Should I open my own merchant account?
 

I have a friend that wants to set up a site and have a page where surfers can send donations. It is half adult, half information out books etc. Donations are anywhere from $1 to $100

Should he set up his own merchant account use Paypal or something like Epassport?

Definitely want something that surfers are used to and feel confident that it?s safe. Of course very user-friendly.

Thanks for the input.
Chuck


<font face="arial" size="0">P.S. I posted this in the other thread "paypal vs. epassport" but I am not getting any input... </font>

probably not getting any input due to the retarded nature of the thread...

paypal/epassporte is not a merchant account.

a merchant account is opened through bank.

Now if ur just taking donations use PAYPAL, problem sorted unless u believe www.paypalsucks.com in that case use epasssporte but not sure on their rep.

Havent checked Epassporte much but Paypal isnt exactly a merchant account. Yes you provide a bit more info if you register as a business but a merchant account is something like authorize.net. And don't forget that Paypal doesn't process for adult transactions so be careful on how adult/non-adult your product is. For the most part unless you are doing a lot of transactions or can get better rates getting something thats less of a headache (has its own gateway processing that doesnt require any coding) is the best way to go.

you cant use paypal cuz adult so use epassporte.

im sure it will not matter because u will be lucky to get one donation.

Good luck getting your own merchant account for adult sites, it isnt easy these days. Any company out there who can offer merchant accounts for adult webmasters at reasonable prices ?? should post here i would like to see what the charges are !!

Cindy xx

Very true, completely forgot about that.

LOL :1orglaugh

I know Paypal is not a merchant account. It seems like it?s the easiest to set up for a donation site. And Yes I know he will get between 10-20 donations a day because of the traffic to this site. I was just worried about Paypal closing down this account because of the adult related material within the site. But it seems some affiliates are still paying webmasters by Paypal until Paypal warns them that funds can not be paid through them.

Careful, make sure to extract the funds right to your bank account often, this way even if they freeze your account they wont get more than a couple of hundred. Leave that money lying around and you will be kicking yourself in the ass later.

true, it can be "not cheap", but there are great benefits if you've got the volume

what rates would you consider reasonable?

I'm meeting with a banker this week that has a deal. Don't know the details yet.

E-MAIL and I'll send the info when I get it.

[email protected]

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We are getting adult merchant accounts approved daily. In fact we can actually cascade the transactions across several merchant accounts. Rates are based on credit score and depending on qualification can be as low as 5.5% Below is a schedule of rates and fees-

Merchant Discount Rate 5.5% to 15% depends on risk rating
Reserve Rate 10% 6 month rolling
Transaction Fee $0.50
Chargeback Ratio Levels 2.0%

I may be wrong but adult merchant accounts are high risk , right so the rate charged per transaction would be near 15% ?
Plus set up fees ? ( $1000.00 approx ) or is there no set up fee with this discount rate ?

CCbill and Epoch charge around 13% so i dont see the savings here other than having more control over charge backs and refunds. Please explain more. Thanks
Cindy

Just so you know, Authorize.net isn't a merchant account either. They are a gateway for merchant accounts. Merchant accounts come from banks or ISOs working with the banks.

There are only 2 banks right now that process for adult sites. Hopefully a third if stuff works out with KRL.

It's rare for anyone to get hit with 15%, most Adult we setup generally gets half that at the most. Large volume less than 7%

Your not going to be paying 15% unless you have terriable credit (like a recent bankruptcy or something similar). If you have decent credit (even alittle bad credit), you should be able to get one for 7% or 8% (including per transaction fee) I would think. Don't know for sure, cause everyone is different.

CCBill and Epock have the same high risk merchant accounts. They get a discount for the volume they do, but you have to figure they are probably paying around 5% or 6%. Don't know for sure on that one either, just a guess.

just contact netbilling, seems like a good company to do business with.. if i was in the states i'd definatly get my own merchant account.

There are way more than 2 banks that do adult. We use 4 just ourselves (2 domestic and 2 offshore). I highly recommend the merchant account route.

Paypal, Epassporte, Thispay, Thatpay, Theotherpay, and others are good for alternative processing, but not primary IMO. People want to pay with their credit cards, not have to signup for an account somewhere first just to make a purchase.

Z

My brain was on US for some reason. My brain freaks out sometimes and forgets the world outside of North America.

What are the 2 offshore ones that you use?

ya Z, what business are you in? which sites?

check my sig..

She can take donations via an Amazon.com account.

you are ripping people off.

We have many sites, adult membership, products, and content.

Z