Is There a Good Alternative to Paypal?

Paypal is the biggest and most popular payment processing company for online sales.  Paypal helps individuals purchase goods and services online using their debit/credit card  or Paypal account.  Most shopping carts have Paypal installed as their payment processor.

Paypal has no monthly fee or set up fee for their regular services.  They charge 2.9% plus .30 of each transaction for both credit and debit cards.  Their Virtual Terminal service, allowing businesses to manually input payment information online, is about $30.00 per month.  For most of these services, paying customers do not even need a Paypal account!

So why are we exploring Paypal alternatives?  For several reasons, including: looking for lower transaction fees, wanting to support a smaller company, not wanting to fall victim to the Paypal horror stories, needing a simpler interface, or better customer service.

Alternatives

After doing quite a bit of research, I finally found a suitable alternative.  Most payment processing companies charge ridiculous fees from 4.9% plus .25 and up. The company that I recommend is Merchant Warehouse who pairs with Authorize.net.  Here’s a little about them:

Since 1998, Merchant Warehouse® has maintained a distinguished reputation as one of the largest, most reputable merchant service providers in the payment card industry. Merchant Warehouse has enabled over 50,000 businesses nationwide to accept electronic card payments by offering the best deals on merchant processing solutions and by providing unrivaled service and support.

Merchant Warehouse is Your One-Stop-Shop for:

• Discounted Credit Card Processing Services & Equipment
• Customized Business Processing Solutions
• Competitive Merchant Account Pricing & Value-Added Programs
• Reliable, Accessible, & Knowledgeable Support Teams

Their rates for credit cards are about the same as Paypal but for debit cards the fee is only .69%.  And, unless the card is specified as a credit card most payments default at the debit card rate.  Their customer service has been very good.  Another nice piece of their service is that transfers to your bank account occur automatically and daily.

Check them out if you are looking for an alternative to Paypal.