, signup fees, PCI fees and cancellation fees all listed at $0.

Skip it if most of your orders arrive keyed or online, because the keyed and online margin is higher at every volume band and starts at 0.50% and 25 cents. Skip it too if you need the operational depth a restaurant group expects, since the pricing page describes an account and a rate table rather than kitchen, menu or multi-site modules, and nothing else on helcim.com could be read to automated requests on 16 October 2026.

Where Helcim fits

Helcim fits a business that has worked out that the card rate, not the software fee, is the number that matters. In this category the software line is usually a few tens of dollars a month per terminal and the processing line is a percentage of everything you sell, so the processing line wins on size most years. Helcim inverts the usual packaging and makes the rate the product: there are no named plans on its pricing page at all, and the published table is simply a margin over interchange that falls as your monthly card volume rises.

The table has five bands and they are published rather than quoted. In person, $0 to $50K a month pays interchange plus 0.40% and 8 cents, $50K to $100K pays 0.35% and 7 cents, $100K to $500K pays 0.25% and 7 cents, $500K to $1M pays 0.20% and 6 cents, and $1M to $5M pays 0.15% and 6 cents. Keyed and online transactions run on their own column, from 0.50% and 25 cents at the lowest band to 0.15% and 15 cents at the top. A counter business and a phone-order business at the same turnover therefore pay materially different rates on the same account.

The second thing that decides fit is that the fixed cost is published as zero. The page lists no account monthly fees, no cancellation fee, no signup fee and no PCI fee, each shown at $0, and card and customer data migration at $0 as well. That matters for a seasonal or low-volume operator more than for anyone else: a shop that trades hard for four months and quietly for eight pays Helcim only on what it processes, where a per-terminal software subscription keeps charging through the quiet months.

Hardware is the one place a real upfront number appears. The Helcim Smart Terminal is $349 per unit plus shipping, or $32 per month on a one-year term, and the Helcim Card Reader is $199 per unit plus shipping, with optional 4G wireless data on a terminal at $7 per month. Tap to Pay on iPhone is published as an alternative to buying a device at all, at an extra 10 cents per transaction. For a market stall or a mobile service business that is a genuinely different cost shape from a countertop bundle.

What you cannot settle from this page is how far Helcim goes as an operating system for a venue. The rate card and the published fee schedule are the whole of what could be read on 16 October 2026, because helcim.com returned HTTP 403 to automated requests and the rate tables were recovered through a single assisted fetch of the pricing page. Treat the pricing as verified and the feature coverage as unverified: if you need a kitchen display, a table plan or centralised menus across sites, ask for those specifically rather than assuming a published rate implies published functionality. Loyverse publishes its module list and its prices together, and is the cleaner comparison for that question.

Helcim pricing

Helcim publishes its prices, which in this category is unusual enough to be the headline. Checked on 16 October 2026, the pricing page carries a full interchange plus rate table rather than software tiers: there are no named plans, no per-terminal subscription and no account monthly fee. The margin over interchange is set by your monthly card volume and moves automatically as you cross a band, so the thing to model is not which plan you pick but what mix of in-person and keyed volume you run.

What Helcim publishes

Helcim account, in person: Interchange plus 0.40% and 8 cents (Per transaction at $0 to $50K monthly card volume, falling by band)0.35% and 7 cents at $50K to $100K, 0.25% and 7 cents at $100K to $500K, 0.20% and 6 cents at $500K to $1M, and 0.15% and 6 cents at $1M to $5M.
Helcim account, keyed and online: Interchange plus 0.50% and 25 cents (Per transaction at $0 to $50K monthly card volume, falling by band)The card-not-present column is higher at every band and narrows to 0.15% and 15 cents at $1M to $5M, so a phone and web business pays more than a counter business at the same turnover.
Fixed account fees: $0 (No recurring software charge)Account monthly fees, cancellation fee, signup fees and PCI fees are each published at $0, and card and customer data migration is listed at $0.
Helcim Smart Terminal: $349 per unit (One-off plus shipping, or $32 per month on a one-year term)Countertop and mobile card acceptance, with optional 4G wireless data at $7 per month.
Helcim Card Reader: $199 per unit (One-off plus shipping)Card acceptance paired with a phone or tablet. Tap to Pay on iPhone is the published alternative at an extra 10 cents per transaction.

Every figure here was read from Helcim's own visible rate tables on 16 October 2026. The site returned HTTP 403 to ordinary automated requests, so the page was recovered through a single assisted fetch and nothing beyond what that response attributed to the page is recorded.

