Kinda new to secure hosting and I was wondering how it works.
Could someone explain to me or link me to a resource?

Specifically I'm looking to accept credit cards online.....what do I need? how secure is it? pros? cons? what's a certificate and how does it work? What's the cost? Should I just be going with a third party company to be safe?

I know these are a lot of questions, but any help would be appreciated. Thanks,

If you are not going to be processing alot of sales a third party account might be your best solution, from what I know the fraud detection is also alot better than if you have to do it manually yourself.

The main difference is the rates.. While alot of third party merchants charge about 5.0% while most merchant account usually change under 3.0%(I am pretty sure) it really all depends if you are doing 10,000.00 in business a month it would be prob worth getting the merchant account as you would save alot of $$$ but myself I choose a third party merchant just to save myself the headaches and time.

a couple you might want to look into:

PayQuake - Something new but heard a few good reviews about them but again they are still very new.

Hostcharge - Also heard good things about them been around a while but not accepting new customers till' early 03 if I remember correctly.

PayPal - Pretty low rates but they have phases where they like to lock your account for no reason and it usually takes a minimum of 3 weeks to get it re-activated.

Paysystems - Supposed to be pretty good though with all the invoice, gateway etc fees it comes to around 45-50 a month.

Also with a merchant account you will need a SSL cert which can be found for anywhere between $25.00-200.00 depending on who you get if from and a static IP address for your domain.. and thats about it.

THANKS!

Anyone else?

WorldPay ... pretty cheap .. have no idea about their reliability though .. only prob is they take about 4 weeks to get you your money

Originally posted by HingyGuy
WorldPay ... pretty cheap .. have no idea about their reliability though .. only prob is they take about 4 weeks to get you your money

Worldpay - yes they are pretty cheap - 4 weeks is if you do not have your own bank merchant number.

but saying that they do pay on the dot....every 4 weeks without fail....which is not always the case with other psp's

support is excellent also

they provide the secure server facility so you do not need a ssl cert or secure hosting. they also provide a whole range of other facilities which in my opinion grades them higher than other payment providers.

If you've stumbled across www.2checkout.com you probably should not go with them until they fix all their problems. A quick search would show their system is currently broken :(

You might also want to think about using a combination of billing software and a third-party processor. That way,

1) your software sends out invoices for recurring software; so if theirs has problems, you don't lose business / money
2) you keep all your client data (except credit card numbers) on your servers, so that if you ever want to change third party providers, you can do so in a matter of minutes
3) it's easier for you to offer multiple payment types (for example, Paypal and a third party provider) so that your customer has more choice

And it's possible to use Paysystems the same way you'd use 2checkout: their IBA account. The rates are pretty much the same, as well.

GREAT thanks for all the replies!