Ecommerce merchant account for online sales

Do I need a merchant account to sell online?

You need one to take card payments at all; the question is whose. With a payment service provider such as Stripe, Square or PayPal you sell under their merchant account, which is why signup takes minutes and why they can hold funds or close you later without much notice. With a dedicated ecommerce merchant account the account is in your business's name, underwriting happens before you go live, and your rates are quoted for your business. Neither is wrong. A new shop with small volume is often fine on a provider's umbrella; a store with real volume, repeat customers, phone orders or a product that providers restrict is usually better off with its own account. Tell us what you sell and we will say which we would choose in your place.

Is a merchant account better than Stripe?

Better at some things, and we will not pretend it is better at everything. Stripe wins on signup speed and developer tooling, and its standard online card rate is 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction, as published by Stripe at the time of writing. A dedicated merchant account wins on account stability, because your business was underwritten up front; on pricing once volume grows, because interchange-plus passes the card networks' cost through instead of blending it; on a human to call; and on products Stripe will not board. The full side-by-side, including what to do if Stripe has already closed your account, is on our Authorize.net vs Stripe page.

How long does approval take, and what do you need from me?

Approvals usually come back within hours, three days at most. The clock starts when the application is complete, so the fastest approvals are the ones where we have everything on the first pass: the legal business details and ownership, a voided check or bank letter for the settlement account, government ID for the signer, recent processing statements if you have taken cards before, and a look at the website itself.

Underwriting reads your website as part of the application. It wants a working checkout on a secure site, a clear description of what you sell, a business name that matches the application, a refund and shipping policy a customer can find, and contact details. A site still under construction is what slows most ecommerce approvals down, so tell us if yours is and we will say what needs to be visible before we submit.

Is a payment gateway included?

Yes. A merchant account on its own cannot take a payment from a website; the gateway carries the card from your checkout to the networks and brings back the approval. We provision it with the account, from the same application, so you are never holding one without the other. NMI is our default for a new store: it sells only through resellers like us and gives you the virtual terminal, customer vault, recurring billing and invoicing in one login. Authorize.net is the usual pick for Shopify and for anyone whose software or developer already knows it. Our NMI vs Authorize.net page has the decision table.

Which shopping carts work with it?

Any cart that lists NMI or Authorize.net as a payment option, which covers WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento and most hosted carts and ordering platforms, plus Shopify through its third-party provider option with Authorize.net. The table above shows how each one connects; if you are not sure, send us the name of your platform and we check the integration before boarding, not after. With no cart at all, the gateway's hosted payment page and payment links take orders by email or text on the same merchant account until the store is built.

Can I take ACH online?

Where boarded. Both gateways can take a bank payment on a checkout, on an invoice and on a stored customer profile for recurring billing, and ACH is worth having for large tickets, wholesale orders and repeat billing where card costs add up. But ACH is enabled on the merchant-account side, not by a switch in the gateway, and not every business is boarded for it. If you want bank payments, say so on the first call and we put ACH in the application from the start.

What makes my rates higher or lower?

Our merchant accounts are priced interchange-plus: the card networks' interchange passes through at cost and our markup sits on top as a fixed amount, so your effective rate moves with the cards your customers use. Debit costs less than a rewards credit card; corporate and international cards cost more. A flat rate charges the same for all of them, which is why a store with many debit customers overpays on one.

Beyond the card mix, underwriting sets your markup from what it can see: your industry, monthly volume and average ticket, your processing history, your chargeback and refund rates, and the fact that online sales are card-not-present, which costs more than tap-to-pay at a counter everywhere. We quote the gateway fee and the processing together, in writing, before you sign anything.

Will my funds be held, or will I have a reserve?

Usually not for an ordinary retail store with a working site and no history of chargebacks, but it depends on underwriting, and we would rather say that than promise. A reserve is more likely when the product ships long after the sale, when you sell a restricted product, when the history shows disputes, or when volume is new and large. If underwriting asks for one, it is stated in the approval before you go live, with the terms.