Every processor out there has the same base cost for any given credit card transaction. This cost is known as interchange. Processors make money to pay their bills and turn a profit by marking up this cost and passing it along to its merchants. How much your rates are marked up can vary greatly, and there are a lot of factors that can go into how much of a markup you’re paying.

This is a bit of an over simplistic view of it, and it assumes that all processors are created equal. While they all do in fact have the same, Visa and MasterCard mandated costs when it comes to the processing of a transaction, but there is something else to it. They will all need to cover their costs on each individual transaction, but they will also have to mark up interchange more or less depending on how much other overhead they have. Therefore, the processor who is able to run its operation most efficiently is likely going to be able to offer you better rates.

So what can you do to make sure that your credit card processor is up there with some of the most efficient processors around? Unfortunately, at the business owner level, there is not a whole lot that you can do. Many processors are privately held, so they have no obligation to provide audited financial statements to the SEC. All you can really do is to take a look at your own credit card processing rates and do your best to figure out if they’re marked up too much.

How Much is Too Much

That begs the next question, or questions. First, how can you tell how much your transactions are marked up, and secondly, how much is too much? Certainly, it is going to vary depending on your situation. One thing I can tell you is that the Card Associations, (Visa, MasterCard and Discover), who are the ones that dictate what interchange actually is, they disclose the current interchange tables on their websites. You can take a look and try to figure it out, but it really is very complicated. Your next best bet is to give us a call here at Sure Payment Solutions. We’ll be able to take a look at your most recent processing statement and let you know if you’re paying too much. If so, we’ll show you exactly which line items we think are too high, and we’ll even let you know what you would pay if you were to process with us. It’s fast and easy, and there are never any obligations or costs associated with this.

You probably get calls all the time from people trying to get you to switch over your credit card processing. You hear all the promises about all the thousands and thousands of dollars that you will save. You may even have taken someone up on one of these offers only to find a few months later that your rates really aren’t any different. Sure, they may have lowered you “qualified rate” but they may have raised your rate in another line item just to make up the difference so you are left paying just about the same amount that you previously were.

How to Save Money on your Credit Card Processing

If you have tried to do this a few times already but without any luck, it does not mean that you are doomed to paying the same high discount rate or transaction fee for the rest of your days. You just need to find a reputable company out there who is willing to do the legwork and actually PROVE to you that you will end up saving money by switching over your merchant account.

So how can you tell if you’re dealing with a company like that? The first thing that you want to do is to ask your representative for a detailed rate analysis. Don’t accept just a plain text email saying something like, “You’re paying 1.7%, and we’ll lower it to 1.6%.” That’s totally bogus. There is so much more to it than that, that if you’re representative thinks that he or she can actually break it down for you this way, he or she probably has no idea how it all works.

The truth is that there can literally be hundreds of different line items that go into how much you end up paying at the end of the month. You want to work with someone who is willing to address each of the applicable line items and show you line by line, exactly how much you are paying now, and what they are proposing to lower it to. Keep in mind that they may not actually lower every single line item, but the proposed rates may still show you savings at the end of the day. For example, if you are paying 1.5% and $0.25 per transaction, but you run a lot of transactions each month, it may make sense to pay 1.59% and $0.18 per transaction. Even though they proposed RAISING your discount rate, the overall savings on the $0.07 that your transaction fee would be lowered would more than make up the difference.

You may ask, why would someone do that? Why would they opening admit that they are raising a certain line item from your previous credit card processing rates? The answer to that question is more than likely that the person you are working with is an honest person and wants to be totally transparent. They are willing to walk you through and take the time to explain how everything works, and they would rather propose a fair rate structure rather than making you think that you are paying 0.05% but then charging you $10.00 per transaction (slight exaggeration there, but you get the picture).

Call Sure Payment Solutions

Call us here to find out exactly how much money you can save. On average, our customers save $40-$50 every single month by utilizing our services compared to their current credit card processing rates. That adds up, believe me. So give us a call and we’ll give you a free consultation and a full rate comparison, and we’ll make sure you have all the information you need to make an informed decision.

In this day and age, it shouldn’t be hard to come up with a few good reasons to start accepting credit cards from your customers. First of all, more and more consumers are opting to pay with plastic rather than the old fashioned way of paying with cash. This is largely because of the increase in cardholder rewards programs. For example, many Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express cards offer travel rewards or cash back. This is a bummer for all the cash cows out there, but there are many benefits to getting set up to process credit cards.

First of all, you’ll stop losing customers to people who are going next door or across the street to a place where they can pay with plastic. Even if you run just a handful of extra transactions each month, the extra revenue should more than pay for the fees you’ll incur from processing cards.

