How do online payments work?

I'm looking for a technical breakdown

[MrFishGuy]

I've being using receiving online payments for years, and I'm embarrassed to say that I'm still not completely sure how it works. I get statements from Retriever Payment Systems, and use Authorize.net, but couldn't say if I'm getting a good deal on services, or if there's other companies involved.

Could someone please give me the breakdown of who's involved from the time someone puts their credit card info into your shopping cart until the time the payment appears in your bank account? Please use layman's terms (I read where someone talked about ISO and don't know what that is) Also, please add the major companies for each step so I can see who does what? I'm in the U.S. if that matters.

Lastly, I don't know if this part's too complicated, can anyone also give a general idea as to how much each step along the payment takes for their services? Thanks.

[Patrick Taylor]

Seems quite a big question, and I certainly don't know, but couldn't you ask Authorize.net?

[FalseDawn]

The core process really involves 2 "entities", a gateway provider, who takes the encryped transaction data, fires off queries to the appropriate network (visa/mastercard,amex etc) to validate the transaction and return the results of that validation to your site.
The best known gateway is arguably authorize.net, but there are others. Their fees vary.

The next step involves the transfer of funds from the cardholder's account to your account, and for this you need a merchant account.
There are hundreds of different companies offering merchant accounts and their fees vary considerably.

This is of course, very simplified.

For more info, try:

[google.com...]
[google.com...]
[google.com...]