I just spoke with my bank about ecommerce setup. Here is what they proposed.

BTW I want to stay away from PAYPAL for this solution.

Cybersource gateway(parent of Authorize.net) and bank MercAcct setup:
$270

Monthly minimum ($1500USD)
or $25 months flat from bank + $25 from gateway

about 2.12%+30cents for transaction fee from bank
10 cents per transaction fee from gateway.

$10 month (support package fradu protection etc etc.)

How does this compare? Can I do better? New to the Merchant ACcount thing.

Thanks
Robert

Hello Robert,

I'm not sure what the personal experience with Nova has been.. But check that out. In Canada, it's quite a solid solution.. Not sure about the United States, but they are very affordable for merchant account solution.. Than you can just get a Authorize.net payment gateway to connect to it.

In Canada anyway, Nova has no monthly fee or any charges whatsoever, just a percentage per transaction.

$30 a month and normal selling fees.

Any comments on this if anyone has used it. It looks like they are rebranding from another merchant source and this is not they "own" solution.

Hello,

PayPal Pro is definitely not the solution you want.. Not many actually use their solution, and as anything named PayPal be aware.. While it has nothing to do with their third-party payment processing solution, I do recall your client wanted to stay away from exactly that company, so isn't this kind of.. Defeating the purpose of finding a merchant account + payment gateway solution to begin with?

PsiGate, Nova accompanied by Authorize.net, or even Authorize.net's all-in-one solution should beat PayPal's solutions outright.

EDIT: I forgot to mention.. Your client seems to have a history of selling online already. If he has been around for a good bit (1, 2 years) and has a real business license, etc., there are usually perks that companies can give you. The merchant account, payment gateway marketplace is cut-throat and you can negotiate with these companies. I have heard PsiGate does price matching for sure. So it would be worth it to take a look at your solutions and see what you can end up getting. If your client is considered low-risk, than you can definitely get an advantage that the PayPal Payments Pro/Payflow Pro solutions can never match (at least in its current state).

Are you in the USA?

Yes Massachusetts.
I'm leaning towards PSiGate....$99 setup 25/mo 2.25%and 30c per transaction.

That is honestly a rip off. If you can find the right agent at CDGcommerce, you can get 2.15* + 30c, fraud tools, free gateway, no setup fee, no app fee, no yearly fee, $10/month Fee.

how long have you used them? have they been around wrong. Normally if you see the rates this low there is something wrong or they are scrambling to stay in business.

They are great, the been around for a few years, it came to the point where i even became a "Authorized Agent" with them to offer services to my customers.

They are better then anyone else i have ever used!

I notice you offer PAYPAL too.....
So it can't be all bad...

Most of my clients like Paypal, but CC is popular too

I've been comparing merchant accounts also. One looks quite tempting, Capital Merchant Solutions. They say they've been in biz over 10 years. They offer a bundle with Authorize.net: 2.14%, $.24/transaction, (non-qual. +1.66% and $.10), no up-front fees, $15.95/mo. gateway and $8.95/mo. statement fee, monthly minimum charge $25. Anybody familiar with them? Good stories, horror stories? Quick before I sign.

Here's the quote I got from BofA.

Discount rate for both Visa & MC: 1.88% (pretty damn low for internet transactions)
Per item Authorization fee: $0.20 (wished it was lower)
Setup Fee: $0
Support Package: $9.95/mo
chargeback fee: $16 (no bad)

Looks really good.

Here are the not so good.
All transactions must be settled within 1 day of authorization. Not a problem with webhosting, but for me, that's a problem.

If transactions aren't settled within 1 day of authorization, I'll be charged the Non-Qualified rate surcharge which is 1.35%.

So add 1.88% + 1.35% = 3.23%


Most of you guys are not going to get the 1.88% discount rate, unless you process a lot of money and a lot of transactions. Your rates are most likely 2.09% and higher. The quote I got is for over $200k/yr.

When looking at the "big picture" for any comparison between accounts, one of the things you need to consider are what Interchange categories correspond to the "qualified" or "mid" or "non-qualified" tiers offered up by any given provider.

There can sometimes be a fairly big difference between one provider and another in terms of what types of transactions fall into which categories. A lot of providers will advertise a "rate" and it will usually be a very low % that will be charged on check cards... but higher %'s will apply for all other card types.

I would like to tell you that every company in the bankcard industry is consistent and upfront about all of this but unfortunately that is not the case and I have seen situations where a merchant from Provider A switches to "lower rates" with Provider B and then ultimately ends up paying more.

In addition, it really depends on that kind of sales volume that you process to determine which solutions will maximize your savings.

As an example - if you are a startup business, then the most important priority would be to setup an account without any setup costs, monthly minimums, gateway fees (if possible) and avoid any early termination fees.

If you business processes a large and growing volume of transactions, then you'll really want to focus on the downgrade fees and determining what kinds of cards apply to which categories as well as trying to reduce or eliminate fees like gateway transaction costs and the like.

The best advice I can give to you is to read the post from CDGCommerce, then click the link in his signature, and sign up for a merchant account from them.

We've used them for over 3 years now (has it been that long already?) and have had nothing but the best service and support (and pretty decent rates).

I agree that you can find "cheaper" rates elsewhere. However, I personally believe it is worth paying a few extra pennies since this is one area you don't want to be left in the dark by your provider. In the few instances we've had to contact CDG for help with something, they have always responded quickly and fully with a resolution and the best support.

