CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Looking for people's experience regarding accepting payments in Civi... is one easier on the Civi "Side" than the other?

My client is a borderline use case for a full merchant account(Authorize.Net) issues of ease of use/configuration simplicity/ease of upgrades could push us in one direction or the other.

Would love to hear from folks, and I think it would be a great discussion to have "on file" here in the forums.

Thanks
Mike

Thanks Stoob! Any other opinions/Recommendations out there?

If you shop around, you'll find that Paypal WPP ends up being significantly more expensive than a regular merchant account + Authorize.net.  If you find the right acquirer, they often throw Authorize.net in for free or at a much-reduced cost.

There is a bit more technical complexity with Authorize.net, but it can definitely be worthwhile cost-wise if you have the necessary skillset.

I recommend these two sites which allow acquirers to compete for your business.  No affiliation here, other than having used one of them to find our current processor:

http://www.cardfellow.com/
http://feefighters.com/

We found a pretty good deal on one of those sites (I forget which now).  Our all-in total processing cost, including all monthly fees, authorize.net, etc. averages about 2.5% of our total transaction volume.  We found that Paypal WPP was closer to 4% once you add in the per transaction and monthly fees.