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If you are looking for ways to accept credit card online without using any merchant account, consider the few companies in this article. Be prepared to pay a few percentage commissions to the company from your sales. This article provides some basic information on adding credit card payment facilities to your website.

Accepting credit card payment allow you to take advantage of the following types of customers:

1. Impulse buyers. After reading your advertisements and hype on your site, buyers would be all fired up about your product. If they have a means of making a purchase immediately, you've secured that sale. If you only allow cheque payments, the additional time it takes for them to get their cheque book and mail out the cheque may be a deterrence. They may also have second thoughts later.
    
2. International customers. Credit card payment is a tremendous convenience if your customers are overseas. It automatically takes care of the problems of currency differences as well as the time it takes for a cheque to travel to the vendor. You will lose a large number of overseas customers if cheque payment is the only way you can accept payment.

Methods of Accepting Credit Card Payments

There are actually two ways in which you can accept credit cards on your site.

1. Using Your Own Merchant Account. To do this, you will need a bank that will allow you to open a merchant account. Requirements for this will vary from country to country, and you should check with your local banks for more information on this.
2. Through a Third Party Merchant. There are numerous companies around will are willing to accept credit cards payments on your behalf in exchange for various fees and percentages.

Charge.com
Customer service is good, but payment period seems to be inconsistent. Research carefully before you sign up.

ClickBank.net
There is a one time setup fee (US$49.95) and a transaction fee of US$1 plus 7.5% of sale price. There are no other monthly fees. This is only for people who sell services or deliver products over the internet (not for those who need to ship physical products).

WorldPay.com
WorldPay enable thousands of businesses to accept payments on the internet, by phone, fax or mail. Credit and debit cards, bank transfers, instalments - even mobile payments.

Digipay.com
This service is intended for software authors only. They charge 13.9% per transaction. I'm not sure if there are any other charges.

Kagi
There are no setup or monthly fees with this merchant. Kagi "charges 6.5% up to a maximum of [US]$3.00... plus 3.5% plus [US]$0.50 for processing costs".

PayPal
If you are a Premier or Business account user, you get charged US$0.25 for transactions of US$15 and below, 1.9% plus US$0.25 for transactions above US$15 when your customers pay by credit card. They require your customers to sign up for their services before they can pay you. This can be a deterrent for your customers.

ProPay.com
A new competitor to PayPal (see elsewhere on this page) that currently only caters to US residents. You have to pay a $35 fee to sign up, but there are no monthly charges.

RegNow.com
Designed for software authors to sell their ware, this merchant deducts 20% of your sale price with a minimum of US$2.00 for their commission. There are also other charges for sales generated by your affiliates, etc.

Verza.com
There are no setup or monthly charges. Transaction charges range from 4.9% to 6.9% of your sale price plus US $0.99.

CardPay.net
One of the competitive credit card processing companies in the internet industry yet without compromising quality.