

Ask YC: Recommend a merchant account provider - snowbird122

There are too many too choose from and no way that I know of to differentiate.  Please help.
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noaheverett
I work for <http://bluefin.com> as one of their developers. The site isn't
much, but we offer merchant accounts and a payment gateway which has an
intuitive API to use.

And on the pricing side we can beat paypal's rates easy. I use it for all my
side projects as well. If you have any questions about merchant accounts
(which I did when I did my first website that accepted credit cards) feel free
to call us up.

You can ask for me (Noah) if you like.

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thaumaturgy
Ditto the recommendation to kill the intro sound on the website, and extending
it further to, "the website needs some serious work". (I understand you may
not be in a position to do anything about any of this.)

It's got too many stock photos on the front page that don't describe anything
about the company or its services -- they're just there fulfilling this
"blueness" theme. Why is there a picture of J. Random Dude in a suit? How does
that help describe or sell the service?

I use three-second test for website design: go to the website, look at it for
three seconds, and then close the window. Now tell me everything that you
learned in those three seconds. I find my eyes dancing around the page,
finally landing on the bold "Bluefin payment systems" text at the beginning of
your paragraph, and then time's up. After the three seconds is up, do I want
to go take a second look at the website? Is there a draw? Well ... not really.

After glancing around some more, I finally find the navigation in the top left
-- which is in light gray, in (the wrong kind of) subtle contrast to the blue
theme everywhere else and dark page text -- and then I statr getting to the
information I want, but I still have to drill down to it (click on the
"Payment Gateway" item, which takes me to a page with all the other services
that I'm not interested in, and a link to "learn more about payment gateway"
-- basically a totally unnecessary middle step).

So, from a UI standpoint, the website IM(NS)HO needs a complete reworking.
Then, there's the technical matter of using JavaScript mouseovers for your
rollovers instead of css :hover tags, etc...

I dunno if Bluefin is really well-established, or still growing, or generally
cares one way or the other about its website, but ... maybe somebody there'll
find this helpful.

~~~
swombat
It's blatantly a standard Flash template from TemplateMonster, fyi.

Those are good to throw something together quickly with a professional
appearance to it, but I would never run a proper business on a TemplateMonster
template...

Daniel

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jkush
Check out [http://www.quotesignal.com/merchant-account-comparison-
calcu...](http://www.quotesignal.com/merchant-account-comparison-
calculator.aspx) *

If you get a quote, run it through this calculator first. The site only has
two partners right now, but check them out anyway.

Also, the blog has some information for how to calculate what your costs are
going to be: <http://www.quotesignal.com/blog//?p=4>

It's a three-part series.

* I co founded this site.

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spencerfry
<http://www.chasepaymentech.com/> \+ PayPal

Chase has excellent rates and amazing customer service. I've tried many
Merchants and they're by far the best I've ever used.

~~~
lux
We found Chase in Canada (I can't speak for them in the US) to be quite
lacking in responsiveness. I was pretty surprised about it actually.

We're going with Optimal Payments up here (www.optimalpayments.ca), who have
been very responsive, amazingly helpful, and have really good rates for Canada
too :)

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johns
We use <http://www.merchantplus.com>

Low rates, authorize.net compatible API. Haven't had any issues with them and
support is resposive.

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swombat
We used SecureTrading for one of our businesses. Their documentation was a bit
byzantine at first (heavy on the technical info, but light on the actual
business process that one needs to follow). However, I can really warmly
recommend them because they offer good prices and excellent tech support when
you're in trouble (and when your payment gateway is in trouble, you really
want good support!)

Daniel

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sptrobb
I know I am bragging - but I don't think you could find a better merchant
account than the one I have to offer. Check out my blog for more info
<http://www.straightpassthrough.biz>

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tortilla
<http://trustcommerce.com> or <http://getbraintree.com/>

Both are good for recurring billing.

~~~
witten
I used to work for TC. At the time they didn't provide merchant accounts, just
payment processing. Of course, they had partners that did provide merchant
accounts.

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mattmaroon
Paypal's merchant services are pretty easy to get up and running. The rates
are ok if you're doing low volume, though if you're doing high volume you can
find much better.

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sanswork
Check out Moneris, though they may not be the best choice for you it's the
most used one around here. It really depends on where most of your business
will be done.

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admoin
google checkout's features are limited, but the rates are competitive and it's
essentially free if you use adwords enough

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dshah
We're using Cybersource at HubSpot. They acquired authorize.net, so it's the
same company now.

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coffeecoffee
Does anyone use amazon FPS?

~~~
witten
I tried to sign up for it a few months ago, but the signup process was so
buggy that I gave up on it.

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mkull
authorize.net + paymentech

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snowbird122
Is that ChasePaymentTech? <http://www.chasepaymentech.com>

~~~
spencerfry
Yes.

