Best Creditcard processor for $50,000 to $200,000 per month

and what can i expect to pay in fees

[SlimKim]

What's the best credit / debit card processor for amounts from $50,000 to $200,000 per month. 85% of buyers are from usa and i'm in usa. There will be a few Canada and Europe buyers.

And what can i expect to pay in fees per dollar?

Minimum billing is $500.

Thanks,
Slim

[tangor]

If you have that history and are making that kind of money now, then the processor you are using seems pretty gosh darn okay.

[SlimKim]

Just now we invoice everything after delivery and expect payment at net 15 - but we are considering moving to pre-payment.

Payment systems are the achilles heel of ecommerce it seems. I want to think they are better than they were 5 or 10 years ago, but i don't know.

[sun818]

With Paypal, if you can do $100k+ per month, it is 1.9% + $0.30 per transaction. For "cross-border" transactions, add 1.0%. For card not present, these are excellent rates.

[paypal.com...]

I imagine for someone like you, per transaction costs are not as important as the processing rate.

[SlimKim]

Thanks for those numbers and the url sun818, that's a big help.

Slim

[vordmeister]

I called a third party processor to discuss rates last week. They seemed happy to reduce their rates to compete with other processors (based on your turnover) rather than lose business. Well worth a phone call to the sales team at your favourite processor.

[Lightguy1]

I use First Data. They are pretty good

[FastSpring CEO]

I'd be careful when using PayPal, first do some searching to learn what issues people have complained about. When you're selling to non-US customers, you'll want to be sure your order page is localized by language and currency to maximize conversion from visit to purchase. You'll also need to manage VAT for certain EU sales. In terms of fees you'll need to pay, that depends on whether you prefer a basic processor where you do some of your own development work or a full service processor where you don't need to do any custom development.

[SlimKim]

Thanks for the reminder FastSpring.

Actually, back in 2000 i quit using paypal as a payment processor on another project and the problems i had then were so severe and so persistent and unresolvable that i would not tell them for fear of sounding crazy.

That was way before ebay bought them and i use them frequently to pay for items and to pay affiliates without trouble. I had hoped they were better.

And they probably are better, but still may not be up to snuff :)

[sun818]

I think you might be surprised with Paypal. Their financial model allows them to make pure profit on payments originating from a Paypal balance. The extremely high profit margin allows them to offer coverage for chargebacks in some cases. I don't think you'll find a merchant account that will cover the chargeback.

[wayzel]

SlimKim, some recommendations in your volume range for aggressive rates would be: First National Merchant Services, First Data, Chase/Paymentech, Humboldt Merchant services. We were able to save quite a bit of money shopping it around and at your volume level you will find it well worth your time too. Paypal may be ok but it's just not as professional as what you are trying to do, at the volume you're doing it at. Good luck. Sticky me if you need contacts. Also, with Paypal, they will routinely withhold funds for 30 days and do not pay interest on the witholding. If they were our only payment processor that could have caused cash flow issues due to money-in delays, not to mention that $200k withheld would be several hundred bucks in lost interest accrual as well if that money were parked in a business money market account, treasuries, etc.

[wayzel]

As for fees, with a $500 plus average ticket, I'd say 2.2% tops. If your customers are using Visa or MC-branded debit cards, you can ask for interchange plus pricing and be around 1.5% on those transactions. If most of your sales are to corporate cards, don't ask for interchange plus, it will probably work to your disfavor because processing corporate (level II) cards costs significantly more (like an extra 1 to 1.5%)