What costs extra

Recurring payments: an extra 0.4% per transaction on top of the published processing rate, which matters if you bill memberships or subscriptions alongside counter sales.
Tap to Pay on iPhone: an extra 10 cents per transaction, in place of buying a reader.
Optional 4G wireless data for a terminal: $7 per month per device.
ACH and EFT-PAD: 0.5% and 25 cents per transaction, capped at $6, with an additional 0.05% on amounts over $25,000. Canadian Interac debit is 9 cents, or 12 cents on tap.
Exception fees: a chargeback resolved in your favour is $0 and a lost one is $15, and an ACH reject is $5.

Implementation and commercial terms

The rows below are what the page itself states as of 16 October 2026. The published zeroes are the useful part: they remove the fixed costs that usually need negotiating in this market, which leaves the card mix as the only real variable.

Published price: Yes. A full interchange plus rate card with no named plans.
Account monthly fee: $0, as published on the page.
Setup and compliance: Signup fees $0 and PCI fees $0.
Migration: Card and customer data migration listed at $0.
Cancellation: No cancellation fee, published at $0.
Free trial: None published. With no monthly account fee there is no subscription to trial.

Budget Helcim in two parts, and do not confuse the published margin for your all-in rate. Interchange is passed through, so the real cost of a transaction is interchange plus the band margin, and interchange varies with the card: a rewards credit card costs more to accept than consumer debit. Take one real month of settled transactions, split it into in-person and keyed or online, and work out the effective rate yourself rather than comparing 0.40% against a competitor's flat rate, which already has interchange baked in. Then add hardware at $349 per Smart Terminal or $199 per Card Reader, plus the extra 0.4% if you run recurring billing. The comparison that settles it is against Square and SumUp, which publish flat rates: flat is easier to forecast, interchange plus is usually cheaper once debit is a decent share of your mix, and only your own transaction file can tell you which way that falls.

Source: the Helcim pricing page, checked 16 October 2026. Confirm current prices with the vendor before you budget.

What Helcim gives up

You give up a single number you can quote to your board. Interchange plus is honest and it is also not forecastable from the page alone: the published 0.40% is a margin, not a rate, and the total depends on a card mix you do not control. Businesses that take a lot of commercial and rewards cards see higher interchange than ones that take mostly debit, and Helcim does not publish an all-in blended figure. If your finance process needs a fixed cost of acceptance per sale to plan against, a flat-rate processor will suit your spreadsheet better even where it costs more.

You give up the cheap rate the moment the order stops being card present. Keyed and online transactions sit in their own column at every band, starting at 0.50% and 25 cents against 0.40% and 8 cents in person. The gap at the lowest band is wide enough to change a decision: a business taking deposits over the phone, invoicing by link or selling online alongside its counter is paying the higher column on that share of revenue. Work out that share before you model anything, because the headline figure describes the part of your business that happens at the till.

You give up the volume discount if your year is lumpy. The bands run from $0 to $50K a month up to $1M to $5M, and the step down is automatic, which cuts both ways: a quiet month moves you back up as readily as a busy one moves you down. If you trade seasonally, ask how Helcim measures the month, how quickly a band change takes effect and whether there is any smoothing, because an annual average can sit in one band while most individual months sit in another.

You give up verified feature depth, at least from the published page. helcim.com returned HTTP 403 to automated requests on 16 October 2026, so the only material recorded here is the rate card recovered through a single assisted fetch. That means the pricing is solid and the functional coverage is not: nothing is recorded about kitchen displays, table service, menu management across locations, inventory depth or integrations, because none of it could be read. Do not infer a feature from a published price. Put your own list of must-haves in front of sales and get each one confirmed.

You give up the bundled hardware story that restaurant vendors sell. Two devices are published, the Smart Terminal at $349 and the Card Reader at $199, and Tap to Pay on iPhone as a software alternative at 10 cents a transaction. There is no published kiosk, kitchen screen or customer display line. For a cafe or a salon that is beside the point. For a multi-terminal restaurant with a pass and a drive-through, it means the equipment conversation happens somewhere other than this page, and SpotOn, which publishes both station pricing and hardware prices, is the more direct comparison.

How Helcim compares

The useful first cut in point of sale is whether the vendor publishes a card processing rate, because that line is normally the largest one in a retail or restaurant operator's annual bill. In this group only Helcim and Loyverse publish anything a buyer can check without a sales call, and Loyverse does it by declining to process cards at all. Every price below comes from that vendor's own pricing page as checked on 16 October 2026, and nothing unpublished has been estimated.

