online credit card processing?

[asherwood]

Hi,

Has anyone got any recommendations for companies that will allow me to take online credit card transactions.

I am looking to accept very small monthly payments (starting at £1.99). I am also looking for very little set up cost.

Thanks
Scott

[RichardJohn]

Worldpay. They're more expensive than others (you'll pay about £100 to get started and then about £100 a year), but they're art of RBS so you know they're not going to disappear overnight. So many small processors have gone through in recent years, it's not worth taking a risk.

[aguynamedmo]

With respect i suggest you dont use worldpay - they're very overpriced, and if your application fails u lose your application fee.

1. For starters use paypal and nochex - with a look to a better solution, which you should start the process of immediately after implementing these.

2. Get yourself a merchant id and bank account

Alliance and leicester do the best one, i think it was 120 last time i rang round they go through "euroconex" for the merchant id. There bank accounts are also very good for startups.

3. Get yourself a merchant/gateway so you can use your id and bank account to receive payments

Use either Protx or Secpay as your merchant.
Protx charge a flat rate of 20 pounds a month, with an inclusive huge 1000 transactions, so your not losing percentages on a per sale basis, which is good for low sums such as 1.99. Both ProtX and Secpay are heavily supported also via internet ready applications i.e. a lot of hosting control panels and 3rd party products have these gateways included so its easy to integrate.

Basic solution
Paypal and/or Nochex: 3-4% take on a per sale basis

Pro Solution
Merchant ID: 120-150
Monthly: 20

http://www.protx.com
http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/

[RichardJohn]

That's not true, they don't charge you the fee until they've accepted you.

Avoid Paypal like the plague! A buyer can just file a dispute a few months later, and despite all the evidence you have to prove it's fraudulent, Paypal will just refund the buyer.

[aguynamedmo]

Have they changed the application process then? it happend to someone i know, who was a limited company with about 2 years worth of books.

Paypal certainly do favour the buyer...I think for starters though - on a "lets get somethign working" paypal and nochex are acceptable.

[RichardJohn]

They must have; I applied for a client a few weeks ago, and after a few back and forth emails was told that they could accept them, and detailing the fees.

They never asked for any payment before they approved.

[aguynamedmo]

Fair enough on that, that was about a year ago that happend.

but christ i just relooked up the prices

* Set-up Fee: £200
* Monthly Fee: £30 each month (first month payable upon application).

* Credit Cards: 3.75% - 4.5%
(2.4% - 2.9% IMA Fee, 1.35% - 1.6% processing fee)
* UK Debit Cards: £0.50 - £0.45
(£0.20 - £0.25 IMA Fee, £0.18 - £0.25 Processing fee)

So 30 pounds a month + higher percentage takes that Paypal
http://www.worldpay.com/uk/sme/content.php?page=pricing

Its true what you said about small money handlers going down
VelocityPay just bit the dust, and they had quite a diverse setup, offering there own merchant ids and bank accounts.

Protx and secpay have been around for many years though.

[openmind]

WorldPay and a merchant account would be overkill for such small amounts, I would have gone with PayPal to test the water and also maybe look at micro payments charged to users mobile phones...

[davidgwalker]

Hi,

Originally posted by RichardJohn
Avoid Paypal like the plague! A buyer can just file a dispute a few months later, and despite all the evidence you have to prove it's fraudulent, Paypal will just refund the buyer.

PayPal are not foolish they will look after both parties and you will not experience issues if your PayPal account is being used correctly. PayPal are a great way to help you take payments online, and have a HUGE user-base due to ebay. I have just checked my PayPal account and I have been using it for over 3 years with NO problems whatsoever.

You will rightly experience problems if you sell a shoddy product where the customer complains to you and PayPal, or you do not answer customer complaints and give refunds where due.

If you do start to use them then ensure you open a business account and get the account Verified, see PayPal help, doing this means PayPal confirms who you are and is sure you are not a scammer (we all hate scammers as do PayPal and all other online payment providers who continue to lose £millions each year to the wasters).

Yes, yes I have seen and heard all the winging websites slagging-off PayPal but for all those that have experienced issues with PayPal then it would be safe to say they have not applied that which I mention above.

PayPal fees:
Setup cost: FREE!
Monthly fee: FREE!
Credit card processing: 1.4% + £0.20 GBP to 3.4% + £0.20 GBP

As a general rule I factor in the overall cost of PayPal charges to 4% (with no setup fee or no monthly fee), not bad when you compare WorldPay real costs: around 5% [includes charges for fraud screening and fund transmission not mentioned above] (with £200 setup fee, and £30 every month to pay).

Originally posted by asherwood
I am looking to accept very small monthly payments (starting at £1.99). I am also looking for very little set up cost.

You can setup a members area using phpAMA to take payments of £1 upto £100s per week/month/year automatically. And you can setup the whole thing without any initial costs, try it here:
http://www.dwalker.co.uk/phpautomembersarea/

It will display adverts along the top of your member pages but you can register for £19.99 per year to remove these. I will register it for any Shell Livewire member - just sign up (do not pay) then contact me and I will add 3 months reg for free ;-)

Cheers

Dave.

[asherwood]

thanks for your comments, world p\y are out of the question at this point in time due to their costs.

Has anyone ever used http://authorize.net/ or google checkout?

[davidgwalker]

Authorise.net require you to have an Internet Merchant account (like proxt mentioned earlier) and google checkout is not yet available in the UK (as far as I am aware).

[hellerooo]

I joined the fsb (fedaration of small businesses) yesterday. It cost £130 which is £100 per year memebrship plus a one off £30 joining fee. The benefits are amazing, and I've already recouped my annual fee. The 2 main beneifts for me were:

1. Free business banking for life with Cooperative bank
2. No set up fee for Streamline (saving £100) Streamline is then charged at £15 per month plus up to 3% on each transaction with visa and 20p flat fee for switch/solo.

There's loads more beneifts too, cheap BT line rental, free BT line installation, legal protection, cheap insurance, free pension advice, plus loads more that i've forgot!

Helen,

Could you advise as to how to about this?

Cheers,
Tyler

[aguynamedmo]

helleroo,

That sounds rather good actually, for an all in easy package.

I agree with the above post, worldpay is an overkill for the money we're talking about. Ive worked with Authorise.net - there recurring billing isnt up to much though, but easy to integrate with apart from that.

NoChex have recently overhalled there system, there new gateway is very nice, id consider using them over paypal, but both would work.

Rule of thumb, move to a merchant ID based processor, with included transactions, when the percentages taken from paypal/nochex equal or exeed the monthly subscription fee to do so...

[MailOrderCo]

Optimal Payments in my sig are good, I do not work for them or get commission, I just thought they were the best of many and wanted to let other people on the forum know by adding it to my signature.