You can start accepting credit card payments on your website within a few days, and you won't have to pay any monthly fees or rent any equipment.
Research has shown that if a website accepts credit cards, customers are nine times more likely to buy from it. Everyone knows this, but a lot of people who run websites don't know how to accept credit cards. It's easier than you think and doesn't have to cost a lot of money.
If your site is selling downloadable goods, like software,...
You can start accepting credit card payments on your website within a few days, and you won't have to pay any monthly fees or rent any equipment.
Research has shown that if a website accepts credit cards, customers are nine times more likely to buy from it. Everyone knows this, but a lot of people who run websites don't know how to accept credit cards. It's easier than you think and doesn't have to cost a lot of money.
If your site sells things that can be downloaded, like software or PDF files, you can use Clickbank to sell them and have the money go straight to your StormPay or PayPal account. This is the least expensive choice. The card processor takes a cut of each sale, but your account costs are very low.
You have to sign up at Clickbank as a Seller. This means that you need a system for helping customers. The support system doesn't have to be very complicated. All you need is a website with an email address where customers can send questions and get live answers within a certain amount of time, but you would have that anyway.
If you sell goods that need to be delivered, your costs will be higher, but still less than you probably think. Charge.com has a great low-cost package that you can check out (it works out at about 30 dollars month).
You can get the whole Credit Card Merchant Account package, but it will cost you a lot more because you will have to pay to set up the account, pay a monthly fee, and pay to rent the equipment. If you have a Merchant Account, the processor takes a smaller cut of each sale, but the fixed costs are much higher.
If you sell more than a few thousand dollars a day, you should get a merchant account. If not, you should think about the cheaper options we've listed above.