I am building an e-commerce site for a client. The site will be written in C#. We are looking for a Merchant Account that will allow us to place orders with an API directly from our server.

This site will be up for the next year, we hope to sell roughly 1,000 products a month for $9.95 each. We only need to accept Visa and MasterCard, obviously accepting more cards would be better. We are based in the United States. We are looking for the lowest cost and most reliable system.

Please make recommendations.

Thanks in advance,
Todd Lynch

Most electronic payment gateways offer an API which will allow you to capture and process credit card data via your secure website.

Some gateways to check out & even get a test account for if they offer it so you can go ahead and connect:
LinkPoint
Authorizenet.com
Verisign

Each gateway has it's own pros and cons. The LinkPoint payment gateway is probably one of the strongest out there. It is owned by the First Data Corporation. First Data has been doing electronic money transfers since 1871 and they were the first processor of both VISA® and MasterCard® bank-issued credit cards in 1976. First Data processed 12.2 billion transactions in North America alone in 2003. LinkPoint usually is $15-$35 a month with no extra charges for transactions or recurring billing set-up

Authorize.net is probably the most advertised electronic gateway. A lot of people think they can sign up with them and immediately start to accept credit cards. They do not release you need a merchant account as well. Authorize.net even uses the First Data platform to help facilitate transaction processing. Authorizenet.com usually charges about $15-$35 a month plus an extra $.10 transaction fee with a $25 monthly charge for the recurring billing module

Verisign also has a payment gateway. Verisign is probably the most recognized name because they also offer other services and products for the internet (i.e. SSL certificates, domain registration, hosting, etc). You do not need to purchase everything from Verisign to have a successful e-commerce business. Verisign charges from about $25-$80 a month with the first 1,000 transaction free and each additional transaction usually $.10

Thanks for the detailed response.

Yeah, I got a merchant account through Corey. Based on your specs, he can help.

To add to Corey's info above... you may also want to look into eProcessingNetwork and iTransact as two other gateway options as well.

I think your needs would be met with any of the gateways mentioned in this thread so the first step that you may want to take is to see which API would be the most convenient for you to implement.

You mentioned that the site would be written in C - so my guess is that you're looking for a client-side application to interface with the gateway. If that is the case, Verisign's Payflow Pro module might be the best way to do it.

Or, if you have experience with XML or can do an HTTP POST then you could any of the other gateways as well with relative ease.

I also got a merchant account with Corey. His team of developers helped me out as well. I have been with them for about eight months now. His customer service is fantastic