Merchant Account

[christophermoore]

I would have an idea of how much it might cost to have a merchant account. I am interested in having a merchant account for selling products online. I've heard of different rates in the US. Can someone please give me more ideas?

[piatkow]

I have seen quotes vary wildly. There are two elements, a set up fee and the per item transaction rate. As a fairly rough rule of thumb the lower the transaction rate for a given turnover the higher the transaction fee.

[topr8]

you need both a merchant account and a gateway (although some services might provide both transparantly)

we have 3 (different currency) accounts and they are free, however there are processing fees on every transaction and gateway fees (monthly fee plus per transaction fee)

talk to your own bank first and ask them what they offer.

[marinamaggy]

Your bank can give you the best idea, but you probably don't need a "real" merchant account yourself unless you're doing a lot of volume. What most people start with is a service that has their own merchant account. they sell you a psuedo-merchant account.

Fee's vary by volume - number of purchases per month, high, low, and average purchase cost, type of product - physical or intagible - e.g. is it a mountain bke, or a download?, the way you confirm the cc info/customer, and the number/percentage of chargebacks. And also if you are a "real" business - e.g. legally - and if so, for how long.

E-payment is pretty good. I also like ikobo and 2checkout. Leaning more towards ikobo no recent problems in the past year, low fees, nice api, good charge-back policy, and easy access to the $.

ikobo and 2heckout would be on my A list for someone just getting into e-commerce. e-payment is a little more involved. I like e-payment for recurring billing, but 2checkout, and I believe ikobo have both got new capabilities in that area.

All payment services have had problems at one time or another. ikobo, 2checkout, and paypall seem to have put most of them behind them. #*$! is going through a bad time right now, and it would be best to avoid them - IMHO.


EDIT: BTW - $ savings on cc fees by being a "real" business" will often cover the cost of getting set up as an LLC within the first year given a moderate amount of sales.

[edited by: lorax at 1:16 pm (utc) on Feb 7, 2010]

[rocknbil]

you need both a merchant account and a gateway (although some services might provide both transparently)

One of my clients uses one of these, and we love it, it's every bit as secure as Authorize.net and other gateways requiring a separate merchant account.

You just need to shop around. Do the math, see what it adds up to. There are many seemingly great deals on an account setup, and many services that do merchant accounts by proxy, but if you read through the policies, it all adds up to more than what you'd pay for a full on account. Plus there are many more benefits you get from a full merchant account in terms of what you can do to insure user trust. One example is connection via silent post so the user never leaves your site.

If there is one bit of advice I can give, do not go to your bank and ask for recommendations. It's been my experience the representatives are absolutely clueless about what they are selling, and there is zero support there. An example, one of my clients first asked their bank, and they attempted to sell them a payFlowPro solution interfaced with Authorize.net - AND this combination tacked on extra fees for the bank's coffers. When asked if there were alternatives, she got the equivalent of a moronic shrug . . .

When it all came down, we found a merchant account/gateway combo that deposited the funds to her bank account without a problem and cost her a fraction of what the suggested solution was. These people (in the banks) shuold know this stuff, but it's just like cases of fraud: "that's someone else's problem."

[interaction123]

Marinamaggy,



Does E-payment and ikobo welcome internationale customers like 2checkout ?

Any other 3 third party processors that accept international customers ?

[interaction123]

With international customers, I mean merchants

[MrHard]

$20 bucks a month plus 2% of sales, ballpark.