Quote:
Originally Posted by beaner
To directly answer your question the merchant, ccbill, takes on costs to operate. That includes review of sites for compliance, chargeback fees imposed by the credit card company, customer support, etc.
I have asked this question many, many times and never received a direct answer. It is therefore my opinion that CCBill evaluates all the "possible" fees associated with providing what they do and decided $750 per account, per year, on average, would be suitable.
That's my opinion but as far as I am concerned or aware of, VISA does not charge a merchant a yearly flat VISA fee. Billers call it a VISA fee because indirectly and directly... it could be. Also, VISA representitives are not reviewing each site for VISA compliance... CCBill representatives are.
|
The VISA fee is a very real annual fee assessed by VISA and collected by payment processors. It wasn't arbitrarily decided by CCBill.
With our US IPSP we have to either claim the fee from our customers or decide to cover it ourselves. With our EU IPSP we do not have to do this because the EU VISA assesses their fee as a "per transaction" charge instead. Some of our competitors pay for every US merchant they board.
Each payment processing company brings a different set of assets to the table. Some save you money up front, some have better tools and save you money all along, some have very flexible payment solutions, some have better customer service than others, some rest on having a good brand, etc. When selecting, I'd encourage you to consider more than just whether or not they'll assume the VISA fee for you.
I have the benefit of being able to board merchants on either the US IPSP or the EU IPSP and depending on their volume, sometimes the US VISA fee is actually the lesser evil. To board in either place you need to have a corp based there, of course. In addition, I represent the ability to set you up with your own merchant account with gateway services, where you'd have to pay all the card services fees, but only annually, instead of with each additional 3rd party IPSP you select to work with.
I know you asked for non payment processing employee answers, but you're going to get the best information from those of us in the industry.