I'm looking into becoming a Payment Gateway and Merchant Account reseller. Not sure were to start, who is the best, etc...

I did get some information from authorize.net but am still insterested in what you guys think.

Can anyone offer me some advise/tips/etc.. on this?

authorize.net is the most popular and probable easiest to resell. With that said, I believe the market your looking to enter is VERY saturated and you may find it hard to make a profit.

Please let us know how your venture turns out.

We're currently seeking resellers for our Payment Gateway. If you do decide to go forward with reselling these services, I'd be interested in speaking with you.

Are you already hosting websites? Or are you looking to start a business from scratch? Do you have a billing system setup? Are you looking to accept credit cards, then pay for the accoutns yourself, or are you looking to receive residuals and have little involvment in the process?

There are so many posibilities and decisions to make in this area.

We got into the Payment Gatway business, because, as a web hosting company many of our customers required the service. It was a guaranteed selel for us.

Good Luck

I currently run a hosting business, which I got into because my web site clients always needed a place to host. Now I’m developing more sites that require payment options, so I figured why not make a little extra $.

As CN@WH101 said, the market does seem to be saturated, I’m not looking to over run it :) just figured on a little extra $. I’d also like to get into domain registration.....another subject.

Authorize.net seemed to be a good choice. Most of my clients start out using osCommerce which has an Authorize.net module already in it. I also hope it’s an easy to program into a site outside of osCommerce. There are almost to many options to choose from, which can be and are confusing. Fees associated with gateways and merchant accounts seem to be about the same.

The least amount of involvment the better at this time. With that said, I'd like to be able to offer my clients resonable gateway and merchant accounts and make a little $ myself without the clients paying an arm and a leg. I'm sure their TONS of options that I'm unaware of.

Another thing I received the price breakdown for being a reseller of Autherize.net and it would be cheaper for my client to go through them directly. What incentive do they have to buy their account through me?

A manufactures price is more expensive then going through a distributor because if is wasn’t then what’s the point of having distributors, which is essentially the same thing in this case. My client will assume I’m taking advantage of them.

Thoughts, tips, a work around?...anyone? :uhh:

Currently, we're offering a special on our payment gateway service just to try and get market share. However, once we get enough resellers online we totally plan on offering a reseller price that is about 25% the cost of the retail price. This means that a reseller can do a 100% markup, and still be competitive with our retail price.

If you're not already doing it, I would consider Modern Bill for a billing system. It's automated just about every aspect of the signup and billing process. There's already a module to work with both Authorize.net & ValetPay.com. Also, they have modules to work with Plesk, CPanel, & Ensim, as well as with various Domain Registrars.

Our price is well below that of Authorize.net, and we already have an osCommerce module. If you want to discuss further details, please visit the website (link below), and give us a call. I will likely answer your call.

One recommendation about Merchant account providers. I recommend having no less than 3 partnerships in place. With the various quirks that the providers have in place, it's always good to have a backup in place for your customers. Some of the silly requirements have kept some of my best legitimate customers from getting approved.