$100 sign up
$10 per month
$2.5ish%
$25 monthly minimum. I just discovered what the hell that means, and they (CC services) wants you to think it’s only $25 you have to process.

I was sort of lied to by the people who signed me up. When I asked what that minimum monthly they said it didn’t apply and got me to focus only on the $10 per month. I’m a little pissed and feel deceived. Nevertheless I’m stuck on a contract, but I would like to know if these fees are reasonable. Btw, I had no idea accepting credit cards costs the merchant so much.
meant to say 2.5ish% per transaction.

Actually, those look pretty typical. I’ve seen some as high as 4% per transaction. The $25 minimum for low volume is also typical.

Yes, credit cards cost the merchant. Most consumers don’t realize this. When I set up our Homeowner’s Association to accept credit/debit cards, I used Pay Pal because they have no minimums, just a straight percentage per transaction and no other fees at all. However, a web based solution may not work for your business.

For any shopping cart service, you will have to buy a domain name, have it hosted at a hosting company compatible to your shopping cart. You can also have wordpress installed on the domain – but you don’t really need to.

Looking at the intuit.com site, they say hosting packages with large companies such as homestead, godaddy, ultracart are all compatible with their payment method. So what you do is get a hosting package with either the Fantastico (Cpanel product) or other MySQL database – install Wordpress on the database – hook it up to the shopping cart (make sure you get a SSL), then connect it to your merchant services. Sounds complicated, but not really.

As far as EVO , Heartland, and any other company goes they’re all really just about the same as far as services go. Once you’re signed up and running it all just works.

Questions to ask:

1. What are your rates going to be, on swiped cards, over the phone, and etc.
A. Ask about gateway fee’s, service fee’s, equipment fee’s and etc.
Merchant providers like to charge people for tons of little fee’s that can add up to hundreds per month.

2. Ask them how and when your batch will be settled. For instance will they pay you every 2-3 days, will it be at the end of the week/month? And will they have a rolling reserve (Hold 10-30% of your profits in reserve for chargebacks/refunds and etc.)

3. What are your processing terms, and how do you handle chargebacks and refunds?
Chargebacks can be a huge risk for any business, if people are disputing credit card charges it really cuts into your profits. Most providers handle them differently, and it’s good to know exactly what your going to be paying per-chargeback, and how you can fight the chargeback if the transaction was valid or if someone used a stolen credit card.

PS. In retail chargebacks usually aren’t such a big deal, however when accepting payments via phone and internet it’s much more common.

Well hopefully I didn’t overwhelm you with information, as a business owner myself I find it extremely important to educate others and make sure others don’t have the same problems I did initially. Accepting credit cards is exciting for your business, however it can also be very dangerous.

If your looking for other solutions I would definitely check around before committing to your local bank.

I can personally recommend Prosper Merchant Services ( http://www.prosperms.com ) and if you want a big time processor Merchant Express (http://www.merchantexpress.com/) are great but won’t provide very good service and won’t get to know you on a first name basis.

Best of luck to you, I hope everything works out and my advice was useful.