Everything you need to know about Grandco's platform — surcharging rules, pricing, contracts, reseller commissions, and Canadian payment processing.
Grandco is a bundled SaaS platform that combines three things on a single monthly bill: a Canadian merchant account (powered by Elavon/Converge), a cloud-based POS system, and a white-label version of Grandco — a professional CRM, SMS marketing, pipeline, and reputation management platform used by thousands of businesses across North America.
Instead of paying separately for a payment processor, a point-of-sale system, and a marketing tool, Grandco consolidates everything. One vendor, one bill, one Canadian support contact.
Most applications are reviewed and approved within 3–5 business days. Standard businesses — restaurants, retail, salons, contractors, professional services — typically approve without delays. Applications for higher-risk categories (cannabis accessories, adult products, travel, nutraceuticals) may take 7–10 business days and require additional documentation.
Once approved, your Converge terminal credentials are provisioned within 24 hours and your POS and Grandco platform environments are activated simultaneously.
Hardware is available as an add-on and is not included in monthly plan pricing. Options include:
All terminals are pre-configured with your Converge credentials and surcharging rules before shipping. They arrive ready to process transactions.
No lock-in, no cancellation fees. Grandco's platform subscription is month-to-month and can be cancelled at any time with 30 days' written notice. There are no early termination fees on the SaaS component.
The Elavon merchant account agreement is a separate relationship with standard payment processor terms — see your specific Merchant Processing Agreement for details. However, Grandco does not impose its own cancellation penalties on top of those terms.
All Grandco merchants receive email and chat support during Canadian business hours (Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm ET). Growth and Scale plan subscribers additionally receive priority phone support with a dedicated account manager.
For payment processing issues — declined transactions, settlement delays, terminal errors — Elavon's 24/7 merchant support line is available to all accounts and handles urgent processing issues outside business hours.
Card payments are processed through Elavon, a subsidiary of US Bancorp and one of the largest payment processors in North America. Elavon's Canadian operations are fully compliant with Canadian payment network rules, PIPEDA, and PCI DSS Level 1 security standards.
Grandco acts as a registered reseller and ISO of Elavon. Your merchant account is held directly with Elavon — Grandco provides the platform, bundling, billing, and support layer on top.
Settlement timing depends on your batch close time and your bank. Most merchants on standard settlement receive funds 1–2 business days after batch close. If you batch before 11pm ET, funds typically arrive the next business day.
Funds are deposited directly to your Canadian bank account via EFT. Weekends and statutory holidays extend settlement timelines by one business day.
You receive two separate statements: your Grandco SaaS invoice (flat monthly subscription fee for your plan tier, billed on the same date each month) and your Elavon processing statement (interchange fees, card scheme assessments, and Elavon's service fee, billed based on actual monthly processing volume).
If surcharging is enabled, recovered surcharge amounts appear as a separate credit line on your processing statement, offsetting your processing costs.
Yes — since October 6, 2022. A class action settlement between Canadian merchants and Visa/Mastercard removed the contractual prohibition on surcharging that had been in place for decades. Canadian businesses can now pass some or all of their credit card processing costs to cardholders who choose to pay by credit card.
The maximum surcharge rate is 2.4%, and it can only be applied to credit cards — never Interac Debit or Visa Debit. Disclosure rules also apply. See our complete surcharging guide for full details.
No. Surcharging is enabled by default on all Grandco merchant accounts. Your Converge terminal is pre-configured to automatically detect card type (credit vs. debit), apply the correct surcharge to eligible cards only, display the amount on the customer-facing screen before approval, and itemise it on the receipt.
The only thing you're responsible for is placing a surcharge disclosure sign at your point of sale — a printable template is included in your onboarding materials. If you prefer not to surcharge, you can opt out from your merchant dashboard.
No — surcharging debit cards is prohibited. This applies to Interac Debit, Visa Debit, and Mastercard Debit. The surcharge only applies to credit cards.
Grandco's terminal automatically distinguishes between credit and debit cards at the point of sale — even Visa Debit cards (which can look identical to Visa Credit cards) are correctly identified and not surcharged. This happens at the card-read level, requiring no action on your part.
