I am deeply considering opening a hosting business. In fact, I've all ready got the dedicated server picked out.

I'm planning on accepting paypal and credit cards. I'd like to know if it's manditory to order a merchant account asap or if I could start out accepting paypal only. What do customer use most?

Regards,
WebNinja

Well, a third party payment processor is usually the best solution. Some people don't like payments via PayPal - it's viewed upon as unprofessional.

The most popular ones are http://www.2checkout.com/ and http://www.paysystems.com/.

I personally use Paysystems, and have not had any problems with them.

If you want to use some type of online billing system, you might want to look into Moderbill. Only because you get a really good deal with eonlinedata/authorize.net. Just another thing to add to your research list!

If you're looking for something extremely flexible, i would recommend (as netsolutionz said) going with the modernbill/auth.net team.

Otherwise, i recommend paysystems.