Hi, all.

I've got one which is unique to me.

I've got a small chapter of a non-profit which wishes to accept credit cards (and e-checks, if possible) for their meetings. This would probably average 10-12 people at around $20/ea. per month, so we're not talking a big amount here.

They need to change hosting companies to one which has a shared SSL certificate. Additionally, they're looking for a merchant account and payment processor which doesn't charge an arm and a leg. PayPal is a possibility - but their reputation and problems people have had with them they'd like to do something else.

I checked through their bank and the charges are way too high. But while I have a lot of experience with programming, I have little with with merchants accounts.

And right now they are having other problems with their current hosting account, so it's time to change anyway. Other hosting requirements are low - < 100Mb disk space, < 1Gb transfer, for instance. Linux/PHP/MySQL, of course, but the SSL shared certificate is important. So is reliability.

Recommendations are appreciated!

With the volume they will be doing they're going to want to use Paypal hands down. With what it will cost them to have a true merchant account and gateway each month those fees alone will exceed their Paypal costs and that doesn't even factor in their processing fees from the merchant account. Plus no SSL certificate is needed and they won't need to change hosting.

If you want to see how Paypal is better for them you can use the calculator in this article (http://www.sitepoint.com/article/merchant-account-review) to compare. You will see Paypal is the cheapest by far. And Paypal is just fine to use. They are reliable and naturally you always hear from the people who are unhappy (most of them deserve what they get). You don't hear from the millions of happy people who use them every day.

Sorry, no PayPal. Too many of their members have had problems with PayPal in the past to make it an option. And I know every one of their members. No, they did not "deserve what they got".

And they are changing hosting anyway, for other reasons, so that's not part of the equation. Only who the new host will be.

But thanks for the suggestion.

From here it will get interesting. Here's what you are looking at as far as your cost after one year of Paypal, Worldpay, 2checkout, and a true merchant account based on your estimated volume:

True merchant account: $505.56
Paypal: $126.72
Worldpay: $854.36
2checkout: $272.20

Looks like 2checkout might be the next one you should look into.

You may want to inquire with some merchant processors if they have a special program or rates applicable to non-profit organizations. The main thing is to avoid as much monthly cost as possible in your particular scenario. You will also want to avoid any kind of early termination fee.

MinistryLinq specializes in non-profits.

Just to be clear, is this a 501(c)(3)?

Sorry for not getting back sooner. Something came up and this got put on the back burner for a while.

But now they're ready to proceed.

I did do some checking around, and no one had really decent rates for a non-profit. In fact, some would cost more than the average charges for the month due to the fixed rates.

So we're still looking.

And no, it's a 501(c)(6) - trade organization.