The maximum is 2.4% — but with an important caveat: you can only surcharge up to your actual cost of card acceptance. If Grandco's interchange-plus rate results in an effective cost of 1.8% for your business, the maximum permissible surcharge is 1.8%, not 2.4%.
Grandco automatically configures your surcharge rate based on your actual processing cost under your Elavon agreement, so you're always compliant without having to calculate this yourself.
Visa and Mastercard require disclosure at the point of entry — typically a sign at your register, counter, or door stating that a credit card surcharge applies. Beyond that, Grandco handles all other disclosure requirements automatically:
A printable, compliant signage template is provided in your onboarding portal. A laminated counter sign satisfies the requirement.
Concern about customer pushback is the most common reason businesses hesitate to enable surcharging. In practice, the research and merchant experience suggest it's rarely a significant issue, especially when disclosed clearly and consistently.
Key factors that determine customer reaction: whether competitors in your market also surcharge (increasingly common), the size of the surcharge as a proportion of the transaction (2.4% on a $40 purchase is $0.96), and how clearly the disclosure is communicated upfront.
Businesses in markets where surcharging is already common — trades, B2B, professional services — often report zero customer complaints. Service businesses with loyal repeat customers typically find customers prefer a small surcharge to a price increase.
They recover the same cost but work in opposite directions. A surcharge starts at your standard price and adds a fee for credit card payers. A cash discount starts at a slightly higher listed price and reduces it for cash or debit payers.
The net economics are identical — the customer paying by credit card pays roughly the same amount either way. The legal and operational framing differs, and Quebec's Consumer Protection Act makes surcharging harder to implement (because advertised prices must be all-in), so some Quebec businesses prefer cash discounting instead.
Grandco supports both models. Surcharging is default; cash discounting requires a configuration change. Ask your account manager.
Approved Resellers sell Grandco's platform to local businesses (their "Sub-Merchants") at retail pricing and earn income from three sources: a monthly SaaS margin on each active Sub-Merchant's subscription, and a BPS residual on each Sub-Merchant's monthly card processing volume.
Residuals compound — each new merchant you add earns on top of all the merchants you've previously added. See our detailed reseller income guide for the full breakdown with worked math.
Your tier is determined by the number of active Sub-Merchants you have onboarded:
Tier upgrades happen automatically when you cross the merchant count threshold. Tier downgrades only occur if active Sub-Merchant count drops below the threshold for 3 consecutive months.
BPS stands for basis points. One basis point is 0.01% of transaction volume. At Gold tier (12 BPS), you earn 0.12% of every dollar your Sub-Merchants process by card each month.
Example: A Sub-Merchant processing $45,000/month in card sales generates $54/month in BPS residuals at Gold tier (45,000 × 0.0012 = $54). Across 15 such merchants, that's $810/month in residuals alone — arriving automatically, every month, without any new selling required.
Yes — white-label rights are available at Gold tier and above. At Gold, you receive a custom subdomain (e.g., app.youragency.ca) and can apply your logo and brand colours to the Grandco platform interface your Sub-Merchants see. At Platinum, full white-label branding includes custom email templates, custom domain for client portals, and a co-branded onboarding experience.
The Converge payment processing environment continues to operate under Elavon's infrastructure regardless of branding — white-labelling applies to the SaaS and CRM layer.
Apply through the Reseller Application page. The application asks for basic business information, your relevant background, and your intended market focus. There is no minimum revenue requirement, no prior payments experience required, and no upfront fee.
Applications are reviewed within 3–5 business days. Approval is based on fit and the absence of conflicts of interest (e.g., existing relationships with competing processors). Most applicants with a genuine interest in selling to local businesses are approved.
Commissions are calculated monthly based on the prior month's Sub-Merchant activity and paid via EFT to your Canadian bank account on or before the 15th of each month. You receive a detailed commission statement showing SaaS margin and BPS residuals broken out by Sub-Merchant.
BPS residuals have no hold period and are paid on the prior month's confirmed processing volume.
