[Business Thread]- Pay Site Billing Question
 

I am launching an affiliate program starting with three separate lesbian sites each with their own unique tours on three unique urls. But I intend to market the sites as a "network" like many other programs do with their sites where the surfer can join any one of the three sites and get access to all three site's content.

So the question is, with a 3rd party processor like CCBill or Epoch doing the processing (and using their software to run the backend affiliate program for the webmasters to sign up under) am I stuck paying for the Visa approval fee for each site separately($750 x 3= $2250) just to get the affiliate program started?

a bump for your answer, Jim_Gunn... :)

Bump for an answer..

The fee is for you or your company not for every site you own.

Well that's good news- that means even if I launched ten sites, I'd only have to pay the $750 Visa fee one time? Can any CCBill or Epoch rep confirm this? If it's true I am signing up with one or both processors today. :-)

:2 cents:

theres no fee if you are european :D

As far as I'm aware, you have to pay it with each processor. I hope I'm wrong on this.

To me it seems like Visa would be double dipping, if it's the company paying and in both instances Visa is taking the fee.

You pay the fee for your 'program/company' Every site under your 'main' account is basically free.

I'm not sure if you pay 750 fee for both companies. I read somewhere that you only have to pay the fee ONCE. When you start at ccbill, you don't have to pay the 750 fee at Epoch(and vice versa) Not 100% sure, but I'm sure ccbill or epoch will know the answer

Bump for a definitive answer.

sub accounts, that's your answer.. you sign up with ccbill they give you a main account, underneath that account you create sub accounts. you do not have to pay $750 per site, only for your main account.

If you want to cascade and ad Epoch for example then you would have to pay another $750.

you have to pay the $750 fee at each processor as far as i know - if not I am going to be very pissed at Epoch!

Yep for each processor.

A. You only have to pay $750 once per company
B. You do have to pay $750 for each processor your company would like to use

If you have the sites under different companies, you would have to pay the fee for each one for each biller. It sounds like you will have them all under one umbrella, so the fees are once to CCBill and once to Epoch each year ($750 each to start and then like $375ish after)

It would be $750 per processor, so $1500. Then I would suggest using Strongbox as it allows access to separate members areas, and it's $150 per site, so $450 for that.

OMG let's all continue posting the same answer lol... this could go on all night!

Hey i added a little more :1orglaugh

I've never gotten a straight answer and from the looks of it, no one in this thread knows for sure either.

Thanks those who answered. Aico, that is also good info about Strongbox. I have to check my email history as I recall that I already purchased at least one Strongbox license for a site that I used to own but that I never used it on.

Im just a sexy girl

What he said. Your company pays the fee then you can use it on as many sites as you wish so long as those sites are approved by Visa.

Sorry if this sounds like a shameless plug but...

Contrary to popular belief, not every processor charges $750. For example, with our TicketsClub account you are able to use all of our payment methods (including Visa & MC) and there are No Setup Fees, No Yearly Fees, No Visa registrations and No Monthly Minimums. You only pay a percentage of the transaction price!

With our Verotel Classic account the Visa/MC registration fee is only $350 (one-time.)

And since I get the next question so much, I will answer it in advance....

Q: How come you guys don't have to charge the $750 fee?

A. It is my understanding that the fees that you pay ($750 in the case of CCBill and Epoch and NOTHING or $350 in the case of TicketsClub or Classic) are not fees required by the credit card companies but are either processor or acquiring bank specific. In our case our TicketsClub bank charges nothing and our Classic bank charges $350.

And just for good form...like everyone else said, the fees are only per account NOT per website.

You are incorrect!!!


A VISA approved Internet Payment Service Provider or IPSP has to follow these rules.


If you are a US-Based business and want to process transactions through the VISA network, VISA and the acquiring banks require that you do the following:

1. Register your business as a VISA-sponsored merchant
2. Pay an initial registration fee of $750, and an ongoing annual fee of $375 to maintain your VISA-sponsored merchant status.

These fees apply to high risk businesses only!!!

What he said.

On one hand it's a matter of semantics...

