New Merchant Account Program: Free Authorize.net included!

[Matt]

Well we barely have power and I have my PDA acting as a modem for my laptop since all the broadband is expected to be down for at least 2-3 more weeks. I took a quick peek at their site again and I think they are being deceptive with the way they are selling the product.

It says right on their home page that there are "no monthly fees" and to "Stop paying monthly fees." Yet all you have to do is click the "rate card" link and you will see that in fact, there are monthly minimum fees! $25.00 per month to be exact which is right around the same as everyone else. It means you have to process a minimum of $1000/mo with them or suffer the $25.00 "minimum" fee as they call it. Our reseller and ISP merchant account has no monthly minimum.

So right there, if you had a choice of providers, with identical fees, my thought would be to go with the one who did not try to hide what the actual charges are vs. a provider that tells you up front as to what they are, and in this case, waives the monthly fee. If they are that blantently trying to hide something from the start, it makes one wonder what else they are promising but not delivering. (read: how is the support?)

Another thing to be concerned with is their gateway. I consider Authorize.net to be the standard when it comes to gateways and everyone else is a copy. There are some very bad copies out there, but also some good ones. It is luck of the draw if you go in blind.

Ask yourself:
Does my shopping cart support their no-name gateway?
If not, do I have to hire a programmer to write custom code so my site or scripts work with their gateway?
Is there a hidden "minimum fee" for the gateway like there was for the merchant account?
And the most important thing, how is support?

I suggest opening a sample support ticket with them or call and see what happens.

Anyhow, let me know what you think, and if you have hosting reseller package questions I can answer those as well.

merchant account with free gateway
merchant account with free gateway for web hosts