Payment Gateways
I am in the market for an online payment processor. Thus far, I've narrowed it down to two options, PayPal and Google Checkout.
This is for a small project I've been working on. I don't expect a ton of revenue and would prefer a solution that doesn't need to be monitored nor babysat.
It would be most helpful if the setup was as simple as possible because this is a small project and if processing payments means a few weeks work, the project becomes fairly useless.
Scott Pinkston has a project on RIAForge for Google Checkout. Has anyone used this cfc? Are there other resources out there for integration? Am I missing another good service? Have YOU had a good experience with a simple payment processor?
All advice is appreciated.
I've also worked with Authorize.net for one-time transactions. They now have a recurring payment API (very helpful) and they're cheaper than Paypal last I checked. My preference is for Authorize.net, probably because it was the second one we worked with and the CFC interface we created for it is implemented a little neater.
Neither one requires babysitting, but I think the Authorize.net API is a bit nicer in general.
I would love to see what you have. I am open to authorize.net and have seen their organization referenced before.
Having recurring payment capability would be nicer going forward for another project. If you don't mind me having a go with your CFCs, I would very much appreciate it.
I'll send you a private email.
DW
You can seemlessly integrate authorize.net into your site. You'll still need a merchant credit card account with a bank as authorize.net is just a payment gateway. That is where the real expense comes in (2% or more per credit card transaction)
We have alot of volume through authorize.net and have not had any problems.
Bruce
I have to give a huge plus one to Payflow. In the past I developed many ecom sites, and worked with many vendors. I tried cybercash, authorize, payflow and several others. I ended up settling on Payflow as a very happy guy. I have been using it on a couple dozen varying sized sites for almost 6 years.
Even the switch to paypal left no problems. they have api's for connecting in multiple langueages and on the 2 occasions I had to contact support they were beyond helpful in answering my questions.
They provide a cfx tag written in java for doing your connection, but they also have a java class you can just instantiate natively in CF. I have blogged several times about it on my site over the last while.
But whatever you pick, good luck.
As for the debate, one of the biggest difference is control. Google Checkout works by totally passing the processing off to them. The customer leaves your site so your branding is out. I got started with it because for my situation, that didn't matter as much.
After setup, it can be automatic or manual. I have one site that wanted to process everything manually and others that don't touch a thing.
If your site is simple, I'd bet that we could get you running fairly quickly, plus the price is right. Google Checkout is free until the end of the year.
Either way, it was good to meet you. Good luck.
I hope you enjoyed the conference...
I didn't opt for the hotspot account and just saw your comment. Otherwise I certainly would have looked you up again. I'll get my questions together over the next few days and catch you on email as you suggested.
Hope your trip home was uneventful. (Those are the best kind!)
DW