We are happy to announce the beta release of WrestlingIQ Payment Processing. If you are an existing WrestlingIQ customer, you are eligible for a special promotional rate of 2.75% + .30 until July 31, 2024 if you agree to be part of our beta testing group. We will be accepting beta testers on a first come, first serve basis so please fill out this form by August 4th 2023 if you are interested. 

Not sure? Read on...

Why introduce a new payment processor?

We have been partnering with Stripe since the inception of WrestlingIQ to offer payment processing for wrestling teams. Truthfully, WrestlingIQ wouldn't exist without Stripe's processing system—we are grateful for that and plan on supporting customers who want to continue using Stripe indefinitely.

There are three reasons we have decided to make the switch to a different payment processing system:

1. We want more control over the underwriting and account approval process. Although we are not directly underwriting/approving merchant accounts—we still have partners under the hood who handle that—our new system allows us to offer better customer support if you ever get locked out of your merchant account, need to submit more documentation to continue processing, etc. In other words, if something goes wrong we can pick up the phone and dial a person, instead of sending you to Stripe's support team.

2. Stripe has raised prices on various products over the past three years. To their credit, they have given a lot of existing Stripe customers 'legacy' pricing for a certain amount of time, but those pricing models are being phased out. In particular, Stripe added a 0.5% fee to recurring subscriptions that we want to put back into wrestling organizations. 

3. WrestlingIQ will be able to earn a small amount of revenue from payment processing volume—without raising prices for your team or your parents/customers.

Are there any differences between the Stripe and WrestlingIQ payments integration?

All payment functionality offered by WrestlingIQ—one time payments, installment plans, recurring memberships, fundraisers, donation box, one-off invoices, etc—will be available to teams using WrestlingIQ Payment Processing. 

The major difference with WrestlingIQ Payment Processing and Stripe is that there will no longer be a separate system to login to to access payment data—we think this will be easier for teams to manage, as you won't need to remember separate logins or invite other admins to Stripe.

During the beta period, there will be several features in active development with WrestlingIQ Payment Processing:

- Better charts and reports. We think our new Payments Dashboard page is 80% of the way there, but want to add additional metrics to help you understand the financial health of your organization.

- Apple Pay & Google Pay. We expect this feature to land sometime in 2023, but rolling this out depends on our processing partners integrating with these two systems.

After the beta period we are going to give teams on WrestlingIQ Payment Processing the ability to offer embedded insurance—i.e. your parents can purchase registration insurance so that if they can't continue with the season, you don't have to refund them out of the club's bank account.

Will I need to do any extra work to switch?

Nope—everything will work exactly as before. We will send you a form to kick off your underwriting process and once that is approved (~2 business days) we will flip over all new payments to WrestlingIQ Payment Processing instead of Stripe. No extra work needed on your part.

Who owns the PCI risk now?

PCI risk remains the same for you as an owner as it was on Stripe—no credit cards are ever shown or stored in the WrestlingIQ database or visible to any of your staff. 

What will the payment processing rate be?

The beta payment processing rate will be 2.75% + .30 per transaction until July 31 2024. As long as your team is on the list before August 4th, we will make sure you get that rate when you switch. 

After the promo period, the payment processing rate will be 2.9% + .30 per transaction, regardless of whether it is a one time or recurring charge.

The normal 2% WrestlingIQ fee will still be applied to the parent's bill—this processing rate cost replaces the Stripe fee.

I have recurring memberships, can that be transferred over from Stripe?

When you switch to the WrestlingIQ Payment Processing, all new subscriptions will be charged through the new account immediately. All existing memberships will continue to be charged through Stripe. 

It is theoretically possible to export your card data from Stripe—we have a couple customers going through that process right now. Switching existing members generally takes 2-4 weeks as we have to wait for Stripe to send data over to our processors, import that data, and then hook it back up into your account to process memberships. If you offer recurring memberships we'll be sure to discuss this migration option with you once you apply to be a beta tester.

Can I stick with Stripe?

Existing customers can stick with Stripe as long as they want. We hope that you decide to switch to WrestlingIQ Payments, but we have no plans to force any team to switch over.

How do I get the promotional rate again?

Fill out this form by August 4th 2023 to guarantee your rate! Once you do, we'll be in touch with next steps.