I know a payment processor and merchant account are 2 seperate things.

BUT YOU GET CHARGED FOR BOTH? sheesh! it seems like 5 companies (well, 3 at least) get their hands into your money before you do!

is there something i'm not aware of? something i've missed?

Consumer pays.
Processor/gateway charges fees.
merchant account provider charges fees
my business account at the bank charges fees.


there must be an easier way! (cash)

I love checks - no chargebacks, if it clears it clears, that's the end of it. If they want to "chargeback" they have to ask for a refund or I suppose they could sue, but no calling the card company and having anything reversed with CHECKS. Money orders are good too. I like those.

Speaking of checks... EFT's (Electronic Fund Transfers), also known as E-Checks / ACH's are also very nice.

You get a lower cost structure than with credit card processing, only a 60-day dispute window and receive funds within 6 banking days (approx.).

Plus, if an EFT transaction bounces, the cost of a NSF reject is substantially less than that of a conventional check being bounced.

But in answer to the original thread :) there are really just two cost components to a merchant processing e-commerce transactions: the gateway and the merchant account.

The merchant account fees are typically the larger portion of the cost, with the gateway fees being a flat monthly fee of some kind plus some transactional cost component.

Now in terms of your local bank account fees - most banks do not charge anything at all for electronic deposits and withdrawals although some of them may require you to maintain a certain balance or otherwise pay them a statement/maintenance fee.