Hi,

I'm in the process of converting a website to support credit card payments through Authorize.net.

I'm looking at the total fees though, and want to make sure they are in line with industry averages.

Current merchant account: NPC (formerly retriever). Have a physical terminal for processing actual cards.

Adding: Authorize.net as a gateway.

The incremental fees NPC plans to charge are:

Merchant: 2.25% + $.20 / transaction

Authorize.net:
$15 per month - basic gateway service
$.10 per transaction
$.25 per batch transaction
$5 "paper" reporting fee (they claim they can't waive this)


Also, they are charging a $200 per year security fee. This seems to be the case even if you are PCI compliant. (Not a penalty). "NPC Platinum Security Program"

Questions for those with merchant accounts:

1. Overall, the monthly fee and transaction fees look in line to me. However, the paper fee and security fee seem suspicious. Is this an industry standard now as a form of insurance against data breaches? We are being told we can't have it waived even if we are PCI compliant.

2. When we process transactions, is it normal to be double-billed ( transaction fees from both the gateway AND the merchant? )

Thanks!

[edited by: nquinn at 8:14 pm (utc) on Dec 22, 2011]