eCommerce Website Design - Credit Card Payment Gateway & Merchant Account Costs
eCommerce Website Design Tips
NZ Shopping Cart Guide | Credit Card Gateway Costs
Paystation vs Payment Express & NZ Credit Card Merchant Providers
To accept credit card payments in New Zealand your online shopping cart needs a payment gateway and a credit card merchant account. Your shopping cart uses the payment gateway to communicate with your bank, which accepts payments using your credit card merchant account. As your turn-over increases over time, the payment gateway and merchant account fees can add up to far more than the monthly fee from your shopping cart.
If you already accept credit cards in your business (possibly via an EFTPOS machine) then you may already have a credit card merchant account and you may only need to add a payment gateway to allow your shopping cart to accept credit cards.
If you don't already have a credit card merchant account you'll probably reduce your monthly fees quite significantly by using an all in one credit card processing service.
This guide explains your options for choosing a payment gateway and a credit card merchant account and compares the fees so you can choose the right combination of shopping cart, merchant account and gateway. All fees and estimates on this page are in NZ dollars.
Paystation
Paystation is a payment gateway that allows your shopping cart to communicate with credit card merchant accounts from any of the 5 New Zealand banks.
Paystation acccepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diners Club, Q Card, POLi, MasterPass, and China UnionPay. Not all shopping carts can accept all of these payment methods using Paystation so check the Paystation plugin for your shopping cart before assuming that it can.
Set up fee: $149.
Online Starter: $39 per month, 100 include transactions)
Online Growth: $99 per month, 300 included transactions
Online Enterprise: $149 per month, 500 included transactions
Volume pricing available on request.
Payment Express
Payment Express has a wide range of solutions for online shopping as well as face-to-face payments for retail and hospitality, and unattended hardware for vending, parking & more. If you need a payment gateway to process payments for a larger business that takes payment using many different types of hardware and not only your online store then Payment Express is a good option.
Set up fee: $150.
Starter: $50 per month, 100 include transactions, 50c per extra transaction
Business: $150 per month, 500 included transactions, 45c per extra transaction
Volume pricing available on request.
Credit Card Merchant Accounts
Your credit card merchant account is provided by your bank. Think of it as your bank account for accepting credit card payments. By having your own credit card merchant account you become part of the PCI DDS compliance system, which minimises the risk of theft to your customer's credit card details. Your bank will make you jump through a lot of hoops before verifying your merchant account because they have to protect their own PCI compliance status. This means long delays (often 2 or 3 months) to get your online store up and running and higher transaction costs to cover all the set up work from the bank.
Transaction fees vary by bank and start from around 5% for low value/low volume transactions and could reduce to around 2.5% if your monthly turnover reaches about $50,000 with an average sale value over $500. The set up fee is usually aroound $200.
A credit card merchant account used to be essential for any business wanting to accept credit cards online. Now they tend to be cost effective only if you have a retail presence or high volume turn-over.
Fee Comparison
The tables below show both estimated monthly fees and set up fees for Paystation, Payment Express and credit card merchant accounts. Number of transactiopns is estimated based on a $40 average sale.
| Gateway set up fee | |||
| Merchant account set up fee | |||
| Monthly Turnover | Transactions ($40 avg ale) |
Annual Turnover | |
| $500 | 13 | $6,000 | |
| $1,000 | 25 | $12,000 | |
| $2,000 | 50 | $24,000 | |
| $3,000 | 75 | $36,000 | |
| $4,000 | 100 | $48,000 | |
| $6,000 | 150 | $72,000 | |
| $8,000 | 200 | $96,000 | |
| $10,000 | 250 | $120,000 | |
| $20,000 | 500 | $240,000 | |
| $50,000 | 1250 | $600,000 | |
| $83,333 | 2083 | $1,000,000 |
Paystation |
||
| Gateway set up fee | $149 | |
| Monthly Turnover | Fee |
|
| $500 | $39 | |
| $1,000 | $39 | |
| $2,000 | $39 | |
| $3,000 | $39 | |
| $4,000 | $39 | |
| $6,000 | $62 | |
| $8,000 | $84 | |
| $10,000 | $99 |
|
| $20,000 | $149 | |
| $50,000 | $419 | |
| $83,333 | $719 |
Payment
|
||
| Gateway set up fee | $150 | |
| Monthly Turnover | Fee | |
| $500 | $50 | |
| $1,000 | $50 | |
| $2,000 | $50 | |
| $3,000 | $50 | |
| $4,000 | $50 | |
| $6,000 | $75 | |
| $8,000 | $100 | |
| $10,000 | $125 | |
| $20,000 | $150 | |
| $50,000 | $488 | |
| $83,333 | $863 |
Credit Card
|
||
| Merchant account set up fee | $200 | |
| Monthly Turnover | Rate | Fee |
| $500 | 5.01% | $25 |
| $1,000 | 5.01% | $50 |
| $2,000 | 4.80% | $96 |
| $3,000 | 4.80% | $144 |
| $4,000 | 4.59% | $184 |
| $6,000 | 4.38% | $263 |
| $8,000 | 4.38% | $350 |
| $10,000 | 4.38% | $438 |
| $20,000 | 4.17% | $834 |
| $50,000 | 3.96% | $1,980 |
| $83,333 | 3.96% | $3,300 |
All costs are charged by 3rd party's (not Anyware Ltd) and are estimates based on known fees at time of writing.
Fees are based on the optimal plans for turnover and transactions - you may need to change plans as turnover increases to get the best rates.
Prices are in NZ$.
See Also:
Questions? Now would be a good time to contact us and have a chat about your ecommerce requirements.