Forum Moderators: buckworks
but all the other reviewed merchant accounts use Authorize.net, i have looked at different ecommerce hosts and many more support Authorize.net than Linkpoint, although that is improving.
i don't want to get tied into limited ecommerce hosting options because of lack of Linkpoint support. so what is my best option?
also, what determines whether a customer is redirected to a separate secure server for checkout? is it the gateway or the hosting or both? i find this not to be preferable, since ssl should exist anyway, i would guess it's the gateway interface.
is there a list that tells you which gateways dont require redirection...i read somewhere it process it like a "post" form method to the secure server or something to avoid redirection.
any advice?
thanks,
Leon
Verisign will charge though more for the API and their SDK package needs to be installed. It takes usually about one minute and 98% of the hosting providers out there have this installed because it adds value to their product. The monthly charge for the API is about $50.00 but you get 1,000 free transactions which if comparing to Authorizenet.com, would save you about $50.00-$75.00 a month.
LinkPoint requires a DLL to be installed - this takes less than a minute to install it I would gather that 98% of the hosting providers in the United States have this installed as well. You do not need a password to get this DLL like you do Verisign. LinkPoint will not charge you anything extra for the transactions and will only charge you a monthly flat rate. They offer recurring billing as well for free that can easily be set up via their API. And they offer a free test store on their site which is usually accepted in less than 10 minutes.
Authorizenet.com will charge you a monthly fee, a fee to use their recurring billing, and a transaction fee. Plus their recurring billing module, you need to sign into their virtual terminal to make the recurring billing start.
All three will provide you a virtual terminal at no cost. And if you decide to go with Cardservice, but then decide that maybe LinkPoint is not right for you, you can always switch to Verisign's Payflow or Authorizenet.com. They are compatible with those three (plus a lot more as well). Since they are owned by First Data who is the largest transaction processor in the United States, this allows them to do quite a bit.
The largest independent sales organization (ISO) is Chase / Paymentech, who is First Data has 50% partnership in. First Data also has partnerships with a few other ISOs and owns First Data Merchant Solutions and Cardservice.
Cardservice is similar to Paypal. Cardservice will accept a lot of merchants that probably should not be accepted. And then when thing go awry (which they tend to do) people like to complain.
Talk to a Cardservice agent - most ISOs rely on agents to sell their services and their products. If you think that you might be doing something (like selling high risk items, etc) and you talk to any agent, hang up and go on. High risk items are always a problem.
I remember talking to one potential merchant and he had an application in with a CSI agent for over one week (which is usually way too long) but he was selling something that was high risk. I pulled a few strings and found out that the merchant was denied about three days before. He was very upset (understandably so) and was going to give that agent an earful. Most agents - all they want to do is do the sale and that's it.
Cardservice is always compatible with the Yahoo Payment Gateway since they use First Data as the transaction Process. So you can see you have a lot of choices out there
-Corey
