Choosing The Right Credit Card Processing Company

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

There are many credit card processing companies to choose from, how do you know which one you should go with? Will they benefit your company? Are they affordable? Are they reliable? The internet can be a great tool for finding the right credit card processing company. Do your homework, determine which one has the features you need and are looking for in a company.

First, though reliability and trust is most important, you may likely be concerned about the start up costs. Some companies do not charge anything for startup, while others can charge as much as $250 start up fees. You want to make sure you choose a company that is both affordable for you and worth the costs.

Then of course, in keeping with costs, you need to look at other fees that may be required. Most credit card processing services charge several types of monthly fees. For example, a gateway fee, this could cost you as little as $10.00 per month and all the way up to $50.00 or more per month, depending on which company you choose.

You might have a statement fee as well charged to you each month. For most companies, this will cost you between $9.00 and $10.00 each month. Then you have to consider the monthly minimums, this will vary from one company to the next, but for the most part, this minimum runs between $20 and $30 monthly.

The fees do not stop there either. You will also have to deal with transaction fees. Per transaction fees average between twenty-four cents to thirty-five cents per transaction. Then on top of that, the company will likely take a percentage of each transaction as well, which could be anywhere from 2.14% to 2.40% on average. Lastly, some credit card processing companies charge a fee for address verification. If they charge the price is typically five or ten cents per address.

In other words, you need to find a company that is both affordable, trustworthy, and honest, fitting your budget at all the same time.

Then you have the chore or finding a credit card processing company that provides you with all the features you need for your company. This is just as important as costs because you definitely do not want to pay a lot for credit card processing if the company cannot meet your needs.

Some features to look for, that you may or may not need, includes:

Payment Gateway

Virtual Terminal
Merchant Account
How many days the payments clear
e-Check services
Point of Sale Swiper
Recurring Billing
Shopping Cart

You will then want to look at how the credit card processing company protects your business. Some features you will definitely want from any company includes:

Fraud Protection
CVV2 Acceptance
Real Time Processing
Address Verification
SSL

Then you need to consider what credit cards you wish to accept and if the credit card processing company supports those credit cards. The most commonly accepted credit cards are:

Discover
Visa
American Express
MasterCard

Lastly, while features, fraud protection, and the credit cards that you can accept are extremely important, you want to make sure that you choose a credit card processing company that provides you with the help and support you need, when you need it. Here are some tips that will help you choose:

Make sure that you can easily find their fax number
Make sure that reaching them by E-Mail is possible and readily available.
Check out their support hours, the best companies offer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Does the company provide you with a toll-free telephone number? This is a positive for any company.
If Live Online Chat is important you, look for this feature as well.

Overall, you want to make sure the credit card processing company you choose not only fits your budget, but it fits your needs and requirements as well.