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Following are several merchant account providers you may be interested in contacting:

www.paypal.com

PayPal allows you to accept payments instantly without need to set up special accounts or sign long-term contracts. You will want to strongly consider using this one if you are processing less than $1000 per month.

www.totalmerchantservices.com

Total Merchant Services is one of largest resellers of merchant accounts both on and offline, and are trusted by literally tens of thousands of businesses of all sizes. They use First Data as their back-end processor.

www.merchantexpress.com

This is a well-respected processor that services both on and offline businesses.

www.expandyourbusiness.com

CardService International provides a very helpful eBook that you can download for free

Some Issues You Want To Consider

Generally speaking you will be more concerned with up-front and recurring fees rather than discount rate that processing companies will quote most prominently. The hidden fees generally eclipse discount rates – especially for low volume start-up businesses.

Try to accurately estimate your business volume when you fill out your applications. The risk department at your processing company can put a freeze on your account if your volumes move significantly outside estimates you have provided them.

If you do experience a sudden spike in orders, you should contact risk department of your processing company to make them aware of spike BEFORE it hits their system. They may want to have you send them details about orders and provide proof that orders are legitimate. As inconvenient as this is, it is far better than getting your account frozen.

Make sure you understand what fees you will be responsible for if you need to cancel your account before end of your contract. You may find that you need to shut down your account for a variety of reasons, and you don’t want to find out about exit fees after you get bill!

In conclusion, you should start off your search for credit card processing by making a realistic estimate of your processing needs. If you believe you will be processing less than $1000 per month, then you will probably want to work with a third-party processor like PayPal. If you will be processing more than $1000 per month then you will want to work with a traditional credit card processing company (see list of processors above). You should be more concerned with upfront and recurring fees than with discount rate. Once you have selected a processing company, you will want to make sure you have your business license and business bank account. Finally, you will need to make sure that your shopping cart system supports your processing company.