I spoke to someone over the phone, but since it's new to even their employees, he wasn't too sure on some of the info.

It seems that this is a merchant account that INCLUDES a gateway? He told me the gateway fees were included in that price.

Set-Up Fee - $89.00
Per-Transaction Fee - $0.35 AND 2.39%
Monthly Statement Fee - $20.00

Isn't this the cheapest merchant account you have seen? Or is there cheaper. I'm not too familiar with merchant accounts yet. Also, it seems that it's using Authorize.Net, so I assume it's fully compliant with batching support for ModernBill.

Am I missing something here, or are those the only fees required in accepting credit cards on my site?

What do you guys think about this? I want to try it with my new hosting company.

ECHO is cheaper and a more established merchant provider that I would recommend. I've never been really big on those one-stop shop type places because they don't really specialize in things.

The fact that an employee didn't know the answer to your question should be a big red flag.

EDIT: oh.. and if they are simply an Authorize.net reseller like it looks like, then there is also a $10 gateway fee.

They can't even register domains let alone process payments. Who in the hell let them into this process? They have to be a reseller. God have mercy on anyone who uses them for thier payment processor... you're better off with PayPal.

And no, it is by far not the cheapest "merchant account" avaliable. The $20.00 statement fee is quite high and so is the discount rate. But the setup fee is low.

Common tactic.

Tiny setup fee, they plan to make up for it on the discount rate. Typical discount rate is 1.9% for Visa/MC swipe or 2.1% for MOTO. Statement fees of over $10.00 are high unless the discount rate is below 1.8% for swipe and 2.0% for MOTO.

Is this a bonafide merchant account (call and ask if you get an MID/TID - if they dont know what that is just hang up, you're dealing with idiots) or is this a new third party billing deal?

What do you mean they can't even register domains?
I have dozens of domains registered through Godaddy and I've never had a single issue.

Search around. They have thier moments. I had two major problems with them before I called it quits.

Went to Dotster and have been happy ever since.