In all fairness, I'm open to the fact that Visa US and Visa Europe operate differently. However, from a logical standpoint I have a problem with point #2 above simply because that would be like your plumber telling your electrician what he must charge you. Let me explain, I've always learned that Visa (and MasterCard) do NOT do business with merchants; they only do business with BANKS. As such, Visa being a smart company would NEVER tell acquirers what they MUST charge their merchants. They could however, charge a fee to the acquiring bank and then the acquiring bank could pass that fee on to the merchant (mrechant being either CCBill or the Website owner.)

Although what KRosh said may be effectively correct, I have never been able to find any Visa documentation that confirms or denies his standpoint nor mine........

until TODAY!!!

Visa USA:
Are there merchant fees associated with accepting Visa?

Visa Europe:
Fees
Visa doesn?t charge any fees to cardholders or merchants ? instead, our member banks do this. Our income comes from fees paid by our 4,500 member banks.

So once again semantics...it is NOT Visa that requires this but the acquiring bank...as I stated above!

I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that it costs absolutely nothing to open an account with WTS for ACH processing!:winkwink:

Let's catch up Jim! :)

Ben Zuckerman
Account Manager
Web Transaction Services
Toll Free: 1(866)735-5987 ext.1168
Fax: 1(512)263-3099
ICQ: 138827832

Now THAT was a shameless plug...hehehe.... :xmas-smil16

Darryl,

these are fees that VISA definitely put in place -

VISA

Each Sponsored Merchant must complete a registration form that will be submitted to Visa on the merchant behalf.
An initial registration fee of $750.00 per company (not per url) will be charged to register each Sponsored Merchant. $500.00 of this fee is payable by the Acquiring Banks to Visa, the balance are administrative fees to the banks and processors.

Again we are talking about high risk IPSP - New regulations

I'd like to see it in writing (preferably on Visa letter head or a link to the Visa site.) Yes, I'm talking about the new high risk regulations but once again, it could be different between the US and Europe because we also have IPSP status but we get no strictly Visa fee as you describe....only a "registration" fee from one of our acquirers and NONE from the other.

You bet it was! lol :winkwink:

I think VISA Europe is different , visa doesn't control the market as well in Europe as they do in the US and it would be stupid of them to already start being cocky at this time.

Do you have to do this for both Visa and mastercard?

No "start up" fee associated with MC. You can be set up and running MC with CCBill in about 24 hours, if not sooner.

True - tho it's not only the European banking region which is different. No other banking region accepted VISA's modus operandi and the exception to this is the USA.

It's really the global banking regions which control card companies - if they don't agree to whatever, nothing happens.

Thanks bro :thumbsup

Very true SPA and GW...and in Europe there's not only one country making the rules..but then we've got the European Union which is going in that direction...lol

Lotta good answers here. Interesting about the semantics of the Visa issue. Despite the $750 fee, I am almost certainly still going to go with CCBill first, and add other c.c. processors later because my program is going to rely mostly on affiliate traffic and a lot of affiliates seem to prefer CCBill and/or Epoch since they are already signed up as webmasters.

Nothing wrong with CCBill...and it does really depend on your niche and who those affiliates prefer. At any rate, glad we could provide some interesting information. Hit me up via e-mail if you have any additional questions in the future.

Keep in mind that Epoch has MPA3 powered affiliate system that allows you to cascade and use CCBill (among others) as a secondary and still pay your affiliates no matter which gets the sale. So I would actually suggest starting with Epoch.

Sure - just give them more time and they'll have a complete office block to handle cross-border banking relationships - complete with 500 clueless staff trying to read 400 reams of proposed legislation *lol*

That's what happens when govt's become more centralised - they need to find something to do and total crap to discuss :winkwink: US is a prime example.

and you forgot: assess a fat tax for ALLLLLLL the extra work they'll have to do...lol

anyway...guess we're off topic here...sorry about that...

If there's no fee for VISA with Verotel, is it a good or bad idea to have both CCBill (and/or Epoch) without VISA and VISA cards directed to Verotel? It seems shady. But is it acceptable?

CCBill just recently implemented their own cascading billing system, where you can use Epoch as a secondary biller. We haven't set it up yet so I don't know how it compares to Epoch's system, but I would bet that is does the same thing.