Grandco issues T4A slips annually for all commission income for Canadian tax purposes.
All approved Resellers receive access to the Grandco Partner Portal, which includes:
Gold and Platinum partners additionally receive a dedicated partner manager for deal support, co-selling on larger opportunities, and quarterly pipeline reviews.
Yes — under the Reseller Agreement, Resellers share joint and several liability with their Sub-Merchants for certain obligations to Elavon, including chargebacks, Card Scheme fines resulting from Sub-Merchant violations, and prohibited business activities. This is standard in ISO/reseller payment processing agreements.
In practice, this means you should only onboard legitimate businesses in permitted categories and ensure they understand their surcharging and disclosure obligations. Grandco's onboarding process includes compliance screening to minimise this risk.
Review Section 9 of the Reseller Agreement for the full liability framework.
Grandco offers four merchant plans, all billed monthly with no long-term commitment:
Processing fees are separate and charged at interchange-plus rates based on your actual card volume — not included in the flat monthly fee. See the full pricing page for the complete comparison.
Grandco prices processing on an interchange-plus model: you pay the exact interchange rate set by Visa/Mastercard (which varies by card type, from ~1.20% for basic debit to ~2.40% for premium rewards cards) plus a small fixed markup for Grandco and Elavon's services.
Unlike flat-rate processors (Square, Stripe) that charge 2.65% on everything and pocket the difference, interchange-plus means you pay exactly what the card costs — your margin on lower-cost cards is not subsidising anyone's business.
With surcharging enabled, your effective processing cost approaches zero — the surcharge passed to cardholders offsets your interchange and markup costs entirely.
Grandco does not offer a self-serve free trial, because the merchant account component requires an underwriting and approval process. However, all prospective merchants can book a free live demo with an account manager who will walk through the full platform, show live surcharge calculations, and demonstrate the Grandco marketing tools.
New accounts also receive a 30-day onboarding support period during which you can request a full refund of your first month's SaaS fee if the platform does not meet your expectations — no questions asked.
Your Grandco SaaS subscription is billed on the same date each month via credit card or pre-authorized debit (PAD) from your Canadian bank account. Processing fees from Elavon are billed separately and appear on your Elavon monthly statement, typically deducted directly from your settlement deposits.
Invoices are emailed to your account email address on the billing date. A full invoice archive is accessible from your merchant dashboard.
Grandco may adjust subscription pricing with 60 days' written notice. Processing rates are governed by your Elavon Merchant Processing Agreement and may be adjusted per those terms with appropriate notice. In practice, pricing changes for existing merchants are infrequent.
If a pricing change is unacceptable, you may cancel your subscription within the notice period without penalty.
Yes — GST/HST applies to the Grandco SaaS subscription fee at the rate applicable to your province of registration. The listed prices ($149, $299, $549, $999) are before tax. Your monthly invoice will show the applicable tax amount and your total.
Processing fees charged by Elavon are treated as financial services and are generally exempt from GST/HST under Canadian tax law. Confirm with your accountant for your specific situation.
Grandco and Elavon are both PCI DSS compliant. Card data is processed entirely through Elavon's PCI DSS Level 1 certified infrastructure — Grandco's software layer never stores, transmits, or has access to raw cardholder data. Converge uses tokenisation so that card numbers are replaced with non-sensitive tokens after the initial transaction.
As a merchant, you are required to complete an annual PCI Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) and maintain a compliant network environment. Elavon's PCI programme provides SAQ templates and guidance. Grandco's Growth and Scale plans include PCI support as part of onboarding.
Grandco collects and processes your business and personal information in accordance with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) — Canada's federal privacy law. This includes business owner contact information, banking details for EFT settlement, and platform usage data.
Data is stored on servers in Canada and the United States (Grandco platform infrastructure). Grandco does not sell personal information to third parties. Full details are in the Privacy Policy.
Grandco's marketing platform environment is configured to support CASL-compliant marketing — with unsubscribe links in every message, sender identification, and consent management tools. However, CASL compliance is ultimately your responsibility as the sender. You must obtain express consent from contacts before sending them commercial electronic messages and maintain records of that consent.
