Not as easy as paypal though probably cheaper
We have spent the last three years building a massive whopper of a site
http://www.paymentgatewaydirectory.com/home.php
It is a price comparison site that compares payment gateway providers against each other and then gives out the results of how much it costs to use.
The maths it uses takes into account the merchant account costs, and the setup costs, which on HSBC is £200 and then £200 per year there after.
I have just done a test with £25 per transaction and 30 transactions per month, i put in that my merchant account costs me £100 per year and £20 per month.
It worked out that HSBC was more expensive than PayPal.
- Paypal = Total: 53.28 GBP per month / 2.13 GBP per transaction
- HSBC = Total: 77.38 GBP per month / 3.10 GBP per transaction
This is mainly due to the fixed costs, as the setup costs are divided over an average of 3yrs and the other costs are over the year and into each transaction.
This means the more transactions you have, the cheaper it becomes, as there is more division.
So lets redo the test using
300 transaction per month and each transaction is aprox £500 (assume we are selling 10 LCD TVs per day)
- PayPal = Total: 5222.78 GBP per month / 10.45 GBP per transaction
- HSBC = Total: 1932.50 GBP per month / 3.87 GBP per transaction
So it is now reversed, HSBC being cheaper by about £3000 per month!!!!
We built this system that will be officially launched when Google switch to their new fees on May the 5th, to show that no payment gateway is cheaper or more expensive, as it depends on the size and quantity of transaction you put through.
Give it ago, the top links arnt working at present but they will be by May the 5th and there is a problem with the right hand search form in the results as well as the more options in the search, don't use them yet as we moved things round a bit. But all the costs are correct, so you should get a good idea of what things are costing you.
