As a high-risk merchant, no doubt you’re used to having to overcome many challenges to process payments for your products. We’ve had plenty of clients over the years who’ve been very surprised to discover the number of options we have. The fact that you can choose your own payment gateway, regardless of your processor, is one of those surprises.
At Blue Payment Agency, we focus on offering “gateway only” accounts in addition to payment gateway and merchant account combinations. Today, we want to help you realize that you have more freedom than you think. You can most likely choose a high-risk friendly payment gateway that works better for you. In order to do this, we’ll explain a few different payment elements. Hopefully, that will help you get a better grasp of how this all fits together.
Learn the difference between a merchant account and a gateway
When it comes to online payment processing, it’s easy to get lost between terms. It happens to the best of us. This is why it’s often quite useful to go over the basics to make other topics clearer. For you to get a better understanding of how you can choose your own payment gateway, it’s essential that you can easily distinguish between a merchant account and a gateway.
A merchant account, or credit card processor, is essentially where payments process. It’s your financial home base that facilitates the transfer of funds from your customer’s credit or debit card to your business checking account. However, it’s not the same as your business’ checking account. Your merchant account funds settle directly into your primary business bank account.
A payment gateway, or simply a gateway, is what connects the various cogs in the machinery. It connects your website’s shopping cart with the processor. The gateway allows for seamless transactions and information exchange and for transmitting data to your merchant account. It also simplifies the secure, PCI compliant storage, of cardholder data so you can process card of file billings, upsells, recurring billing plans and refunds.
What is a “gateway only” account
We now know that the relationship between the gateway and the merchant account is important and ties together. The question you might be asking yourself now is, “what is a “gateway only” account? You just informed me that I need both a merchant account and a gateway.”
Services like a “gateway only” accounts exist because, for the most part, most processors/merchant account providers allow you to set up an independent gateway. Only a few do not support separate payment gateways.
When you first set up your merchant account and prepare for online credit card processing, your merchant account provider will likely set up your gateway. However, you are often still free to choose to have an independent gateway set up. This is where the “gateway only” services, like the “gateway only” accounts we offer, are so useful.
The value of choosing your own payment gateway
There are many reasons why you might want to choose your own payment gateway. Among them is the fact that various platforms might not work for the gateway you currently have.
By choosing your gateway, more doors are opened for you, and you have more options available.
You may be able to use a different CRM that works better for your business type. Maybe the CRM you’re using works best with NMI, and your processor doesn’t work with NMI. This type of processing improvement can make a world of difference in your everyday life while owning and running your high-risk online business.
Another great benefit of choosing your own gateway is that you get to control your data.
In an ideal world, we’d like to set up our processor and gateway once, never touch it again, and have it work smoothly. However, if you do end up changing something down the line, being able to control your own data is extremely useful and valuable.
When you choose your payment gateway and set it up independently using Blue Payment Agency, you’ll be able to keep all of your stored customer information. In other words, if you decide to switch merchant accounts, for example, you can keep repeat customer information, and you’ll be able to continue your recurring billing without the complications you’d face otherwise.
You’re in charge – with an independent gateway.
We want to help you get better control and have more options available to your business. Let Blue Payment Agency help you control your data.
You can manage multiple ventures through one gateway
Many who run high-risk online businesses operate more than one e-commerce site at a time. This can be challenging, with multiple gateways and multiple merchant accounts.
This is one of the many reasons why we’re big champions of NMI. It allows you to add multiple businesses to one gateway log-in, even if those businesses have different merchant accounts. The NMI ATRI feature can even help you route transactions much more easily. It makes having multiple merchant accounts a lot more manageable over time. This will save you time, effort, and headaches.
Choosing your own payment gateway and controlling it is essential for high-risk businesses across industries, such as supplements, coaching, and internet affiliate marketing. With our expertise and experience, we’re very well equipped to handle the process and help you set up your NMI account and integrate it with your merchant accounts.
Enjoy the benefits you’ll get when you choose your own payment gateway
As you can tell, there are a considerable number of benefits you can enjoy once you choose your own payment gateway. On a closing note, we want to mention that using us allows ClickFunnels users to integrate their existing merchant accounts with ClickFunnels. We’ve worked closely with ClickFunnels, and we’ve helped many clients in the past successfully set up with them. We do all the heavy lifting, and all we need from you is a VAR.
If you’re ready to take advantage of the benefits of choosing your gateway, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here. You can also give us a call at 844-253-9769.
We look forward to helping you and your high-risk business with your processing needs.