Merchant Account Prices
Pricing for a merchant account consists of the Discount Rate, Transaction Fees, and Monthly Fees. Retail merchants must purchase, lease, or re-program a Credit Card Swipe Terminal (aka POS Terminal) and Internet merchants must subscribe to a Payment Gateway service. Each of these is discussed below.
Discount Rate
The discount rate is a fixed percentage taken from every transaction you
process. For example, suppose you charge a customer $100.00 for a sale
and the discount
rate you paying for Visa® , MasterCard® & Discover® Network is 1.69%. You would
receive $98.31 from that sale which is deposited directly
to your bank account. American Express has different discount rates from
Visa, MasterCard, & Discover. The discount rate for
Internet Merchants is higher than the rate for
Retail
Merchants because of the higher Interchange rate charged by the Card
Associations due to the greater risk inherent with Internet transactions.
Foreign merchants and certain merchants whose industry classification code
classifies them as "high-risk" will pay an even higher rate.
Authorization Fee
This is a fixed fee on every sale you process, regardless of the amount
of the sale, and is automatically deducted from your bank account at the
end of each month. For example, if the transaction fee is $0.25 and you
process 100 sales during the month, $25 will be deducted from your bank
account at the end of the month.
Monthly Merchant Account Fees
Customer Service Fee:
We charge a nominal monthly fee to cover the cost of providing unlimited
telephone and email support 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. The monthly
customer service fee also includes access to a powerful online merchant account management
tool at www.mymerchantoffice.com
where merchants can retrieve their deposit information, reconcile deposits
to their bank accounts, and view detailed reports of their chargeback and
retrieval histories. You can view a DEMO
with the following login information: Merchant Number:
guest
Password: demo3501
POS Terminals
A Point of Sale Terminal is a machine that collects your transaction and
customer's credit card information and transmits them to the credit card
processor for processing (authorization and settlement). You either swipe
the card through the terminal's magnetic swipe reader or use the keypad
to key in the information. You can choose between Dial-Up, IP, and Wireless
Terminals. You can also add a PIN pad to process PIN debit transactions.
The Eclipse Terminal provides Electronic Check Acceptance via TeleCheck™.
Some terminals also allow you to offer Gift Cards to your customers.
There are no monthly fees for dial-up and IP terminals. Merchants who
use wireless terminals pay a monthly wireless fee to access a secure
wireless network to process transactions wirelessly.
Payment Gateways
Internet Merchants need a payment gateway to collect transaction and
payment information for their website and transmit them to the credit
card processor for processing (authorization and settlement). The payment gateway can be integrated
into your website or you can place a simple HTML link on your payment page
to link your customers to the payment gateway's servers where they complete
the payment. The payment gateway also includes a Virtual Terminal that allows
you to process manual sales and refund transactions. You can also add online
check acceptance, fraud screening and recurring charge features to your
gateway account. Fees vary based on the payment gateway you select.