We were contacted one afternoon by Des from Contrast to make the decision on the payment solution for MyProjectTracker. Payment Server Provider or Payment Bureau.

Myself and Barney sat down one afternoon to trash out the pro’s and con’s of using a Payment Server Provider (RealEx) or a Payment Bureau (PayPal). To be honest, Barney favoured PayPal and I favoured RealEx.

A well formulated guide that helped us make sense of the online payment choices was www.webpayments.ie. This should really be the first port of call for anyone creating a website that will be required to take payments.

Here is a summary based on our discussion that day and our discussion of this topic with others who have setup website that require payment:

Payment Server Providers: (RealEx)

• Higher quality system
• Better user experience
• No need for customers to visit other website for Credit Card verification
• No additional accounts required for customers
• Better system in the long term
• Tougher to set up with banking in the short term
• It may take a number of weeks to acquire a Merchant ID from the bank
• A Setup fee may be required with the Payment Service Provider

Payment Bureau: (PayPal)

• Messy user experience
• Customers must visit third party website to for Credit Card verification
• Messy administration of account
• Easier to set up in the short term

A number website designers we spoke to seem to seriously regret choosing PayPal as a solution, but their decision was made at the time due to time or financial constraints.

We plan to provide the best customer experience possible for MyProjectTracker customers, and this begins at the door. It’s all about first impressions, and we want a smooth credit transaction to be the start of a long customer relationship.

As we were not under anytime constraint with regards applying for a Merchant ID, we decided to go with the Payment Server Provider solution.

The fact that we had heard good things regarding RealEx’s customer support, we then decided to choose RealEx as our Payment Service Provider.

Did you decide to go down the Payment Service Provider or the Payment Bureau route?
What were the reasons for you decision?