I'm planning to start a hosting and design company, but I'm not sure what to use for billing software?

I was thinking of revecom, but their fees (just under 4% and $1 per transaction) are just crazy.

Can anyone recommend a good service to use? I can't really afford a complete merchant account right now so I need a smaller sort of deal.

Thanks in advance.

$1 and 4% isn't what I'd call crazy, typical merch. account would be around $0.35 plus 2.6%-ish but...

There's paypal, not sure what is less than that really.

Originally posted by Chicken
$1 and 4% isn't what I'd call crazy, typical merch. account would be around $0.35 plus 2.6%-ish but...

There's paypal, not sure what is less than that really.

Well crazy or not $0.35 and 2.6% is a lot better, I'll look into that.

i'd have to suggest paypal Relyc.

I mean.. thats as cheap as it gets..unfortunately.
Unless you take money orders only.

Trevor

Could be worse... ccbill states:

CCBill's fees vary depending on the volume of sales done during each accounting period. These fees are never more than 14.5% of revenues charged during this one-week period.plus...

As charge-back protection, CCBill holds back 5% of the total revenues from each accounting period for a period of 26 weeks.
:eek:

Originally posted by Relyc
Well crazy or not $0.35 and 2.6% is a lot better, I'll look into that.

Look very closely... Merchant accounts have extra fees on top of that, like monthly minimums, set up, gateway fees etc. From all reports Charge.com or SFCommerce seems the cheapest for a US based business.

Greg Moore

Unfortunatley I'm in Canada, and I don't plan on moving within about 15 years so I'm out of luck for those deals =\

I've been looking at PayPal though, did I misunderstand it, or would my clients have to have a PayPal account?

Originally posted by Relyc
Unfortunatley I'm in Canada, and I don't plan on moving within about 15 years so I'm out of luck for those deals =\

I've been looking at PayPal though, did I misunderstand it, or would my clients have to have a PayPal account?

Your customer would have to sign up for a paypal account, however it will be completely free for your customers to ;send; their payments to you.

It is one of the most economical choices.

Eric

<<EDIT: Please list URLs in your signature (see profile).>>

A few last [I hope] questions:

I'm not quite sure how this all works, and I've been looking at their Webaccept service, but the manual is 65 pages, and I don't quite have the time to read all of that.

Would I be able to customize a form witha 'sign up for PayPal' button somewhere on it?

Or would they have to go through some PayPal interface to order it?

Also, do I get alerted instantly when they order, with their contact information (email/address etc) so I know to set up their account once they've ordered?

One really big issue for me is that it seems by being in Canada I automatically don't qualify for their Seller security policy, that really makes me worry, any comments?

I think that's about it, thanks for all of your help so far, PayPal looks like what I'm going to use, but I need those issues resolved first.

(I have emailed them about it, but haven't even recieved the confirmation email yet so I thought I'd ask here anyways)

using the sell on yr site option [i can't remember the term they use for it] you customise a button & put that on yr order page, then the customer clicks the button & get taken to a paypal page where they can either log in or sign up, & then they send money to yr account.

paypal sends you an email telling you you have a new subscription [if yr using the recurring payment method] & you log into paypal & accept the payment & set up the account.

however you'll probably have to set up another form on yr site too.. one where they can enter their new account information, domain, name & address etc. paypal doesn't collect their info for you.. at least i don't think so.

Well how would I know who's account is who's?

Hmm...

I am with Relyc.

I too am starting to resell but need a little advice.


First off, I don't think paypal is the way...sure you will not be charged as much but does that equal the amount of business you will likely lose when someone is too lazy to signup for a paypal account?

I myself have been looking at 2checkout.com...I am not sure if it's the way to go so some input would be appreciated.

Basically I am looking for a company that can bill my clients each month for me, so I don't need to worry about it to much.

Also, a question for you reseller pro's. When someone sends me all their creditcard info and stuff, do I buy their account off my reseller with my company creditcard and then charge my client myself....?

And what if my client has a tech support question?


Thanks a million guys,

Mekhu
<<EDIT: Please list URLs in your signature (see profile).>>

Originally posted by Mekhu
When someone sends me all their creditcard info and stuff, do I buy their account off my reseller with my company creditcard and then charge my client myself....?
yep
Originally posted by Mekhu
And what if my client has a tech support question?
you take care of support yourself.. if there's a question you can't answer you ask the reseller & then relay the answer to the customer.

Why not just make your own billing software and buy a ssl cert? thats what im gona do. Yea Yea, i know it Cost a lot of money but i think in the end it will pay off. (Im gonna share the cert with the custumers that order it.)

I'm sure you may all be aware of this already but just in case. You do know it's a felony to handle credit card numbers without a full internet merchant account?

Just thought I should mention it as this thread may give the impression it's fine for anyone to process credit cards manually without any sort of qualification.

Revecom, Paypal etc get around this by not allowing you to see the cc number, but allowing you to process cards on a recurring basis etc. If you're going to make your own billing system or what not, you'll need to be qualified to do so by getting an account through your bank, or authorize.net, or some other source.

Greg Moore

Is that true? That you can't call in a credit card with out a merchant account. ProPay allows you to do just that. I agree why take the credit card number if you can just send him an invoice over email with a secure site on ProPay to pay. I've also used another service a couple of years ago, where you called in your customers charge.

That is odd since your customer has authorized the use of his card to you by giving you the number. Unless the law stats that you can not take some ones credit card unless you have a merchant account.

I suppose my concern is this: If I use ProPay's feature of entering the credit card manually, am I breaking the law?

That's my understanding of the law. I've asked a few people able the legal position of ProPay but have never got an answer that satisfied me one way or the other. I did check them out at once stage and their service is very affordable. But unless I am totally confident of my legal position in the case of something going pear shaped I won't risk my business to do so, thereby risking the business of our customers.

Naturally I'd be more than happy to have their system explained to me :)

Greg Moore

I think it was lovelie that mentioned in another thread how ProPay deals with the legal issues.

In an email, ProPay said that what they do is legal, because the merchant information is under your name. (Or something along those lines)

If anyone uses PayPal here, what I want to know is do I get to customize the form that they can order from, so I know exactly who's account I'm setting up?

Originally posted by Relyc
I think it was lovelie that mentioned in another thread how ProPay deals with the legal issues.

In an email, ProPay said that what they do is legal, because the merchant information is under your name. (Or something along those lines)
right.. the post is here: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17967&perpage=20&pagenumber=2
Originally posted by Relyc
If anyone uses PayPal here, what I want to know is do I get to customize the form that they can order from, so I know exactly who's account I'm setting up?
not that i know of. but if you mention somewhere on yr site to use the email account that the paypal account is in you should be able to keep track of them. i don't even do that & i've had no trouble as of yet.

As I said before. I already asked me bank about this issue a while ago. I 1st needed to know how in the world to bill a cc and they just told me everything i needed to know and even gave me tips on how to safely keep the CC in storage. :D