payment gateway comparison

junglequestions

I'm trying to decide on which payment gateway to use:

There are 3 viable options:

Realex - www.realex.ie

Worldpay - www.worldpay.ie

2Checkout - www.2checkout.com

Some facts:

Realex - €250 setup fee, €50 per month, €0.25 for every transaction, nightly batching of payments to merchant bank account

Worldpay???

2Checkout - $49 set-up, wholesale rate discount of 5.5% plus $0.45 off the retail price of each total order, request wiretransfer or cheque from the US

Any comments greatly appreciated

Ph3n0m

what about paypal?

junglequestions

ill be using paypal also. but they can't offer direct credit card processing. the consumer needs to have a paypal account!

comer_97

paypal is 3.4% + $.30 at it's max and there is no set up fee.

comer_97

that's not true, i use it for all customers across a number of sites. it allows direct credit card processing, you don't need a paypal account.

there must be a setting in your profile that is causing this!

EDIT: Log into paypal, click profile, click website payment preferences, click PayPal Account Optional, set that to On and save....

mneylon

I wrote this some time ago (never got round to part 2!)

http://www.mneylon.com/blog/archives/2005/12/19/e-commerce-cheat-sheet-part-1/

I'd avoid Worldpay, as they tend to not tell you things up front.

delanest

comer_97 wrote:

that's not true, i use it for all customers across a number of sites. it allows direct credit card processing, you don't need a paypal account.

there must be a setting in your profile that is causing this!

EDIT: Log into papal, click profile, click website payment preferences, click PayPal Account Optional, set that to On and save....

I set up a business papal account just to test the service. Setup is all free. When I tested I was directed to the PayPal website where you can select you have a papal account or you can enter your details. There seemed to be a lot of information that PayPal was looking for, such as home address .etc ... I didn't find it very user friendly, also I think it looks a little unprofessional directing to the white screen of papal (I don't know if you have customized this ??)


dough ! just saw your sig ... will explore

delanest

I just took a look at http://www.greendoorireland.com/. Is this done through paypay ? look impressive, its integrated nicely, I taught you URL in the address bar actually goes to the paypal site ?

comer_97

no that one uses the hostel.com booking engine which does not use paypal.

you can customise your headers and footers in Paypal though, so it looks ok. And It needs your address to verify your card details.

DJB

This may be of interest...

http://www.davidbehan.com/blog/?p=7

junglequestions

I've set-up this little chart.
I hope I've got it right.

It's based on the first year with 100 transaction at €20 per transaction.

Blacknight what is your opinion on Worldpay? Do they have other non-transparent costs?

mneylon

Worldpay were a nightmare to deal with.

We signed up with them initially about 2 and half years ago and they charged us about 900 euro setup.

After being delighted to take our money for the setup they then imposed a number of restrictions on what we could sell and how we could sell it which made it impossible for us to actually use their services.

The thing that got me was that I had been completely upfront with their sales staff from the outset and had told them exactly what we were doing and how we were doing it.

Another thing you've forgotten is deposits.

Worldpay may ask you for a deposit equivalent to your monthly turnover.

Realex won't do that.

There's also the not insignificant matter of how long you have to wait to get your money.

With Realex the money is in your account within one working day (give or take), whereas with WorldPay you can be waiting several weeks.

junglequestions

thanks Blacknight.

I needed an answer like yours to make up my mind. Realex do seem really easy to deal with.

misterq

Sorry Blacknight, but your experience is not everyone's. I've been dealing with WorldPay since 2002 and never had any major issues.

Your points about funds retention are valid, but your not comparing like with like as WorldPay provide a merchant account and Realex don't.

That said, I have also dealt with Realex on many occasions and they are a nice crowd. My only issue with them is that for sites doing a low volume of transactions, 49/month can work out quite expensive.

I would recommend that before you make a decision, create a realistic estimate of what sort of volume you will be doing in year one and work out what the costs of each option will be based on that.

Assuming cost is a factor

mneylon

misterq wrote:

Your points about funds retention are valid, but your not comparing like with like as WorldPay provide a merchant account and Realex don't.

Maybe so, but with a merchant account from your local bank and Realex you get the funds very quickly.

For any small business cash flow is always a high priority

IrishMike

Is it true that paypal is not fully integrated with Irish banks
Saw a post at the end of david behans blog
Anyone care to shed some light on this for me?
thanks

mick.fr

IrishMike wrote:

Is it true that paypal is not fully integrated with Irish banks
Saw a post at the end of david behans blog
Anyone care to shed some light on this for me?
thanks

I do not know about the fact they might be linked or not to Irish banks, but when you create a reseller account, you have to provide your bank details.
At many occasions I get my money wired to my Irish bank account without any problem, took usually 3 days.

APlain

For what its worth I have used www.realex.ie for many years now at www.b4i.ie and I would recommend it above all the others.