Free Third Credit Card Party Processors &
Credit Card Processing

Web Site Summary: This web site discusses how YOU can use a FREE third party credit card processor to accept credit cards on your web site. It is important to realize that you can use third party processors because you can save yourself a ton of money that might be spent on a merchant account.

If you are looking for a merchant account or credit card processor for your web site you can save a ton of money and time by using a third party credit card processor. Essentially, a third party processor will do all the leg work for you so that all you do is sit back and collect checks!

1. Your Product

First, let's discuss the type of product you will be selling online as this will determine which third party credit processor you will be able to use.

There are two main types of products that you might be selling:

• "Digitally Deliverd" Products (i.e., E-books, monthly subscription to web site, etc.)
• Tangible, Hard Goods (i.e., Laptops, Books, Cellphones, etc.)

Now in each of these cases there are different third party processors you can take advantage of.

2. "Digitally Delivered" Products

For digitally delivered products such as E-books, web site subscriptions, or files for things such as software there are special third party credit card processors. These processors focus only on "digital" content. They do not provide credit card processing to companies that sell tangible goods.

One such service that offers this is Verotel. On their web site Verotel explains processing only digital content this way:

"Verotel offers only credit card processing for websites offering content. Please note, tangible products and services can NOT be sold with a Verotel account."

Not only can Verotel sell your digital content like E-books and software, but it also has some special features for those with web sites that sell access to content monthly. For example if you have a members only web site that costs $19.95/month, Verotel has special recurring billing software that will help you manage the members of your web site and bill them monthly.

Probably the best thing about Verotel is that you can sign up for free. In fact, they will even help you set up the script that needs to run on your web site. Not a bad deal, free setup and free support!

You might be wondering how much Verotel per transaction. In fact their rates are very reasonable.

Example: If you sell an E-book that costs $29 then Verotel will charge you 12% of $29 which equals $3.48. That is very reasonable considering there are no setup fees!

$29 (E-book) * 12% (Verotel fee) = $3.48 Verotel fee per each E-book sold

Conclusion: If you are looking for low cost alternative to credit credit processing, Verotel might be the answer. If you sell digital content of any kind Verotel will provide you low cost processing and great customer support.

3. Tangible Products

If you are selling a TANGIBLE product such as books, CD's, or anything that would need to be SHIPPED to your customer you will not be able to use Verotel. As mentioned earlier Verotel only allow products that are digitally delivered and not tangible hard goods.

Therefore, you will need to use a third party processor that allows you to sell tangible products.

One very popular processor is PayPal. PayPal actually allows you to sell both digital and tangible goods. People who sell their products using the popular auction site Ebay in many cases use PayPal.

PayPal is unique in that any person using PayPal, to either purchase or receive money, needs to set up an account with PayPal. Also, you can use the same account to pay people with your account and you can also use your account to receive money.

To learn more about PayPal I recommend signing up for a free purchasing account. When you sign up you actually receive $5 FREE that you can use to pay other companies and people that use Paypal.

Example: If you sell Hardcover Books that costs $29 using the Standard Paypal account then Paypal will charge you 2.9% of $29 + .30 which equals $1.14. That is very reasonable considering there are no setup fees!

$29 (Hardcover) * 2.9% (Paypal fee) + .30 (PayPal fee) = $1.14 PayPal fee per each E-book sold

For more complete information regarding PayPal transaction fee make sure to sign up with PayPal then once you are logged in Upgrade your account to a Business Account if you are looking to use them as your processor.

Conclusion: PayPal is another great alternative for selling tangible products and also digital products. To get a better idea of PayPal is like I would recommend setting up an account and using it to buy something from a vendor that uses PayPal. Since they give you $5 to open an account it is definitely worth a try!

Related Links:

• Third Party Payment Processors Explained is a great article at Workz that describes third party processing in detail.