Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

-Price (commision)
-Good Service
-Ease of use
-Traffic

I suggest looking at their transaction fees. We got killed on them with our first merchant account provider. Shop around. I suggest you look into PaySimple.

Also think about an exist strategy. Many of the merchants cannot 'recover' the credit card numbers for you if you wanted to leave their service. Ask them if you decide to leave can you take your current customers with you. (Important for subscription based services).

The last thing would be how do they handle charge backs -- and at what volume will they turn you off. This is usually a % of your monthly transactions (by dollar). Luckily we never had this issue, but inevitably you will get a few (all businesses do) and sometimes that's enough to get you in trouble! Particularly as you are getting started and your monthly volume is low.

I also recommend setting up your own auth.net account. In some cases the account that get's bundled into your merchant account package can be shut off at the reseller's whim or if you leave them.

Good luck!

-Christian Vanek
SurveyGizmo

I am with Chase Paymentech. I have been pretty pleased. They are one of the three major porcessors. Many people resell for them. I had a Chase Business account so set up withn them directly, not with a reseller.

Obviously rates are a big deal, but they can have greatly varying start up costs, statement fees, etc. You really want to find out how available they are for support and service. I am an internet merchant and getting that set up was a rather lengthy process, but I did not set up with Authorize.net as this would have cost more for each transaction. My gateway was probably harder to set up bt will be cheaper in the long run. Since we do high volume low margin, this was important.

Mike