Verisign vs. Linkpoint

experience with one or the other?

[wayzel]

Hello All,

My ecommerce site has been using Verisign's Payflow pro component for credit card processing for about 6 months now without any problems, but for business/cost saving/banking reasons we are thinking of switching to Linkpoint' APIs. Linkpoint seems like it would save me a bunch of money because it is bundled for free with my merchant account whereas Verisign charges a monthly fee plus a per transaction fee that add up.

My question to you is, do any of you have experience with Linkpoint, and if so, how has their reliability been? It would be especially helpful if someone out there has used both systems and their fraud tools, etc. and could comment on them comparatively.

[Corey Bryant]

Verisign is just plain expensive for that API. I never understood why someone would pay all that extra money when the Linkpoint gateway is $10.00

We use it ourselves & are extremely happy with it. They are owned by First Data & even authorizenet.com's gateway uses First Data's platform to help process the charges.

[Herath]

I know a friend who switched from Verisign to Linkpoint. He misses the level of support and the customer confidence he got while having the shiny 'Payment Solutions by Verisign' logo.

I've been using Payflow Pro for nearly 2 years. We processed over 12800 transactions last year. Never had a glitch.

[wayzel]

That's exactly the problem. We are doing about 1000 transactions per month right now, and once you get above 1000 trans, they are $0.10 each on Verisign. Anyway the first 1000 are "free" but you are paying over $100 per month for the gateway, anti-fraud, etc...all the stuff that linkpoint does for free, so effectively we are still paying about $0.10 per trans. and that comes out to well over $1000 per year, easy, assuming no ecommerce growth on our sites. Pretty easy cost savings to switch over it seems. But I'm just worried about reliability.

With Verisign for 6 months, they've gone down for about 7 hours total (it was a one time incident.)

[wayzel]

Corey,

Have you had any down time with Linkpoint? How long have you guys been using them for?

[Corey Bryant]

No downtown with them or anything. My current company - for about 8 months. Before that, I was working with another company for about a year & they had been using them for about 5 years. I really do not think that a lot of people care about the Verisign logo etc.

Who is your current processor? Are they compatible with LinkPoint or do you need to switch processors also?

-Corey

[bakedjake]

all that extra money

Service.

linkpoint: Support Hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Pacific standard time (PST)

verisign: Premium Technical Support: 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. Calls answered within two minutes.

I really do not think that a lot of people care about the Verisign logo

A lot of webmasters, you mean. I promise that if my mother had two sites side by side, and one had a VeriSign logo, and the other had nothing, she'd pick the VeriSign one.

[Corey Bryant]

Well I guess I might be a webmaster then & did not know it. I would go with the cheaper product. Which of course that might mean LinkPoint gateway. But then the merchant does not have to riae his prices to compensate for having the Verisign logo.

If it is https - that is all you have to worry about. Maybe buy their SSL cert & then you can use their logo for that purpose?

-Corey

[wayzel]

Our merchant provider is Card Services International...so they are of course compatible with Linkpoint.

As far as the Verisign seal goes, if we find that conversions go down after removing the Verisign seal (I have no solid evidence on this either way, especially since the concept of "trust" online comes from much more than just a seal) we can always buy a Verisign seal without having to use their processing gateway.

Thanks guys...sounds like a go. I think we are going to switch if there aren't any too many technical hassles. We'll keep our Verisign code in there as an option to switch back in case.

[Corey Bryant]

Did you get the Verisign gateway from CSI or from Verisign?

-Corey

[wayzel]

Got Verisign from Verisign directly. CSI and Linkpoint are owned by the same company I believe.

[Corey Bryant]

Yes they are - to an extent. They were bought by First Data awhile back. The reason I was asking, CSI can also re-sell the Verisign gateway now, at a much cheaper price than what is posted on Verisign's website

-Corey

[wifi on the fly]

We have used linkpoint for over a year now. Verisign is expensive. The people at Linkpoint don't have the best customer service skills and their sales guys are "Ghosts", but once you get setup, they normally run fairly well for the price.

[ecommerce guy]

Yes, I agree with you that the service isn't very good at linkpoint. Isn't there any merchant accounts that you can sign up for through the banks?

[Corey Bryant]

You can sign up for a merchant account at any bank - but they outsource a lot.

For LinkPoint Support:
Level One - Open 24/7
Level Two - API intergration / developer support - Monday-Friday 8a-5p PST

-Corey