Hi guys. I'm a little confused on how to accept CCs. Right now I have been using PayPal for my companies only payment method. I would like to expand it to CC orders without leaving my site. I have a couple of questions.
1) I need something that will work with WHMCS
2) Do I need a business banking account? If so, where do you suggest that has low (or no minimum balance)
3)I don't process a lot of transactions, so something that will allow no minimum transactions.
Please do not suggest 2co to me. I have used them in the past and was not satisfied.
Thanks so much!

What's your monthly budget for a merchant account and gateway?
All the best,

Anywhere up to $50 preferably. Is this achievable?

Anywhere up to $50 preferably. Is this achievable?
Yes, you can get something lower than that. I've had a good experience with CDG Commerce, and Authorize.net. I haven't tried PayPal's Website Payment Pro though. CDG Commerce is $10 a month, Authorize.net is $25 a month with the gateway and merchant account. PayPal's Website Payment Pro is $30 a month. I hope that helps.
All the best,

Depending on your budge and your software, getting a merchant account may not be as easy as it was a few months ago. Starting Oct 1, 2008 any new merchant account has to attest to PCI compliance and use only PA-DSS certified software. WHMCS is not currently PA-DSS certified and from the discussion I had with them, they are a long way from being certified. There is a bunch more to PCI compliance and I recommend doing some reading about PCI before getting started.

You won't need a business bank account, you won't need PCI compliance if your using something like WHMCS, you can find companies that offer no minimums however most minimums are only like $25 anyhow.
Please do your homework before accepting credit cards, merchant account providers will beat your door down for your business, make sure you read all the information you see to make sure you aren't being lassoed into something.

You won't need a business bank account, you won't need PCI compliance if your using something like WHMCS
Not entirely correct unless you use a service like paypal. Any merchant who transmits, stores, or handles cardholder data is required to be PCI compliant. My impression of the ops question is he does not currently have a merchant account to accept credit cards. If that is true, he will not be able to activate a merchant account to accept credit cards using WHMCS as the software is not PA-DSS certified and without certifying current PCI compliance.
Here it is in simple terms. If a company stores, transmits or handles cardholder data they must be PCI compliant, no exceptions. This has been mandated by the credit card companies and they made the rules. Of course there are ways around the rules. You can lie to your aquiring bank, forge the required documentation by saying you are compliant when in fact you are not. For more information regarding PCI, visit this link https://www.pcisecuritystandards.com.
Now I do understand the confusion. It was not until recently that the credit card companies have actually paid attention to smaller merchant compliance. I have had this same discussion with others on this same subject.
Now based on the budget I would recommend using your existing paypal account and avoid the complexity of having your own merchant account at least until you can increase your budget to at least $300 month. PCI compliance is not cheap. Meeting all of the requirements requires considerable time, effort and expense.

Not entirely correct unless you use a service like paypal. Any merchant who transmits, stores, or handles cardholder data is required to be PCI compliant. My impression of the ops question is he does not currently have a merchant account to accept credit cards. If that is true, he will not be able to activate a merchant account to accept credit cards using WHMCS as the software is not PA-DSS certified and without certifying current PCI compliance.
Yeah I actually did have to re-reference this, it does appear as if WHMCS can store credit card information. I was under the impression that WHMCS did not store the data. My bad:)