Grandco's onboarding includes a CASL compliance briefing. Using the platform to send unsolicited messages to contacts without documented consent is a violation of both CASL and Grandco's Terms of Service. See our CASL guide on the blog for a full breakdown.
Grandco and Elavon cannot support businesses in certain prohibited categories. These include (but are not limited to):
Some categories (cannabis accessories, nutraceuticals, travel) are restricted but may be approved with additional due diligence. Review Schedule B of the Terms of Service for the full list.
Grandco's Terms of Service and Reseller Agreement are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the laws of Canada applicable therein. Disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of Ontario courts.
The Elavon Merchant Processing Agreement incorporates additional terms and may reference separate dispute resolution processes for payment network matters. See your individual Merchant Processing Agreement for details.
Grandco is a professional CRM and marketing automation platform. In Grandco's bundle, it provides tools that unlock progressively across plans:
This tiered structure means merchants always have room to grow into more powerful tools as their business scales.
Through Grandco's native integrations and Zapier/Make connectivity, Grandco connects with hundreds of third-party tools, including:
The Scale plan includes custom API integration support. For specific integration requirements, ask during your demo call.
Converge terminals support a limited offline mode for certain transaction types. In offline mode, transactions are queued locally on the terminal and submitted for processing when connectivity is restored. There are risk limits on offline transaction amounts, and not all card types support offline authorisation.
For businesses in areas with unreliable connectivity, we recommend cellular-connected terminals (available as an option) rather than Wi-Fi-only models.
Yes. Multi-location support is available on Growth and Scale plans. Each location can have its own terminal(s), its own reporting and settlement, and its own user access — all managed from a single Grandco account.
Additional terminals for new locations are available at hardware pricing. The monthly subscription covers the platform across all locations on a single account; if you prefer separate billing per location, each location can be set up as an independent account.
Grandco's onboarding team can assist with data migration from most common Canadian POS and CRM platforms, including Square, Moneris, Shopify POS, and standard CSV exports from any system.
Customer contact data, purchase history, and loyalty/point balances can typically be imported into Grandco in a structured CSV format. Payment history from your prior processor does not migrate (that data belongs to the prior processor) but is available from them on request for your records.
Scale plan subscribers receive a dedicated migration support session. Other plans can access migration documentation in the Partner Portal.
Reputation AI is Grandco's standalone review growth and messaging automation product, built specifically for Canadian small businesses. It sits outside the main platform plans and is available on its own subscription.
There are two Reputation AI plans:
Both plans are month-to-month with no cancellation penalties.
The Workflow Pro Plan is an optional add-on subscription available to both DIY and Done-For-You Reputation AI subscribers. It unlocks premium workflow triggers and actions within the platform — including automated review request sequences, lead follow-up routing, missed call automation chains, and custom workflow rules that go beyond the standard toolkit.
Price: $40 CAD/mo — billed at cost with no markup. This is Grandco's direct cost, passed through to you transparently.
It can be added or removed from your subscription at any time. Contact your account manager or add it when signing up.
The Unlimited AI Employee is an optional add-on available to any Reputation AI subscriber (DIY or Done-For-You). It adds a fully trained, always-on AI to your business that handles:
Your AI is trained on your specific services, pricing, and coverage area. All activity is logged in your centralized inbox. There are no usage caps — unlimited calls, chats, and follow-ups.
Price: $149 CAD/mo — billed at cost with no markup. This is Grandco's direct cost, passed through transparently.
Both the Workflow Pro Plan ($40/mo) and the Unlimited AI Employee ($149/mo) are third-party services that Grandco passes through to subscribers at exact cost — no margin, no markup of any kind.
Grandco's position is that these tools should be as accessible as possible. Rather than inflating the price, we charge you exactly what we pay. If our underlying costs change, we'll give you 30 days' written notice and pass through the updated cost — up or down — at the same zero-margin rate.
These add-ons are clearly separated from the Reputation AI plan fee so you always know exactly what you're paying for and why.
