Merchant Account Services

Six Payment Gateways Reviewed

Offerings from Authorize.net, Verisign, Plug 'n Pay, and LinkPoint are compared.

 

Author: Jim Conners

Rating: 10.0

Pages: 1|2|3|4|5|6

Choosing Your Gateway

At first glance, it may seem as though all these gateways are alike and you should base your decision on price alone. But, as we've discovered above, the differences between gateways can vary tremendously, and can mean that one gateway is a better choice than another for your business.

How can you decide which service is right for you? First, you need to determine your needs and prioritize them. Once you know what's most important to you, the facts will make your decision easy.

The Cost-conscious Webmaster

Owners of new businesses typically do not have large sums of money to dedicate to their ventures. In fact, a shoe-string budget is quite the norm. When every penny counts, setup fees, monthly fees, and transactions fees all loom large in the decision making process. The chart below provides a quick reference as to the basic costs associated with each gateway.

Fee Comparison Chart

The "I Need Features" Webmaster

Do you plan on being more than just a typical merchant who simply sells and ships a product? Would you like to offer memberships or digital downloads? If so, you might find some of the features offered by particular gateways to be very beneficial. Below is a chart that identifies the features offered by each gateway.

Feature Comparison Chart

The "Keep-It-Simple" Webmaster

Not every Webmaster is an expert programmer. Trying to integrate a gateway through its API can be extremely challenging and, for some, even impossible. This chart outlines which gateways offer an easy-to-implement system, and which are more complex.

Integration Comparison Chart

Conclusion

Through this article, we've explored several aspects of gateways, and discussed how you can choose one that's best suited to your business. We've seen how we should compare them, reviewed the offerings from some of the more popular providers, and provided information for easy comparison between them.

Hopefully, this guide has given you a clearer picture of where each gateway stands in the big picture, and has helped you to understand how you can determine which offering best suits your needs.

Appendix – Other Gateways

Don't limit yourself to researching and comparing the six gateways I've mentioned in this article. There are many gateways to choose from: one of them might be exactly what you're looking for. Here are some more popular gateways to consider:

Plug 'n Pay | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

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