Payment Solutions - For $10 Or Less
If you're using the Internet to make money, then at some stage, you're probably going to need a way of accepting payments from your customers. This won't apply, of course, if all you are doing is affiliate marketing, but as soon as you start to create and sell your own products, or re-sell private label material, then this will be an issue you need to sort out.
There are two particular online payment solutions that you should really accept:
- Credit / Debit Cards
To be honest, you can probably get away without having your own credit card processor, as there are other means of accepting credit cards and debit cards online, such as PayPal (see below). However, if you can accept credit and debit cards without having to use a service such as PayPal, you will find you get a slightly higher conversion rate, especially if you are selling to people outside of the Internet marketing community.
Having said that, finding a credit card processor with reasonable fees can be very difficult, especially for small, new Internet-based businesses, but we have found one where the statement fee is only $9.95 a month.
- PayPal
You probably already have a PayPal account, but if you don't, you will definitely need one of these!
There are other possibilities, which are listed further down the page, but these should be considered secondary to the two already mentioned.
Electronic Transfer, Inc.
This company charges a very low monthly statement fee, which meets our criteria for being listed on this site. Unfortunately, other charges may apply, but, based on our extensive research, these additional fees still compare very favourably with other credit card processors that we've checked out. If you decide you want to accept credit cards and debit cards on your website, then you won't find a better deal than this.
Cost: $9.95 Per Month Statement Fees (other fees may apply)
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AlertPay
AlertPay is one of the new kids on the block, and aims to offer the same features as PayPal.
Note, however, that you can't do some things yet that you may expect to do, such as set up subscription payments, and fund your account via credit / debit card. These features are, though, due to made available during 2007.
AlertPay is not that widely known outside of the Internet marketing arena yet, but it is worth adding this payment solution to your website, as there are those who don't like using PayPal for various reasons.
Cost: FREE
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SafePay Solutions
SafePay Solutions offers facilities similar to PayPal (i.e. you can send money, receive money, and collect payments from customers.
It is not as widely accepted as PayPal, but it is being accepted on more and more websites, especially with the Internet Marketing community.
Cost: FREE
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Western Union
Western Union is a well-respected company that allows you to send people money both online and offline.
However, from an Internet marketer's perspective, it should be treated as an offline payment method and therefore only be considered as a fall-back option, as you will not receive the payment immediately - even if your customer sends the money via the Western Union website, you won't receive the money until some time later.
The main advantage is, though, that it offers a payment method for those people who don't have or can't get credit cards or a PayPal account, or who simply don't like providing their credit card details over the Internet.
The main disadvantage, of course, from the customer's view point is that they won't be able to obtain their goods until you have actually received their payment.
Cost: FREE
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e-gold
e-gold has been around for several years now, although you rarely see it outside of a small subset of Internet marketing programs. It became popular when PayPal froze people's accounts at a moment's notice for alleged or actual noncompliance with their Terms & Conditions. Specifically, it was often the only payment option for programs such as autosurfs and HYIPs.
The biggest problem with e-gold is that it is both hard and expensive to work with - although you can open an account for free, you have to fund your account via third-party exchangers.
For security reasons, most of these companies now require you to submit verification documents (e.g. photo id), and this can take a few days, at best. Funding your account can also be a slow process, and there are periods when some exchangers simply don't have any e-gold in stock to sell you.
Buying e-gold can also be very expensive, with exchangers taking anywhere up to 15% in commissions.
If you do want to offer e-gold to your customers, then you can find instructions on how to open your free account here.
And if you're looking for some third party exchangers, then we have used both Pay By Gold and the London Gold Exchange, but you can find other's listed on e-gold's own website.
We recommend that you only offer e-gold to your customers as an alternative payment method - you must offer at least one more easy-to-use solution too.
Cost: FREE
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