Best Payment Processor for Online Membership Site

I'm sure this topic has probably been brought up in this forum before, but several searches have left me overwhelmed and a little confused. (I'm a newbie on this topic.)

My situation - I have a website that has excellent traffic. It offers free materials/resources to visitors. The vast majority of my competitors offer similar resources, but they charge a subscription fee for membership. I do make a little money with adsense, but not nearly as much as I would if I charged a subscription fee.

In the near future, I want to switch my website from a "free site" to a "membership site." I'll still offer some free materials, but I will charge a $20 yearly fee for "full access."

I have ZERO experience "selling" things or accepting credit cards online. I understand I will probably need a merchant account.

I would like to be able to accept paypal as well as credit cards - if that's possible. 95% of the subscribers will be American, I suspect.

Question 1 - What "merchant account companies" do you have experience with - good or bad? Wondering which ones I should look at closely and consider.

Question 2 - What are the fees like? I mean, when I read these sites, I'm confused as hell. If I make a $20 sale - about how much will I pocket after their fees?

Question 3 - What kind of work will I have to do on my end when I have customers buying/selling? Returns? Sending in daily reports? Other?

Question 4 - What do I need to know and/or learn about merchant accounts?

Thanks so much for any responses.

And happy holidays!

Tim


EDIT: I checked out the list at http://webscopia.com/2010/11/merchant-accounts-accepts-payments-online/ . It's informative, but I am still overwhelmed. Plimus and 2checkout.com both looked promising... anyone had experience with them?

 

Q.1 - Go for PayPal merchant Account/ Business acc

Q.2 - fees are now the same for all accounts - Personal, Premier, and Business. Please note that the Purchase rate applies to all payments using Request Money. 1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD

Q.3 - You have to keep record of each customer

Q.4 -
https://merchant.paypal.com/cgi-bin...der-content&content_ID=merchant/shopping_cart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXsGRYQtm-U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI39DOT3w00

 

Stay away from paypal.. just google them and you will find countless horror stories about them

 

There's horror stories about any company. As long as you don't do anything stupid, PayPal won't do anything to you.

 

not true.

search about paypal holding money

 

Thanks for the advice everyone. And riteshtechie - Thanks for the youtube links - these are helpful.

I don't think paypal will work for me. Paypal "standard" would link customers tothe paypal site to pay. I definitely don't want that. I want them to stay on my site.

Paypal advanced wil allow them to stay on my site. It looks perfect! Except for one thing - my business has zero credit. We have terrific cash flow, but we've never taken out a business loan or had business credit cards or anything like that. Paypal advanced would do a credit check - and I suspect they'd deny me because we have no credit history.

 

You need a CRM (customer relation management) software there's a lot of good ones out there but its up to what you like, after that you can go with a company that does payment processing and they can find you a bank along with payment processing by linking you in to there payment gateway. depending on if your doing high risk to low risk payment processing will vary the rate you are granted. We do all types of payment processing from cruises, auctions, membership sites, ...



www.globalmerchantsolution.com

 

Paypal is the best solution. If you don't do anything shady, paypal will NOT take you money. Just be honest and sincere.

 

I find these suggestions very useful as i am going to Open an online account very soon.The forum has very interesting topics of discussion and i am looking forward to spend my time to discuss matters.