Merchants

Merchant Services

There are two main ways to collect credit card payments online. You can get a merchant account yourself, or you can do a third party merchant account. There are many different merchant service providers available. We have chosen three who we feel are the best in price and service.

Own Merchant Account

Having your own merchant account gives you great flexibility and benefits. For starters, your customers will not be required to sign up for an account through a third party (such as Paypal) to pay you for your products or services. Depending on the solution you choose, you can take credit cards through many methods, such as over the phone, Internet, in person, wirelessly and by fax. Getting a merchant account also comes with countless benefits, and it will generally cost you less than a third party account. Most companies provide 24/7 customer service for immediate assistance. You will usually have less issues with the risk department since your application for an account goes through an underwriting process before getting approved. This helps ensure a smooth process rather than having accounts frozen or funds held due to questionable transactions.

You can also provide a much more professional image, such as having your own business name and phone number show up on your customer's credit card billing statement. Lastly and most importantly, a merchant account can provide a seamless integration with your web site, with features such as collecting credit cards without having the customers leave your web site. We recommend Gotmerchant.com for your own merchant account and here is why....

Our first merchant provider we signed up with lured us in with amazing rates and customer service. After just a few months of being with them they increased our rates up, put a 10% reserve on our account without telling us, and lied about the category our transactions fell into. They claimed over half our transactions were non-qualified which meant close to a 5% fee per sale. While researching providers, we realized that many companies used the same tricks to gain business. However, we found one company that is different. Gotmerchant.com is committed to providing personal service and competitive pricing. They have an excellent reputation and have been in business since 1998. If you wish to signup and get started accepting credit cards, then please fill out the following merchant application form.

For more info on rates, advantages and disadvantages keep reading...

Third party merchant account

Paypal and 2checkout are what you can call third party merchant accounts. They store the credit card numbers that charge your clients. With a third party merchant account, you basically go into your account, click "create item," decide how much to sell that item for, and decide if its going to be a recurring charge or not. Once you decide all that, they give you a link to provide your customers with. Your customers will then go to this link to signup with you. WARNING: 2checkouts largest competitor (Paysystems) was forced to shut down by MasterCard and visa when they determined their 3rd party business model to be illegal.  Many people believe 2checkout will follow the same course along with many of the other 3rd party merchant providers we haven't listed. We believe paypal will never be shut down due to is size, power, and the fact it does background checks on the accounts they issue through bank account verification, along with many other security checks which weren't in place with paysystems.