I'm based in the UK and want to accept credit card payments from both US and UK customers.

Taking the UK ones first, what are my options for accepting credit card payments in the UK? From my research they seem more restricted than US based businesses.


cheers,

You can try: http://www.protx.com/

For UK, I recommend NoChex
For USA, I recommend 2checkout

Avoid 2Checkout, you'll regret it in the long with their higher fees and lack of flexibility with billing your clients.

Firstly, there is paypal.com and there is plenty of info on this if you want to research. I would not recommend them as your only payment method but they are often used as an additional option.

What kind of card turnover do you do/expect?

The above question will often define the best option for you. If a new startup or you're in your first year your best bet is probably a third party payment processor such as www.2checkout.com or www.worldpay.com. We had terrible experiences during the end of our relationship with Worldpay so based on this I'd recommend 2checkout.

Another option would be to get an internet merchant account at a bank and use this along with a payment processor such as www.protx.com (both used together). I had quotes from many banks when we were looking for a merchant account and Barclaycard Merchant Services are head and sholuders above all others - we've had great service from them. We use them in conjunction with www.protx.com who have also been great.

Another recommendation for Protx, we used to use Worldpay but it worked out cheaper to use Protx with our own merchant account.

We use WorldPay to process all our card transactions and have done for one and a half years. We also offer PayPal, which is more popular, but more expensive than WorldPay. However you do get access to the funds immediately whereas with WorldPay you have to wait 4 weeks.