Secondly, people tend to spend more money when they’re paying with plastic. I don’t think it would be unreasonable to see your credit card customers spend at least 5% more than they would as a cash transaction. This is largely psychological. Getting someone to swipe a plastic card is way easier than parting them with the precious cash in their wallet. Sounds silly doesn’t it?

Adding credit card processing to your business will allow you to expand into the world of e-commerce. If you’re willing to spend a little bit of time and money building a great website, you can add a whole new stream of revenue to your business with very little overhead.

It’s so easy to set up, just give us a call and you can talk to an account representative today about what kind of rates you’d enjoy, and how quickly you can get set up.

If your business is a cash cow, and you’re ready to take it to the next level by deciding to accept credit cards from your customers instead of just cash, you should do a bit of research on which merchant service provider you’re going to set your account up with. If you’re doing a ton of business, the last thing you want is to set up a merchant account with someone who’s going to freeze your account if you start processing too many transactions. It happens from time to time and it’s way easier to deal with beforehand than it is after-the-fact.

Where to Go for a High Volume Merchant Account

Your bank may be an obvious choice. It would certainly be a safe one. As the institution that handles your bank accounts, they will probably jump at the opportunity to process credit card transactions on your behalf. First of all, their risk is significantly mitigated compared to a typical merchant service provider because they have direct access to all of your capital in the accounts that they’re holding in your name. So again, your bank is a safe choice, but we find that most people who process credit cards with the same company that does there banking tend to pay more than they need to for this privilege.

We’ve seen it hundreds of times: businesses being charged 2%-3% more than they have to just for the convenience of processing and banking with the same company. Most of the time it’s out of convenience, or because they have a level of comfort there, but trust me, especially if you’re going to be processing a lot of transactions, it’s not worth what it’s going to cost you.

Maybe you just don’t want to shop for a merchant account. You may be scared that you’re going to get ripped off, or may be uneasy dealing with a new person. The trick is finding a reputable company that knows what they’re doing. Search the Better Business Bureau for accredited companies because they’re likely to provide you with a great user experience. Even harder may be finding someone who knows what they’re doing. After all, whether or not the processor decides to hold your funds has a lot to do with how your account representative sets up your account.

You won’t regret working with Sure Payment Solutions. Our rates are more competitive than your local banks’, and we’ll set you up the right way so you don’t have any headaches down the line. Give us a call today to find out what we can do.

Most people who own a traditional type of brick and mortar business understand at least the basics of how their credit card processing service actually works. For example, let’s say that you own a restaurant or a retail clothing store. People who own these types of businesses understand that they’ll need to get a credit card processing terminal or reprogram their existing terminal, so that when they batch out there transactions at the end of each day, the information is routed to their new credit card processor so that they can deposit the funds into their bank account.

It gets a bit trickier when you’re setting up an online business, whether it’s standalone or just a new stream of revenue for your existing retail business. Most business owner’s don’t really know how this works, and understandably so because it’s not really easy.

Processing Transactions on your Website

This may go without saying, but just to be safe I’m going to put it here. The first thing you’ll need to do this is a website. If you don’t have a website, you’re going to have a hard time processing transactions online.

The next thing you’ll need is a shopping cart. You can do this in a few different ways. If you have a savvy webmaster, he may be able to build some custom shopping cart software, but this isn’t really recommended. For starters, you’ll have to know already who you’re going to process those transactions through, and what gateway you’ll be using. That way your programmer will be able to integrate that with the shopping cart he’s building.

What’s recommended here is to purchase some shopping cart software. There are a lot of options online, and most of them are already compatible with most processors and gateways, so 1) you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues, and 2) you’re not totally committed to staying with this processor for the rest of your life. Believe me, you’re not going to want to have to rebuild your custom shopping cart just because you want to save some money on your credit card processing rates. Most of the shopping cart software out there is relatively easy to install.

Next, you’ll need a gateway. Contact your credit card processor (current or new), and find out which gateways they’ll be compatible with. Cross check that list with the list of gateways that your shopping cart is compatible with. Chances are you’ll come up with a few common and inexpensive gateways to set up. The most common is probably Authorize.net. You can either contact them directly or your processor can usually set it up for less money than you would pay on your own.

Once you have all this done, you’ll need a few bits of information from your processor and your gateway, and you should be ready to plug it into the shopping cart software, and voila. Be sure to test it out. Run a test transaction and call your processor to make sure that it went through.

Troubleshooting

Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned, especially with technical things like this. Before you do anything you want to contact someone in technical support at your credit card processor, and let them know what gateway and shopping cart you’re planning on using, and make sure you get the go ahead from them.