Address Verification Services (AVS)
Verifying customers' billing addresses is essential for online transactions. Most merchant accounts will charge you $.05 to $.10 per transaction to check addresses. Swipe 100 credit cards and that's an additional $10. You may like surprises, but not this kind.
Your payment gateway will automatically batch your authorized transactions in order to settle your funds. Other providers charge you $.10 each time it happens, which can be about once a day. That's an extra $.10 every day you run a credit card. You can figure out on your own how quickly those dimes turn into dollars.
It's common for providers to have a minimum fee requirement to make more money from unassuming business owners. If the minimum is $25 and your monthly transaction fees add up to $10, then you've got to pony up an extra $15. We think it's lame to penalize you for having lower sales. If you only need to run a couple credit card transactions each month, that's cool with us.
Other providers can charge you anywhere from $50 to $200 just to get started. We're happy to hook you up right away at no charge. Save that money for something else your business needs.
With most accounts, you'll pay a transaction fee when someone buys a product from you, and then if they return it you'll have to pay that same fee again. We don't think it's your fault that returns happen, so we're not going to charge you to process refund transactions.
Network Access & Brand Usage (NABU)
Visa and MasterCard recently came up with a new fee for the privilege of accepting their cards. This is called a Network Access and Brand Usage fee, or NABU. To cover the fee, most providers will charge you about $.02 per transaction, in addition to all those other fees you've probably already lost track of. Some will even charge you more than necessary to make a profit. We're not worried about the extra pennies, and we don't like the idea of you scratching your head at your statements every month. Don't worry about NABU - we've got that covered for you as well.
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