FAQ
Questions operators ask before they change the stack.
Straight answers for high-volume merchants, with the cases behind them. We are payment infrastructure consultants. Not a PSP. Paid by the provider you choose, never tied to one.
Are you a PSP?
No. Milestone Consulting does not process your transactions, hold settlement, or act as an acquirer or bank. We advise on payment infrastructure around the providers that do: fit, pricing, approvals, declines, redundancy, and commercial terms.
Do you sell a house acquirer or preferred PSP?
No. We are vendor-agnostic. We work for the merchant, not for a payment provider. Changing or adding a provider is a tool when it serves fit, pricing, capacity, corridors, approvals, or redundancy. It is not the default pitch.
Isn't my PSP already advising me on this?
Your PSP is your supplier, not your consultant. Its recommendation for a new market is whichever acquirer it already has there; its recommendation for a tool is the one it sells. A merchant came to us with its own 3DS orchestration layer that retried authentication across providers. Its PSP persuaded it to switch to the PSP's own 3DS because it was cheaper per attempt. Authentication success fell below what the orchestrated layer had delivered: cheaper per attempt, more expensive per sale. That is not bad faith. It is a product catalogue.
A PSP promised us 95% approval. Is that realistic?
Not before they have seen your data. Approval depends on geography, card mix, issuer behaviour, MCC and fraud patterns. A PSP promised a crypto merchant (MCC 6051) 95% without asking which countries it served. The merchant's main corridors were ones where that PSP had no issuer relationships, and approval landed far below the pitch. A number quoted before the decline data is a sales target, not a forecast.
We were offered a cheaper rate than yours. Why not take it?
Take it if the approval rate holds. One merchant took an offer about 10% below ours. Its approval rate fell about 22%. The saving on fees was a rounding error against the revenue that stopped arriving. The real cost of payments is declines, chargebacks, reserves and downtime; the headline rate is the part that is easiest to compare and least important. Run your own numbers at /tools/true-cost.
Our PSP is excellent. Do we really need a second one?
A merchant told us exactly that. Its PSP later announced a change in risk appetite and offboarded it. Onboarding a replacement started the same day and took weeks, and for those weeks revenue was zero. Risk appetite changes on the provider's calendar, not yours. A second acquirer that already carries a few percent of your volume is the difference between a bad week and a dead quarter. If you have already received a letter, start at /problems/merchant-account-terminated.
Our PSP wants a 10% rolling reserve. Is that normal?
It is common, and it is usually a sign that the provider does not understand your vertical rather than a market rate. A reserve is collateral priced on perceived risk. A provider that actually underwrites iGaming or sweepstakes knows what the real dispute and refund profile looks like and prices the reserve accordingly. If the reserve is the first number they quote, keep looking. How much cash a reserve locks, and what to negotiate: /problems/rolling-reserve.
A provider offers instant approval for high-risk. Good sign?
It is the worst sign. Underwriting is where a provider decides whether it can hold your account through a bad month. If nobody looked at your file at onboarding, somebody will look at it in month three, when the first chargeback ratio report comes in, and that review tends to end with a hold or a termination. Slow underwriting is a feature.
Someone is selling us a merchant-of-record setup as the cheap option. Is it?
No. MOR solves an entity problem: you need to process in a market where you have no eligible local company, and the MOR lends you theirs. That is worth paying for when you need it (we have used it to give an operator domestic processing without restructuring its group; see the sweepstakes guide at /payments/sweepstakes). It is never the cheap option, because the MOR carries your risk and prices it. Anyone selling MOR on price is hiding the number somewhere else.
How does Diagnose → Improve → Prove work?
Diagnose: volume mix, corridors, current providers, pricing, approval and decline patterns, redundancy gaps, and commercial constraints. What is broken vs what is merely noisy. Improve: solution fit, pricing structure, approval and decline levers, redundancy where you need it, and terms aligned to how you operate. Provider introductions or changes only when they serve those outcomes. Prove: changes earn their place on bounded live traffic (acceptance, stability, cost, ops load) before you expand weight or lock a larger move.
Who do you work with, and what volume makes sense?
Founders, CFOs, and payments or treasury leads at high-volume companies across the EU, UK, and US. Infrastructure work starts to pay for itself from roughly $100K a month in card volume; most of our engagements are $500K a month and up, and the structures we advise on process around $4B a year in total. If your volume is too low for this to matter, we say so on the first call.
What verticals do you support?
Any business where card volume is material: retail, SaaS, marketplaces, financial services. Deepest experience in iGaming under any licensing regime (MGA, UKGC, Curaçao, Anjouan and other offshore licenses) and sweepstakes / social casino, followed by crypto (MCC 6051), cross-border retail, CFDs / forex, subscriptions and nutraceuticals. We also structure local acquiring for operators without a local entity. We do not work with sanctioned jurisdictions or prohibited activity, and we do not market Milestone as a gray high-risk ISO.