In other words, unless you're going to be saving hundreds of $$ per month in fees, I would seriously caution you to go anywhere else besides CDG. I can't praise these guys enough, and that's very rare for me.

:)

I have a good friend who works in the payment industry, and he tells me all kinds of horror stories, and I see them daily on multiple forums listed right there in black and white and I just scratch my head. Every price I have seen listed in this post are pretty high actually. Many people have asked my opinion on this subject, and I have pointed them in the direction of my friend Buddy Francis over at PPD. It is just ridiculous the savings that they show over and over again. After hearing him talk about all the different ways you can be charged (See CDG's comments for some examples) it is really easy to see how merchants get ripped of daily.

With that said, I think it is important to mention that while CDG has a point, and interchange rates for different cards do differ, I really want to talk more about HOW the person is billed that difference. These quotes look like regular pricing, which really means someone needs to calculate the effective rate ie. what they are paying in a true percentage form. Take the "cents per transaction" out of the equation and change them to a percent. This lets you really see what you are paying in easier to understand terms. Any honest Payment Agent will do this for you for free. Then there is Pass-Through Pricing, and Plus pricing, each bill the merchant differently, but many times the merchants aren't told about these options. This is clearly a MOTO account, so you are automatically talking about a Mid-Qual to Non-Qual fee structure. You will never see the "best rate" but honestly, it doesn't matter what rate they tell you that you will be getting, because in the end, there is markup. Merchants won't pay less, these 3rd parties just EARN less. Keep that in mind also and shoot for the lowest effective rate, and ask to see a comparison with pass through or Plus pricing.

Additionally, there are many other services that can come with a merchant account, such as ACH E-check comversion and guarantee, Gift Cards, Batch Payments, and cash advance. Keep in mind that a merchant may have use for these items now or later, and you don't want to have to get a new merchant account because the one you picked doesn't offer such items.

Shoot Buddy an email over to - buddy at ppdnc.com - He will be glad to explain why those rates are high, and what he can do for you in comparison. I've seen them save merchants so much money it's ridiculous. Certainly worth an investigation.

I've used google checkout. So far so good.

No upfront fees, 2% +.20 per transaction. They deposited the money within 2days of payment clearing and then my bank took another day to clear it. Total time, 3 days. I have no complaints, but I'm new to this business, so maybe you guys know something that I don't?

Scott

After searching for the "best" gateway and merchant account my criteria changed a lot as what was best before versus after using a few of the larger more established services. We settled on Linkpoint gateway and the associated merchant account with CardService International based on early assumptions which all turned out to be wrong.
Linkpoint was fine, their owner, CardService International was horrendous to deal with. Ours is a season business, we work full time but sales are almost exclusively in the late winter through the late summer. They gave us a processing limit that was based on taking our 12 yearly sales and divided by 12 months which would have been too low for the peak months and 6 months of the year would have no activity. Trying to fix that problem was the most frustrating experience in 30 years of doing credit card sales. One account agent(you could never have direct contact information and you never got the same person twice, calls would go unreturned for weeks at a time, emails got only automated responses)agreed to allow us a higher limit for specific months and we went ahead and got into our busy sales season and within two weeks maxed out in the "new" sales limit. We got our bank statement that had no deposits and frantic calls were finally met, 8 days later, with the response that since we went over our original monthly max all the money was to be held, about $100,000, for 6 months until they could see no charge backs. We fought with them on and off for a year, eventually they had $250,000 in their hold account, a moving average of $250k so any increment would only be released after 6 months. We had too much money locked up with them so we found other providers to spread the transactions between. We tried Nova and Sage. Sage turned out to be the easiest and most friendly banking organization we have dealt with, they not only set our limits at realistic levels, when it turned out we grew faster than we were predicting, a single phone call could up our limit. After 6 months they volunteered to lower rates to much lower than other providers without us asking. The interface is not as slick or as useful as Linkpoint but the easy of dealing with Sage made us forget that. Also, they declined about 1/10 as many transactions as Linkpoint CardService International. We still have accounts with al 3, but route all our on-line orders through Sage SecureNet. It has been 9 months since we used CardService for Visa or MC(we do use it for some AmEx cars since these are just pass throughs and there are no gateway deductions, the payments go directly into out bank account) and just last month did they release the remaining $185,000 they held. Be forewarned, CSInternational can put you out of business and there is little you can do to fight them when they have your money. Given that most 3 party gateways are also at the mercy of the majors they work through, finding out who does their clearing would be an important question.

yeah it's a rip off, $270 setup fee lol

I used to work for a merchant services company. you can do much better.

Heres what you should expect to pay:
Transaction fee $0.25
Monthly minimum $25
Discount rates:
Qual: 2.15%
Mid: 2.20%
Non 3.75+%
Monthly statement fee $10
Chargeback fee: $25
Batch $0.35

Are you doing over $15,000 per month in sales? if so give em a call and ask for lower rates.

Heres a tip. Dont go directly with the company. Some of the big name companies such as First data (Do not recommend), Leaders merchant services, Total merchant services, Applied merchant, etc all have what are called ISO's or independent sales agents. These agents work 100% on commision and will lower your rates to get you to sign. What i would do is look for a big company you would like to go with. For example leaders merchant services. Then google "Leaders merchant services your state" You will most likely find an ISO of them who can give you better rates than what the actual company can.

In all actuality you should not pay any setup fee for authorize.net...

If you are doing at least $15k you should ask for them to remove any early termination fee, your monthly statement fee and lower your chargeback fee to $20. don't worry about the monthly minimum it wont apply to you.