Hello,
I have a small hosting company, and would like a new payment system. We used to use paypal, but did not like it and it seemed unprofessional. I was looking for a different merchant. Our control panel is Direct Admin, and we do not need the clients to be activated right away. I have heard of Modern-bill, but I have heard of many people who were not happy with it. What do you suggest for a good merchant? I would prefer just to pay a fee when receiving payment, rather than a monthly fee (Unless its only a few dollars).

Thank you very much,
Eliav

Paypal is one of your best options as a lot of people trust Paypal. You give your credit card to 1 company which allows you to do business with thousands of others. Therefore I'd consider it a dis-advantage not to use paypal as your loosing out on potential customers that use Paypal, which according to Paypal's website, is 78 million people.

I want to keep paypal, but I want to have a nicer system. Something like an integrated shopping cart or and easy script which links to paypal.

Also, paypal can not tell me when a customers account expires.

What do you mean Paypal can not tell you when a customer account expires? We've always received notification when someone cancels their subsription.

In terms of a nicer system, are your monthly credit card sales above $1000? If so, go with a merchant account.

Some of my clients had special prices, and it was not in a subscription setting. They paid per year. I do not have and income of over $1000 per month (yet, but I am hoping to soon). Should I just have subscription buttons for all of my accounts?

Also, is there a way to set up a cupon for paypal?
What is the form that I can use to add a domain in the notes seciton (I have seen it before, I jsut forgot what it was). Is there a way to send my customers an automated e-mail saying that they will be sent account information soon (Not the paypal e-mail, and E-mail from my website).

Thanks,
Eliav

Yes you can setup coupons with Paypal and NO NO NO do NOT (I repeat) do NOT just put Subscription buttons for all your accounts. This looks horrrible, completely unprofessional. Your basically saying, pay me money then we'll worry about the rest and this is a horrible business practice. You should worry about the customer, and not the $$$. Get a program that keeps track of your customers/allows them to signup. Then they'll go through the signup process of entering in their information and THEN they'll make payment.

The Paypal coupons are very easy to do. Paypal is very easy to work with when you get onto it. It might take a couple of hours of you literally studying how they work, but once you do, you'll love it.

I have my own paypal button.

How about if I make a form, the customer fills it out, then gets sent to paypal (a form made inn phpform or something simple like that).

Would that work well?

Edit:
Thats what I mean (about the program then the paypal payment) I need a program that does exactly that. I was wondering of a program which I can get.

I should also add Paypal is VERY flexible and allows you to bill however you want too. They allow you to throw in specials too, like first "x" amount of days free or half price.

If anything I'd suggest you work on your site a bit more. Its rather unprofessional and unpleasing. Your website should look mostly the same on most of your pages and not one page looks one way and another looks another.

I'm a little confused on what you just said.

Most of my pages look the same, (same style colors etc...). The only difference is the text and where some things are places.

Sorry, I shoulda provided a bit more examples....


http://explodehost.com/form/use/HostingSelection/form1.html (Your order form)
http://www.explodehost.com/

I should also add, your main page seems to be busy with colors, flash and plans. This is the main reason I didn't stay too long on your site when I visited.

I looked at your site. It looks nice. What type of payment merchant/system do you use?
It looks very simple and easy to use.

YIKES! It's been a long time since I've posted here!

Well, after a year or so of being in business, I'm SITLL quite happy with paypal.

Actually, I have a php formprocessor that I programmed myself that automatically takes a new client to a subscription/payment page that has a few options. Cash, check, credit card, and paypal subscription.
mostly everyone chooses the paypal option, which is nice.
when they submit the form, it puts a different button in that field depending on the package they chose. which I must admit is nice for them. It was an absolute PAIN to program, but it's nice.

As for custom packages, I do a lot of business with these, and all I do it acreate a new custom paypal subscription for them, and put it on their client page (I set up a little html account page for each client that lists the details of their account in a non-dynamic page. )

Originally posted by djlightspin
It looks very simple and easy to use.

Thank you, this is the key. Simple and easy to use. We at Chronichosting also use Paypal and I have our order form (all custom made) all customize to base everything off the current time and date. For instance, if you signed up today, it is all pro-rated so you would only be paying from now to the end of the month and not for a full month of service. Thankfully this is all automated after numerous years of experience in coding with php/mysql.

What did you use to program this? Do you know of a program like this that I can purchse (I am not very good at programming php, but I might give it a shot).

Thanks,
Eliav

I didn't use any program. Purely Notepad and FTP. Everything designed on Chronichosting is customized (except the forums). The support center, signup form, everything is completely unique to Chronichosting.
Examples of software like ours is WHM Auto Pilot, Modernbill, ClientExec, phpCoin, etc..

jmweb,
Your form looks like Modern Bill. Does it work the same way?
Has anyone heard of ClientExec? If so, how is it?

I have no experience with Modern Bill therefore I can not say if it works exactly the same way. However I can say that in terms of client management systems, they usually all work the same. Customer inputs data clicks submit and then the data is stored in some type of form. Then the support center is basically, customer inputs data and based on the data the customer inputs basically affects how the data if/is displayed.

Client exec
http://www.clientexec.com/newsite/wordpress/

Client exec demo
http://demo.clientexec.com/

Back to your original question. If your looking for another billing system you could use 2Checkout. I would not dump PayPal but I understand the need to add "something else". We have about 75% PayPal, 15% Invoiced and 10% Credit Card through 2CO.

Yes, Invoices/Money Orders/Checks is also a great thing to accept. Great point Randy!

I recommend a real merchant account. Paypal is nice to have as an option too. I would avoid 2Checkout like the plague.. they charge over 5% per transaction, which is crazy. A merchant account is much less (ours with Authorize.net is less than half of that in fact).

I have signed up for an account at ClientExec. Since I am still trying this out, I only purchased the month to month license. If I like it and it works well, I will purchase the lifetime license. I will look into details of Authorize.net to see if I want to sign up with them. Are they easy to use? Are they reliable? Where does the payment get sent to?
Thanks.

Originally posted by djlightspin
..I will look into details of Authorize.net to see if I want to sign up with them. Are they easy to use? Are they reliable? Where does the payment get sent to?
Thanks.

Authrize.net is a reputed payment gateway. However to accept credit card payments of Visa, MasterCard, AmEx etc., you will need Merchant Account which will use authrize.net payment gateway. Merchant Account provider sends money directly to your bank account.

Doesnt ClientExec have it built in? (I am a little confused on how this works)

Originally posted by djlightspin
Doesnt ClientExec have it built in? (I am a little confused on how this works)

There are different things:

Billing Systems:
These interface with the various payment gateways and payment processors and allow you to use them easily from your web site.

Examples:
Modernbill
ClientExec
Whois.cart()
AWBS

Payment Processors:
These do not require a merchant account. They are somewhat unprofessional, since your customer leaves your site and makes payment on the processor's site. They also tend to charge a high % per transaction. However, there are benefits to these too.

Examples:
Paypal
2Checkout
Worldpay

Merchant Account Provider:
Before you can use a payment gateway (like authorize.net, etc) you need to have an Internet Merchant Account. If you are US based and have a credit score over 550, it should be no problem to get one.

Examples:
Cardservice (we use and recommend)
CDG Commerce
Wells Fargo
Your local bank!

Payment Gateway:
This is what your billing system interfaces to; usually has an API so your customer does not need to leave your site. The billing system "talks" to the payment gateway. You need to obtain a merchant account to use.

Examples:
authorize.net
verisign

Hope that helps.

That cleared it up for me a lot.

Thanks so much!