Merchant Account Application

Apply for your online Merchant Account today:

We use Authorize.Net as our preferred merchant account gateway service. Authorize.Net ties into most online merchant services, and offers the option of permitting you to activate an account for both merchant services (accepting credit card payments) and their gateway service (permitting online transactions through a merchant service) bundled together.

There are a number of common questions about merchant accounts we'd like to address here:

What is a merchant account? A merchant account in banking parlance is the ability to accept customer credit cards for the payment of goods and services. In a retail or office environment, this means that the merchant (your company) has an account with a qualified bank which permits you to accept your customers cards for bill or invoice payments. You are responsible to submit information about the transaction (the customer's card number, your merchant number, the total transaction amount, and identification information about the customer to insure that the card isn't being used fraudulently.)

How does a merchant account work on the web? The web requires both your shopping cart and a gateway service to act as the swipe machine. With a storefront, one would normally have a swipe machine preprogrammed with the merchant acct information. By swiping a card through the device, or typing in the information manually, this machine will complete the transaction by dialing up the merchant bank and submit the purchase data.

On the web, most merchant banks do not have servers set up to interface with websites directly for the collection and processing of this data, hence companies called Gateways have filled the void by acting as go-betweens for banks and secure web servers with shopping carts. AuthorizeNet is one such gateway, and our preferred vendor.

Do I need to set up an account with a merchant bank separately? No. The link at the bottom of this page will take you to a detailed application form with AuthorizeNet and a well-known national bank. When completed, the application will be processed for both companies. You'll know about your merchant account usually within 2-3 days for domestic services or 2-3 weeks for international services.

What cards are supported by AuthorizeNet? The four principal cards accepted by AuthorizeNet are:

American Express

Discover

MasterCard

Visa

How much does it cost to have an account? There are setup fees and ongoing fees. The ongoing fees depend on a number of factors. AuthorizeNet with a normal bank:

$150 setup fee

For Discover, Visa and MasterCard:

$25/mo transaction fee or ~2.4% of the total transactions, whichever is higher

$10/mo statement fee

$0.35/transaction

For American Express:

~3.85% of the total transactions, whichever is higher

Can I accept international currencies? Yes.

There are several ways of accepting international currencies. The most common and least expensive is to simply bill in US Dollars, then allow the merchant services (Visa, MC, Discover or American Express) deal with the current exchange rates for that day. An alternative is to use another gateway service such as PlanetPayment to provide a multicurrency gateway.

This service will require several things:

The transaction discount rate is usually higher (~3.19% rather than 2.39% as of this writing).

Running a multi-currency site will require additional coding to provide current exchange rates on your site for products, updated frequently.

Credits to your account are typically disbursed twice a month rather than within 48-72 business hours.

Each of the 1000+ ecommerce solutions out there seem to have some variance on that kind of scheme. And other issues cloud the skies: the rates may depend on what kind of business, what kind of charges are invoiced or collected (goods vs services), creditworthiness of the individual business or owner and such.

Note: due to how the AuthorizeNet website is constructed, the menu on the left side may not show the Apply Now link. Scroll to the botton of the left menu to select the Apply Now link and start your application.