I have been accepting American Express (in addition to Visa, MC) for several years. I signed up for my merchant account w/ Amex back when I wasn't doing much volume, they gave me the flat $5/mo rate.

Once I started doing more business, they switched me to a 4.1% discount rate. Now that I am accepting more American Express payments, this is starting to be a significant monthly expense. I called them and asked for a lower rate, they say that they won't do anything until the annual review of my account, next February! I'm thinking of asking some of my larger customers to switch to paying with Visa/MC.

Are other web hosting businesses running into this problem?

that's just how american express is, they are notoriously expensive. American express does offer an advantage to your business clients and to me it is a selling point because we accept it also. The 4% is a bummer but grin and bear it and allow your customers the convenience.

If it is really that much of a price hit then you need to raise your budget to allow for these transactions

What merchants accept it? Most of them nowadays do don't they?

American Express is gonna charge you more, but they are getting more business too. Most of our big clients likes to pay through Amex, and all I can do is pay the fees and smile :) . Atleast clients are happy!

Agreed with everyone before, they have higher rates but the clients they bring are worth it.

We don't accept American Express - but are toying with the idea.

The rate they offered us is more than triple what we pay for Visa and MasterCard, but a lot of our corporate clients only have AMEX.

We accept through CDGCommerce and when we get AMEX payments, they take out no fees. If someone were to pay $200, we get exactly that amount in our drop.

Just use paypal for clients requesting AmEx. The fees are under 3%.

All I have to say about AmeX is read the packet they send you. Due to the terms of service we refuse to even accept it. Hasnt hurt business yet.

Amex is the card of choice for businesses. Therefore, it makes sense to accept it if you are targeting businesses for your hosting.

Honestly,

AMEX accounts for about 40% of our CC transactions. The downside is they take almost 5% + $0.35/trans compared with the ~2-3% discount rate with Visa/MC.

Also, as a business we use AMEX almost exclusively for our purchases. We do have one VISA card since there are a few vendors out there that we deal with that do not accept amex.

We accept through CDGCommerce and when we get AMEX payments, they take out no fees. If someone were to pay $200, we get exactly that amount in our drop.

Explain..?