07-18-2005

Payment Processors Reviewed

Below is a quick review of some companies that will allow you to accept payments on your website.

ClickBank: Thousands of people have chosen to use ClickBank and for good reason. They allow you to accept all major credit cards, checks and even PayPal. ClickBank also allows you to create your own affiliate program (others advertise your products/services for a percentage of the sale). They also pay the affiliate for you. This greatly decreases your paper work. However ClickBank does have some drawbacks. They charge a one-time account activation fee of $49.95 and $1.00 + 7.5% of each sale. ClickBank only allows 50 products per account and if you use the affiliate program, you can only send referrals to product #1. However, this is easily gotten around with third-party scripts like Hoplink Manager. Even with the few drawbacks, I still use ClickBank for many of my products.

PayPal: With over 71 million accounts from 56 countries, it’s hard to go wrong with PayPal. PayPal has no setup charges, monthly charges, or gateway fees.You pay as you go with rates as low as 1.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction. You can even earn 1.5% cash back with purchases made using the PayPal debit card if you are an eBay seller. In the past, people had to open a PayPal account to send money but now people can easily pay without joining. PayPal also gives instant access to your funds either by spending it with other merchants, using a debit card or virtual debit. I personally use PayPal for most of my products.

StormPay: StormPay is much like PayPal but allows pretty much anyone to join and you can send and receive money to/from over 200 countries. However, StormPay Doesn’t have as much protection for purchases and they charge higher fees when receiving funds, 6.9% + $0.69 per transaction. StormPay also charges 3% to send money if the source of funds is from a credit card. I have a StormPay but I only use it if someone can’t use my other payment methods.

2checkout: 2checkout allows you to sell tangible (products you sell) and intangible (digital products/services) goods. They also allow recurring billing. 2checkout charges a one-time setup fee of $49 and 5.5% + $0.45 per transaction. I don’t use 2checkout but some associates of mine do and they love 2checkout.

RegNow: While I don’t RegNow to sell software, I am an affiliate for some of their vendors. They are much like ClickBank, as in they have a built in affiliate program and a product market place but they allow vendors more control on where you can send clients and allow you to provide trials. RegNow also only charges a one-time account activation fee of $19.95 and 6.9% + $1.00 per transaction, with a minimum of $2.

Charge.com: Unlike the others I have talked about, Charge.com provides an actual merchant account. Their fees are as little as 1.69% + $.25 per transaction and $10/month accounting fees. They also offer free setup, no application fee, a free shopping cart and many other features for either no additional charge or low cost. At the current time I am not using my own merchant account but when the time comes that I need one, I will use Charge.com.

Posted by Garrie in General

One Response to “Payment Processors Reviewed”
  1. Trish Sablic Says:

    Thanks, Garrie!
    I had never heard of a couple of these–it helps
    to have things laid out like this.

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