Will you rip out my primary PSP on day one?
No. Blind rip-and-replace is usually the wrong opening move. We start from the stack you have. If a secondary rail or a provider change belongs in the plan, we structure it so performance is measured on real volume before you shift weight.
Can you guarantee lower fees or higher approval rates?
Fees: almost. In roughly 200 pricing reviews, the offer we brought was cheaper than the merchant's existing one 97% of the time, because the volume we bring providers is aggregated across many merchants. We treat price as the entry ticket, not the work. Approval rates: no. Anyone who promises an approval number before seeing your decline data by country, card type and issuer is selling, not advising. We find where revenue is lost and prove the fix on live traffic.
How is Milestone paid?
By the PSP or acquirer the merchant ends up using, as a commission on volume. Not by the merchant: there is no fee for a review. We earn from whichever of ~30 providers wins, so we have no reason to push one, and we are only paid while the merchant keeps processing, so a bad fit costs us too. We say this on the first call because it is the right question to ask.
What is IC++ vs blended pricing?
Blended (or simple MDR-style) pricing packages cost into a headline percentage and/or fixed fee. Forecasting is easier; transparency is lower. IC++ (interchange plus plus) passes through interchange and scheme fees, plus a separately negotiated acquirer markup. At material volume, compare effective all-in cost on your mix (card type, domestic vs cross-border, refunds, chargebacks, FX, reserves, gateway fees), not a single sticker rate. Fees hide in structure, not just the rate card.
What is a rolling reserve vs a hold?
A rolling reserve is collateral, not a fee: the acquirer withholds a percentage of each settlement batch and releases it after a hold period set in your agreement. A capped reserve builds to a dollar ceiling. A processing or payout hold is a temporary freeze or delay, often triggered by volume spikes, dispute spikes, verification, or risk review. Read percentage, cap, release schedule, and change rights in the merchant agreement. Plan working capital accordingly.
What usually drives weak approval rates?
Common infrastructure causes include corridor or acquirer mismatch, soft-decline handling without taxonomy, missing updater coverage on subscriptions, authentication friction in the wrong places, fraud-tool overblocking, descriptor issues, and single-rail concentration when one partner tightens rules. Sometimes the fix is with the PSP. Often the stack design is the product. We do not publish guaranteed AR.
Can we add a secondary PSP without ripping the primary?
Yes. That is a core pattern. Keep the primary relationship. Introduce a second path (another acquirer, gateway lane, or APM) with intent. Prove it on bounded live traffic. Expand weight only if earned. Goals: capacity, redundancy, corridor fit, or commercial leverage. Not chaos routing that breaks reconciliation and support.
Why do MCCs matter?
A Merchant Category Code classifies your primary line of business for networks and acquirers. It influences interchange, underwriting appetite, monitoring expectations, and which providers will take the file. Wrong or opportunistic MCC classification is a common source of later account pain. At higher monthly volume, category plus chargeback trend plus delivery model usually matter more than a single headline MDR slide. We do not sell MCC shopping.
Soft declines, retries, and Account Updater (subscriptions)
Recurring billing uses credentials on file. Soft declines may succeed later with intelligent spacing. Hard declines should stop retrying the same data and move to updater paths or customer outreach. Network Account Updater programs (via your acquirer or gateway) refresh stored numbers and expiry when issuers reissue cards. Blind retry storms waste money and can worsen issuer trust. Build decline taxonomy first, then schedule. Follow network guidance. We do not promise a fixed auth-rate lift.
Do you provide legal or licensing advice?
No. Milestone is not a law firm and does not replace regulated counsel, compliance officers, or licensing advisors. We work at consulting level: how KYC / KYB expectations, licensing posture, and operating model show up in provider underwriting and stack design. For legal determinations, engage qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdictions.
What does multi-rail mean for our corridors?
Multi-rail means more than one viable path for material volume across the corridors you actually run (EU, UK, US, and cross-border flows): card acquiring, local APMs where customers expect them, bank-transfer style methods, or wallets when they fit. Rail mix affects approval, cost, disputes, FX, and payout timing. Match corridors to rails with operating reality in mind, then measure. More logos at checkout is not a strategy.
How do we start, and how do we contact you?
Book a short intro at /book, or email contact@milestone-c.com. We look at fit across pricing, approvals, declines, redundancy, and commercial terms, and whether infrastructure work (including a provider change when it serves the outcome) makes sense for your volume. No fake metrics. If we are not a fit, we say so.