Paypal alternative???

One of the best alternatives that i found to Paypal is www.moneybookers.com

My Pleasure Banu. Biznik is such a source of information. Can't live without it...

Banu, did you that I am a Paypal alternative? Art T.

I never realized paypal charged 30 a month. I thought they made their fees from the money they take for processing the sending of money

Banu, could you quote where Paypal charges $30 a month and not just a %. I wasn't aware of that either.

Hey Banu, I'm sure you can probably find a better rate, talk to Art.

What I think may be confusing, is that paypal still has it's service where you just have a % and a per transaction fee. With pro I believe you are paying for the service where people don't go through the paypal site to make payments (or at least it appears that way). And of course, the virtual paypal allows you to do transactions yourself when supplied a cc number. These features aren't available through their regular non-monthly fee service.

At least that is what I think you are talking about.

Wish I had another suggestion for you.

And Leif, I do believe you have Biznik on the brain : )

~bob

Banu, it depends on what type of Paypal account Laura signed up for. I use Paypal on my online shop and there is no monthly fee...just a fee per transaction. It's a good option if you do not have a huge volume of transactions. Bob had many of the facts right about the different account options. I have used the Virtual Terminal option w/Paypal before and yes, there is a $30 monthly fee plus transaction fee and what you are paying for is the ability to take credit cards at a location (without a wireless card swipper) and enter them on your computer after the event. I have used this for one-time events at remote locations in which I know I will rack up a lot of sales (like a convention or such) and have taken the risk of using this w/o a handheld device to get an authorization code (and, knock wood, have not been burned). With the most basic Paypal online account, you can choose the Virtual Terminal option only on the months you need it.

Art Torelli is indeed a great resource for other credit card processing options and he can hook Laura up with any number of companies and options. I talked with him last year but ultimately stayed with Paypal as I why online sales didn't warrant the switch yet. Also, Amy Lang did a lot of research and found a company she is thrilled with, and she does not do a huge amount of CC processing, either. You could ping her. Finally, search the topic in Biztalk as CC processing comparisons has been discussed in at least two other threads, as I started one last year and think there was another after that.

Nancy

Hop to Signaroo

I have a paypal account without a monthly fee and a transaction fee of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. With this, I can send a link to be paid by credit card. I could also set this up on my website. I cannot swipe a credit card or take credit card payments by telephone.

I do the same as John and if you need to take credit cards by phone I suggest Sage solutions as they only charge $12 month plus the same going percentage range. Paypal is the best choice unless you have a lots of transactions.

Yes Banu, I was totally Biznikified. I meant to say Paypal. Sorry! I'm going to edit it out now ;) -Leif

Sage Solutions... so you can process credit cards yourself when you have gotten numbers on order forms, for instance?

Is that the best deal out there? I am looking for something affordable and dependable for CC processing that could run as little as a few hundred dollars a month to a few thousand, both in recurring monthly payments (preferably that the client makes themselves online) and in one-time payments from order forms that I (or an assistant) would be able to enter in ourselves online (ie, not interested in credit card processing equipment!) Brings back nightmares of my days of restaurant ownership...

One of our businesses uses a combination of the fee free version of PayPal plus the Quickbooks merchant service (1-3 days to deposit).

Depending on what market you are in, there are still people who either wont use PayPal, or they wont even use a credit card. Being flexible can often make the difference on a sale, and having more options for your customer builds confidence. And those special case customers often become your most vocal supporters too :-)

A few years ago I stopped using Paypal. I've always been one to do a ridiculous amount of research which is how I stumbled upon Propay. www.propay.com

They have numerous levels of service, they're Basic (if you don't do a lot of transactions) is $35 per year, which gets you up to $1000 a month in transactions. You get a debit card. You can take cards over the phone. They work on ebay transactions. You can get a swiping machine. We've been very happy with them. (We use a higher level of service but it's basically the same).

Most importantly, if you need to talk to them you can. Paypal is the worst at communication.

Good luck.

I agree about Paypal being the worst on communication. It was the main reason I was looking into using a different company last year. I logged several hours trying to resolve a very simple problem. In one case I was on hold hor more than hour only to get an outsourced agent in another country to read from a script and had absolutely no ability to answer anything that was not covered in the script. Argh!!!

Nancy

Hop to Signaroo

Is anyone using or checked into Google Checkout? I know they charge 2% and .20 per transaction. I don't know about the ability to take credit cards directly though. I was considering it as a PayPal alternative.

Hi Kim,

I use Google Checkout to invoice my clients. They are slightly cheaper than paypal and have a big plus for me. I run an adwords campaign to try to attract clients and when Google Checkout charges me my % of my transactions, it actually get's funneled back into my adwords account.

So for example, if I do $2500 in sales and am charged $50 for the transaction fees - the following month, I get a link for a credit of $50 that can be used for my adwords campaign.

That loophole right there is enough for me to keep using google, let alone the cheaper fees and the strong brand recognition when people do process using google.

I looked into Google Checkout. It looked good, but then found out it's not available in Canada yet. Kinda' strange since it's available in other countries, why not the Great White North?

Quickbooks processes cc both online and via the swipe console. The fee is less for cc processed in person. I observed a retreat center that used this method and it seems to work well for that model of business. I have been gathering information about this topic for a while, and appreciate all of this great information. Google checkout looks like a good option as well for businesses other than biz nik. Too bad about the no Canada service, bit.

Wow, so much where do I start? First Matt, $35.00 per month for $1,000.00 is 3.50% if you process the full $1,000.00 That's a fantastic deal for me I'll do it all day long. You can do a lot better for your money though. Most of my customers pay between 1.80% to 2.50% depending on many factors. The highest would be around 3.10%. paypal does have a $30.00 monthly service charge for their best program. You can get other programs that don't have that fee but you pay big rates for them (2.90% + $0.30 per transaction). If you're signing up for the first time most of my programs are going to be better then the paypal options. If you have Paypal now and you are wondering if you can save money. You need to be processing over $1,000.00 per month for the savings to be worth the time of looking at. Yes, I do Quickbooks integration. Also for those of you that like big names Google is almost always a better deal then Paypal. Art T.

Art, Thanks for chiming in here. Your comments have been very helpful.

No problem. Art T.