What You Need to Be Aware of When You Set Things up to Accept Credit Card Payment

To small companies, the ability to sell products or services online is quickly becoming a source of income they just can't ignore. To many, the Internet is their only source of distribution, and the only way they can accept payment for services or products sold. Of course, it can be a matter of considerable anxiety to a new business starting out, the question of how they might go about obtaining credit card processing for their website. Now the way to get that done is usually to find a payment gateway that will authorize and approve every transaction that happens without any input from the business owner. What you need to do then is to look for a service that provides you a merchant account and also throws in a payment gateway.

Now not all merchant account providers are the same. There are several that design contracts that use stealthy methods to add on fees that you are never made to be aware of. Some of these merchant  account provider contracts can run to several pages in length and be filled with fine print and jargon. The first thing you need to do when you set out to find a way to accept credit card payment is to find out how long your commitment is. The usual length of the contract is about two years. If you find that the merchant account provider you are interested in has a five-year contract duration, that's your clue. For as long as you have a contract, they'll ask you to honor a minimum monthly transaction level. If you don't, you'll have to pay them fees. Just think about it - if you decide to close down your business in a couple of years, you'll be obligated to pay them fees for a good long time for a business you've closed down.

With reputable companies, you never have to have a minimum transaction level that's higher than $20 a month. Make sure that you don't agree to anything higher than that. The per transaction fee usually is 35 cents. Be sure that you don't pay any more to accept credit card payment. You need to be sure that your merchant account provider doesn't charge any percentage per sale fee. There should only be one fee MasterCard or Visa or the other credit card companies charge. Your merchant account providers are not to charge any percentages at all. They can however charge you a one-time startup fee of about $100.