New Merchant Account Program: Free Authorize.net included!

[Matt]

Christopher,

I guess David left us ;(

Feel free to chime in if anyone has anything to add.

But you can think of it this way, which I think should clear up the differences between third party processors like PayPal , "vendors" like 2checkout and a true merchant account.

Lets say you are processing $1000 per month, and you are making that in 100 transactions.

Rates:
Lets say your PayPal account charges you 3% plus 30 cents per transaction, and $20 for the virtual terminal.

And lets assume your merchant account is set at a rate of 2.1% plus 20 cents per transaction, and $10.00 for the gateway/virtual terminal.

And for good measure lets throw in 2checkout.com at 5.5% plus 45 cents per transaction. (no virtual terminal offered)

Fee Breakdowns:
You would be paying PayPal $30 for their 3% rate plus another $30 for your 100 transactions (.30 x 100) so $60 per $1000 you make plus tack on $20/mo for the virtual terminal.
Total: $80

You would be paying 2checkout.com $55 plus an additional $45 for the "per transaction" fee.
Total: $100

Now the same example on the merchant account: You have $21.00 in fees for the 2.1% rate, then you have $20.00 in fees for your per transaction fee (.20 x 100) so you are at a base of $41.00 plus the gateway/terminal at $10.00.
Total: $51.00

As you can see there is quite a difference.

About the gateway:
The gateway essentially gets the card numbers from the Internet whether you key them in the virtual terminal, or your customers enter their card numbers themselves at checkout time on your shopping cart or checkout system. The gateway takes those numbers and supplies them to your merchant account in real time, across a secure protocol.

The gateway also has a monthly fee, and "per-transaction" fee in most cases, however, with our arrangement the first 250 transactions per month have no transaction fee. That means since you only did 100 transactions to make the $1000 dollars, there are no gateway "per transaction" fees because they give you 250 free per month. The gateway also has a monthly flat fee for the service. With this special offer it is $10.00/mo.

About monthly minimum fees:
The ISP merchant account has no monthly processing minimum. So it is exempt from a monthly minimum fee.

The standard merchant account has a $25.00 minimum fee. Using the scenario above, we did $21.00 in fees based on our 2.1% rate. Since the minimum is $25 for a standard merchant account, they will charge you $4.00 additional to make the monthly minimum.

Had the standard merchant account owner done $1500 in sales for the month, Their fees would have been $31.50 so they have met the minimum requirement.

The gateway is required for an online merchant account to work. Gateway fees vary. For this offer, standard merchants get the gateway for $15.00/mo and the ISP merchant account gets the gateway for $10.00/mo. Both accounts get 250 free transactions per month.

Why choose an Online Merchant account?
1. Merchant accounts make sense for those running $700-1000 or more through their web site each month.

2. If you already have a merchant account terminal at your "brick and mortar" storefront, and are using that to key in orders you take on the Internet, you may be in violation of your current merchant agreement, so make sure to check with your current merchant provider (if you have one) as you can loose your privileges to process credit cards as a merchant if you violate certain merchant agreements. These guidelines are provided from Visa and MasterCard (among others) directly, so if the find you are not upholding your terms, Visa/MC/etc may suspend your processing privileges across any vendor. However, the best way to be certain is to ask your current "brick and mortar" merchant provider their policy on the matter.

3. The accounts we offer are specifically geared for Internet sales and also have the AVS service built in which can help you determine fraudulent orders a bit easier than traditional merchant accounts.

4. Merchant accounts make more sense the more you make. If you are processing say $5000-$10000 or more a month, you will really see the savings add up. I'll do some quick examples below. This is PayPal, 2checkout and our ISP merchant account provided in the examples below.

Additional Examples:

PayPal:
$5000/mo in sales, 250 transactions:
Rate: 2.9% = $145
Plus transaction fees: 250 x .30 = $75
Plus virtual terminal: $20
Grand total: $240

2checkout:
$5000/mo in sales, 250 transactions
Rate: 5.5% = $275
Plus transaction fees: 250 x .45 = $112.50
Plus virtual terminal: N/A
Grand total: $387.50

ISP Merchant Account:
$5000/mo sales, 250 transactions
Rate: 2.1% = $105
Plus transaction fees: 250 x .20 = $50
Gateway/Virtual Terminal fee: $10.00
Gateway transaction fees: $0
Grand Total: $165

=============================

PayPal:
$10,000/mo sales, 500 transactions
Rate: 2.9% = $290
Plus transaction fees: 500 x .30 = $150
Plus virtual terminal: $20
Grand total: $460

2checkout:
$10,000/mo sales, 500 transactions
Rate: 5.5% = $550
Plus transaction fees: 500 x .45 = $225
Plus virtual terminal: N/A
Grand total: $775

ISP Merchant Account:
$10,000/mo sales, 500 transactions
Rate: 2.1% = $210
Plus transaction fees: 500 x .20 = $100
Gateway/Virtual terminal fee: $10
Gateway transaction fees: 250 free then 250 x .05 = $12.50
Grand total: $332.50

So as you can see it makes sense especially for established and growing businesses to go with our merchant account offer. Depending on how you are accepting payments now it can mean an entire car payment in savings every month, if not more.

The more business you conduct, processing fee savings will grow exponentially.

Hope that helps