Tool	Best for	Price	Where it breaks
Helcim	Counter-led businesses that want the card rate published and no monthly software fee	No monthly fee; interchange plus 0.40% and 8 cents in person at the lowest band	Keyed and online volume costs more at every band, and feature depth could not be verified from the site
Square	Operators who want a flat rate and a published software tier in the same place	$0, $49 or $149 per month per location, card present from 2.4% + 15 cents	Flat rates include interchange, so a debit-heavy business can pay more than on interchange plus
SumUp	Small single-site traders who want the simplest possible published rate	Free at $0/month, POS Plus $49/month, SumUp POS from $99/month	Online and manual entry is charged at a higher rate than card present on every plan
SpotOn	Restaurants that want published station pricing, hardware prices and a card rate together	All-In at $0 per station per month, POS Essentials at $55 per station per month	The cheaper station fee carries the dearer processing rate, so the choice depends on your volume
Loyverse	Businesses that want free software and will source processing separately	Free core product; add-ons at $9, $5 and $25 per month	Publishes no processing rate of its own because payments come from third-party providers

What to test before you open a Helcim account

No free trial is published, and with no monthly account fee there is nothing to trial on the subscription side. The work is arithmetic rather than piloting: prove the rate on your own transactions before you move any volume.

Export one full month of settled card transactions from your current processor, with the card type and entry method on each line. This is the only input that matters. Split it into card present and keyed or online, because those run on separate columns at every band, and total each half.
Place yourself in a band and check how the month is measured. The published bands are $0 to $50K, $50K to $100K, $100K to $500K, $500K to $1M and $1M to $5M of monthly card volume. Ask Helcim how a band change is triggered, how fast it applies and what happens in a seasonal trough, then run your worst month as well as your best.
Get an all-in effective rate, not the margin. Interchange is passed through, so ask Helcim to apply the published margin to your actual card mix and give you a total. Compare that total against your current processor's effective rate on the same month, which you work out by dividing fees paid by volume processed rather than reading a headline.
Price the hardware and the extras you will use. A Smart Terminal is $349 per unit plus shipping or $32 per month on a one-year term, a Card Reader is $199 plus shipping, 4G data is $7 per month and Tap to Pay on iPhone adds 10 cents a transaction. If you bill recurring payments, add the extra 0.4%, and if you take ACH, add 0.5% and 25 cents capped at $6.
Confirm the operational features in writing, because nothing on them could be read. Take your list of must-haves, whether that is a kitchen display, a table plan, stock counts across two sites or an accounting integration, and make sales confirm each one by name. Also ask about chargeback handling, since a lost case costs $15, and about what happens to your transaction and customer records if you leave, given the published cancellation fee is $0.

Frequently asked questions about Helcim

How much does Helcim cost?

As of 16 October 2026 Helcim publishes no account monthly fee and charges interchange plus a margin that falls with monthly card volume: 0.40% and 8 cents per in-person transaction at $0 to $50K a month, down to 0.15% and 6 cents at $1M to $5M. Keyed and online rates are higher.

Does Helcim charge a monthly subscription?

No. Read on 16 October 2026, the pricing page lists account monthly fees, signup fees, PCI fees and the cancellation fee each at $0, and card and customer data migration at $0 as well. Your recurring cost is processing, plus optional items such as $7 per month for 4G wireless data.

What does Helcim hardware cost?

The Helcim Smart Terminal is $349 per unit plus shipping, or $32 per month on a one-year term. The Helcim Card Reader is $199 per unit plus shipping. Both figures are from the pricing page on 16 October 2026. Tap to Pay on iPhone replaces hardware entirely at an extra 10 cents per transaction.

Should you buy the Card Reader or the Smart Terminal?

The Card Reader at $199 pairs with a phone or tablet you already own, so it suits a mobile or low-volume setup. The Smart Terminal at $349, or $32 per month on a one-year term, is the standalone device and can take optional 4G wireless data at $7 per month for trading away from wifi.

Is Helcim cheaper than Square?

It depends on your card mix, and the page alone cannot tell you. Helcim passes interchange through and adds a published margin, while flat-rate processors bake interchange into one number. Debit-heavy businesses usually come out ahead on interchange plus. Run one real month of settled transactions through both to find out.

What does Helcim charge for online or keyed transactions?

More than in person, at every volume band. The published keyed and online column starts at interchange plus 0.50% and 25 cents at $0 to $50K a month and narrows to 0.15% and 15 cents at $1M to $5M, against 0.40% and 8 cents in person at the bottom band, as checked on 16 October 2026.

Does Helcim charge extra for recurring payments or bank transfers?

Yes to both. Recurring payments add 0.4% per transaction on top of the processing rate. ACH and EFT-PAD are 0.5% and 25 cents per transaction, capped at $6, with an additional 0.05% on amounts over $25,000. Canadian Interac debit is 9 cents, or 12 cents on tap.

What happens if a customer disputes a payment?

Helcim publishes the chargeback economics rather than leaving them to a contract: a case resolved in your favour costs $0 and a lost case costs $15, per the pricing page on 16 October 2026. An ACH reject is $5. Ask sales how the evidence submission process works before you rely on it.

Is there a free trial, and what does it cost to leave?

No free trial is published, and with no monthly account fee there is no subscription to trial: the only cost of starting is processing what you process. Leaving is published at $0 with no cancellation fee. Confirm in writing what happens to your transaction and customer records when an account closes.