Cheap payment gateways

[Ross2503]

I'm just starting out with a very small fetish site (no adult or nudity). I'm looking to take payments and was going to use paypal as their rates are reasonable and simple to use but I don't think they are not going to allow me to use their services for my site, even though it's not adult, after a conversation I had on the phone with them a few weeks ago. It says in their terms though they they pretty much accept anything as long as it's legal..apparently not.

Others such as ibill and ccbill are charging stupid amounts for someone as small as myself who may only break even at first. Any suggestions?

[billyboy]

This really depends on what sort of volume you are expected to do.

I'd be inclined to suggest getting a merchant account at a bank. They are not that expensive anymore and you will also be able to accept credit card payments over the phone and your business name appears on your customer's credit card statements too.

Once you have a merchant account then you are in a great position to decide between a "real time" gateway or "manual" one to handle your online credit card payments. The real time gateways are great as everything is automated which would suit a high volume merchant. But they can be expensive and not being able to check the order first raises the probability you'd have to learn to deal with "charge backs".

If you are really after the cheapest system then a manual bank merchant account with a manual gateway is what I'd suggest. There are a few around, one of them is http://e-path.com.au. Although these guys are based in Oz they are a global gateway. There's no transaction fees and because you get to check the order first before you charge the card you can usually pick out any attempt at a fake transaction before it gets into your merchant account.

If you wanted to go down the all in one solution like PayPal, 2co etc, you'd better be prepared to pay big money for the service and they are an all-controlling lot too.

That's my 2c worth anyway.

Cheers