Hello all,

So I have some questions about accepting credit card payments for my webhosting business. I've searched through many of the threads here, but haven't quite found the answers I've been looking for.

Basically, what's the best solution for me to be able to accept credit card payments? I have a PayPal account that was upgraded to Premier a while back so I could accept CC payments for eBay auctions. Can I use that same PayPal account for my webhosting transactions?

Or should I use something else, like 2checkout.com or an authorize.net reseller? What are the differences between PayPal and, say, authorize.net?

Yes, you can use your PayPal account to sell web hosting. If you want your business name to show on the account when people pay you, upgrade to a business account, which has no cost and has no significant differences to a premiere account except listing business information to buyers.

Authorize.net is a gateway, something you use with a merchant account. It's the place your website would send the customer's credit card number and other information, and the gateway will turn that into a charge on the card.

So what's the main difference between PayPal and a real merchant account? Keeping the customer on your site versus sending them off to another site to pay. With a merchant account, you'll have a gateway, be it Authorizenet or some other, which you'll have to tie in with some type of shopping cart for your site. Then people can pay you by credit card without leaving your site.

2Checkout, like PayPal, is a 3rd party processor. They are charging the person's card on your behalf as opposed to you doing it on your own site.

Merchant accounts have monthly costs associated with them no matter where you go, but generally lower per-transaction fees compared to a 3rd party processor. Once you get to around $1000/mo of transactions, the lower fees start saving you more than the monthly fees, making a merchant account cheaper.

Hello Dan,

Thank you for your helpful reply. Since my company is just starting out with a smaller reselling package, would it be fine using PayPal for credit card transactions and WHMAutopilot to manage the billing until my company brings in enough revenue to justify the expenditures for MB & ModernAuthorize?

I guess my concern is if using PayPal makes one's business look amateurish or not. Also, if I'm using PayPal can I automatically rebill them each month or would I have to do that manually?

Thanks!

actually alot of my host alos using paypal.

Hello Dan,

Thank you for your helpful reply. Since my company is just starting out with a smaller reselling package, would it be fine using PayPal for credit card transactions and WHMAutopilot to manage the billing until my company brings in enough revenue to justify the expenditures for MB & ModernAuthorize?

I guess my concern is if using PayPal makes one's business look amateurish or not. Also, if I'm using PayPal can I automatically rebill them each month or would I have to do that manually?

Thanks!

Sure, you can take only PayPal, and a lot of hosts you'd call successful do so. It's an easy and affordable way to get started and they handle some of the fraud screening for you which is nice.

There's another thread around here somewhere where the poster asked what percentage of sales people get by PayPal versus credit card when offering both, and except for my own reply, all those that accept both get more payments by credit card. You WILL be limiting yourself by only accepting PayPal, even with account-optional and Payments Pro options, as some people don't want to be taken to another site for payment, and others are in countries PayPal does not take payments from.

You'll either have to issue a new bill each month and have the person pay it themselves or have people sign up for subscription payments through PayPal when they sign up with you. Subscriptions are PayPal's version of recurring payments, and you can create links to them through the Merchant Tools tab in PayPal.

Dan:

So if I'm understanding you correctly, some people dislike having to go thru a third-party to make a payment? They would prefer it all to be done thru my website? But aside from this, PayPal works like any other credit card company?

Thank you again for your helpful information! Its very appreciated. :)

Assuming you are in the United States, Paypal might be a good choice to start with & maybe even 2CO. Some people dislike 3PP because they might have used them in the past & have a problem with them. Scan thru some of the threads and you will find hundreds of complaints about 2CO, Paypal, and other processors. Why? Because they are large & they have thousands or customers. And people like to complain more than they will give a compliment. They tend to forget the past 45 days of good service, no problems and they will remember / harp on that 46th day when something happened.

And this is not like most other businesses - this is your real, cold, hard cash that we are talking about. When it does not get to your bank account as usual, you tend to remember that more than when the money is just automatically there.

You also have some people who are afraid that doing business with Paypal only think that the business is ran by under-age kids. In some cases, this is true. Age verification is one of Paypal's putfalls currently. With a merchant account, there are a few things that are accomplished to help prove you are "legal".