Authorize.Net is probably one of the most popular payment gateways currently on the market for merchants. The company has a strong reputation and robust partnerships throughout the industry developed over many years. The payment gateway offered by Authorize.net is often the de facto choice among merchant account providers of all sizes, which over the years have chosen to partner with the company to resell its services.
Merchants who wish to use Authorize.Net may work with the company directly by opening an account or they can set one up through a third-party merchant account provider. More likely, the second option is more suitable for most businesses as that route often offers better pricing due to the vendors’ ongoing relationship. Also, since most businesses usually establish their merchant account before their payment gateway, it becomes the obvious choice.
Below we explore some of the features available by using Authorize.net as a payment gateway, some recent trends impacting the company, and a review for the product for 2022.
What does Authorize.net Payment Gateway do?
Authorize.Net is a San Francisco, California-based company, founded in 1996, that offers easy-to-integrate payment gateways solutions to a multitude of industries. It also offers a virtual terminal among its primary product offerings.
The company is the de facto industry standard for payment gateway and virtual terminal solutions and offers various data privacy and security tools imbedded into its products, such as PCI compliance and various fraud protection technologies.
Through its various channel partnerships, Authorize.Net offers mobile card readers as a tertiary offering for businesses looking to physical process payments on the go. The company also offers payment processing merchants offered at a flat-rate pricing plan.
What features does Authorize.net Payment Gateway offer?
User profiles is a breeze. One key feature offered by Authorize.Net is the ability to efficiently set up multiple users, each with their unique profiles and permissions.
Integration is seamless. Authorize.Net understand the eCommerce business really well. Over the years, the company has diligently worked to develop a payments tool which is a breeze to use. Merchants using the payments gateway are also likely to be using other platforms such as Etsy or WooCommerce. They can automatically sync their Authorize.Net gateway with third-party platforms and import transactions which have settled. Merchants can can also migrate that data into QuickBooks using the ‘Sync for QuickBooks’ feature. The same integration functionality is available for the FreshBooks accounting software.
Simple Checkout is a feature that Authorize.Net offers merchants to easily integrate with participating third-party shopping carts. All that is required is a small snippet of HTML code to incorporate a “Donate” or “Buy Now” button onto merchants’ virtual terminals and customers can quicky and conveniently check out their shopping cart and process the transaction without having to leave the site.
Is it secure?
Authorize.Net has all the security businesses need. The company uses an industry-standard encryption called Secure Socket Layer (SSL). Companies may also procure the Advanced Fraud Detection Suite (AFDS) to monitor suspicious transactions.
AFDS is a highly customizable product offering which merchants can tailor to their specific needs. Also, Authorize.Net incorporates additional security measures for processing eCommerce transactions, such as Address Verification Service (AVS), Card Code Verification (CVV2). The MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa are also supported by the platform.
Finally, the company incorporates tokenization in its security protocol. This is a highly secure method of safeguarding customers’ information that is used in a transaction. Basically, tokenization is the process of taking all the vital personal client data needed for payment processing and replaces that with an encrypted string of integers.
The Customer Experience
Starting with the sales process all the way through to set up and ongoing client support, Authorize.Net has a tremendous customer experience track record.
The company has established a reputation of a product that synonymous with online payments processing within the industry and most merchants automatically gravitate to its products without any aggressive marketing or selling tactics.
The company’s customer support setup is second to none. Authorize.Net displays customer-centric best practices and seems to value their time, as well as their customers’ time. Merchants can easily glance through the FAQ page on the company website that which cover a multitude of possible inquiries geared towards setting up and troubleshooting. If that doesn’t work, there is a listed email address and a dedicated phone support line.
Pricing
The pricing options offered by Authorize.Net are clear and transparent. The information available on the company’s website. can serve as a great resource for comparison shopping purposes regarding what pricing is prevalent for a payments gateway.
However, most merchants work with merchant account providers, such as Host Merchant Services to resell the company’s payment gateway, as there are considerable cost savings available based on long-existing relationships.
It should be explicitly clear for all merchants that there are no long-term contracts or early termination fees for Authorize.Net payments gateway or virtual terminal.
Some important considerations
An important consideration when choosing a payments gateway or a virtual terminal is to also choose the right merchant account provider.
Authorize.Net offers one of the best payment gateway solutions in the market. However, that product is only as good as the payments processor the merchants decide to partner with. Numerous online forums, or even the Better Business Bureau’s website outline the type of complaints merchants end up having about the company.
Most consist of billing issues, unexpected charges, poor support – all associated with payment processing, rather than the payment gateway. There is no confusion as to who may be responsible for billing queries, fund holds, chargebacks, and the like. It is a cautionary tale that merchants should study carefully. As a result, businesses should ensure that they are partnering with a payment services provider that offers great customer support, is capable of utilizing the latest security protocols with its merchant account, and offers the best rates.
Authorize.Net specializes in a very niche offering. However, their product really excels at what it aims and promises to deliver. Authorize.net outshines the competition by a longshot. Their payment gateway is synonymous with tremendous support, a customer-centric business focus, the company’s ability for seamlessly integrate with a large number of tertiary service providers needed by merchants.
With eCommerce experiencing mushrooming growth given the recent trends demographic and consumer purchasing habits, Authorize.Net is well positioned to provide one specific product that is the best in class for the merchant processing industry.
The company’s payment gateway has a broad client base, tremendous usage uptake among payment processors, and a multitude of features packed into the overall package at no additional costs.