When signing-up new clients, it seems the most common way to charge customers is via an online form (with credit card entry). Does anyone have recommendations on a low-cost merchant account/service? I've looked into companies such as CardService, but they seem somewhat pricey.

Also, for recurred billing (monthly fees for example), do you simply keep your customer's credit card number on-hand and charge the fees to it each month?

One more thing ... is it common practice to have "hard copy" (paper) correspondence with your clients on a regular basis (i.e. monthly invoices/receipts), or is it acceptable to communicate these messages through email?


Thanks a TON for your help!!
Tim

I think it's illegal in most countries to keep a customers CC details and re-input them. However most billing software and services does have a repeat billing facility.

There are countless CC processing systems where you need a merchant account and you probably will want to go down that road eventually, but the cheapest way to start off seems to be to use either revecom.com or instabill.com.

Revecom charge $49 setup, and $1 + 3.75% per transaction (that's for the services option which you will need, not the shopping cart)
Instabill just take 10% of your turnover each month.

Both can either send you a cheque or wire transfer twice monthly and both will do repeat billing. You'll need a business bank account for Revecom

Also, I think emailing invoices, receipts etc. is fine

I can't recommend a low-cost merchant account provider at this time from personal experience. Some of our clients have had good luck with Costco.

Currently, we're using Alabanza's automated billing system, but before that, yes, we kept our clients' credit card numbers on file. Each month, we'd batch process the monthly hosting charges using EZCharge, the credit card software that came with our merchant account.

We conduct almost all our web hosting correspondence via email, including invoices. For those who want a paper invoice, we recommend that they print the email invoice we send them, explaining that keeping everything electronic is more efficient and cost-effective. When we first started hosting our design clients in 1996, many people requested paper invoices; now, almost no one does.

Originally posted by basshead
Also, for recurred billing (monthly fees for example), do you simply keep your customer's credit card number on-hand and charge the fees to it each month?
Tim

This is illegal. It's called factoring. You cannot take someone's credit card number then use a company like ccslide (going out of business) or ibill and enter the information in there. Your client has to.

Typically on the recurring ones, the client selects how many months they want to be billed for or if it's to continue billing month after month.

A good company (so I've heard) is ccbill.com. I've compiled a pretty complete listing on credit card companies that don't require you to get a merchan account. Here is the listing (If I've missed any, please let me know): http://www.resellerinfo.com/creditcard.html

Just a point of clarification: You may not enter your client's credit cards monthly if you are using a company like ibill or ccslide. However, it is legal to bill your customers on a recurring basis if you are using your own merchant account and your customers have authorized you to do so.

Mike,

Just FYI, that's not factoring. Factoring is processing transactions for somebody else on your merchant account. Nearly all merchant agreements prohibit this. Places like CCBill, etc., get around it by legal wording stating that they're a wholesaler for your service, or they're providing a service directly to the end-user, etc.

Recurring billing, as you're referring to, is completely legal. The credit card company will typically require you to have a signed slip from the customer indicating their card information and the monthly billing account. (We require customers to FAX this form in as part of the sign-up.) Of course, if you were posting a customer's credit card number to a third-party provider to run through *their* merchant account, that's a completely different story.

basshead:

I've had exceptionally good service from Costco's merchant service, which is provided by Nova. It's about 2.04% + .25 per transaction for MOTO.

Authorize.net has worked preety well for us we can batch process cards, and it comes with a virtual terminal for manually imputting orders

Has anyone had any experience with http://www.charge.com??

Someone posted about charge.com here (do a search). the jist of it, was that since charge.com is really just a place that ties the whole thing together (merch. account, cc processing and check processing), that if something was wrong, you might have to call a few places.

This might be true of anywhere, but... do a search and I'm sure the same thread will contain some useful info. There was a harbor.something that people seemed to like.

There are two merchant services that I will reccommend. Fist there is 1st American Credit and you can visit them at http://www.1stamericancardservice.com . Their rates are lower but the support they offer is pretty poor - at least in our case. Also there is Payment Processing Inc. They were referred to us by a kind lady at cybercash and we are seriously considering switching to them. Although their rates are slightly higher, they seem to provide better support from reviews I have read. you can also visit them at http://www.paypros.com