Payments Strategy Consultant - Merchant Account & Gateway Selection

**JPayments Strategy Consultant \- Merchant Account \& Gateway Selection (Contract, 4\-10 hours)** **Rate: $300\-$450/hr (depending on background; higher end considered for ex\-Stripe/Adyen executives)** **Engagement: 4\-10 hours, remote, flexible schedule** **The situation** We’re a financial services company migrating away from our current payment merchant and are in the process of choosing the next one. Stripe, Finix, and Chase \+ Authorize.net are currently the frontrunners, but we haven’t signed with anyone yet. This is a critical decision, and before we commit, we want to make the most informed choice possible. We need someone who can walk in, ideally a former merchant/payments executive or specialist, to assess our situation with real expertise and tell us clearly and without vendor bias which option gives us the best combination of pricing and technical capability, and what else should be on the table. This work will inform our CRM solution as well, as we are currently considering moving from Hubspot Enterprise with either Salesforce or an in\-house custom CRM build. Experience integrating payments with CRMs is a plus, as the recommendations need to hold up as our systems evolve. **What we need from you** * An honest, expert evaluation of our current frontrunners Stripe vs. Chase \+ Authorize.net as our next merchant/gateway provider, along with other realistic contenders such as Braintree and Square. We want pricing weighed against technical capability, not just the cheapest or most familiar name * A landscape of other realistic alternatives, keeping in mind that enterprise\-only players like Adyen or Checkout.com aren’t a fit for us at our stage * Guidance on how to negotiate the best possible pricing and contract terms from a position of strength, before we sign with anyone * A practical plan for reducing dependency risk on whichever processor we choose, with a clear\-eyed plan for switching down the line if we ever need to * Recommendations we can hand to our engineering team so switch\-readiness gets designed in from the start * A short written summary or roadmap at the end of the engagement covering the options considered, tradeoffs, and your recommendation **Who we’re looking for** Any of these backgrounds could be a fit: * A former Stripe (or Adyen, Braintree, PayPal, Checkout.com) executive or business development lead who understands underwriting, risk, and how these companies actually negotiate * A merchant services or merchant account executive with experience placing complex merchants across multiple acquiring banks * A payments engineer who has personally built multi\-gateway integrations and can speak to what’s technically realistic versus theoretical * Bonus if you also have experience with CRM platform selection or build decisions (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce, custom builds), though this isn’t required **Logistics** * Contract / project\-based, not employment * 4\-10 hours total, can be structured as a discover