Authorize.Net is one of the most well-known payment gateways currently available for merchants. The company owes its growth and prominent reputation to its channel partnership strategy employed over the years. Authorize.net is a unanimous choice among many merchant account providers, both large and small, which partner with the payment gateway provider to resell its services.
Merchants wanting to use Authorize.Net can work with the firm directly by opening an account or go through a third-party payment processor and leverage that company’s arrangement with Authorize.net. More often, the second option is more suitable for merchants as pricing is usually better due to their ongoing relationship.
Below we highlight some of the benefits available for using Authorize.net as a Payment Gateway.
Pricing transparency
Authorize.Net has clear and transparent pricing information available on its website. However, many merchants prefer to work with merchant account providers to resell the company’s payment gateway, often available at a slight discount. Nonetheless, the breakdown provided on the company’s website can serve as a great educational resource as the benchmark pricing available for the gateway. The website also explicitly outlines that Authorize.Net doesn’t have a contract or an early termination fee.
Integration and user profiles
One key feature of Authorize.Net is how efficiently merchants can set up multiple users, all with their own permission settings. The company has worked diligently to make the eCommerce payment tool a breeze to use. And if you do, you’re most likely using other platforms as well. Whether merchants are operating on platforms like Etsy or WooCommerce, they can automatically sync with Authorize.Net and import settled transactions. This data can also be migrated into QuickBooks with the Sync for QuickBooks integration feature. Another accounting software that has integration functionality with Authorize.Net is FreshBooks.
Through Authorize.Net’s Simple Checkout feature, merchants who wish to integrate with a third-party shopping cart can quickly produce a small HTML code to incorporate a “Donate” or “Buy Now” button.
All the security you need
Another great benefit of using Authorize.Net is that the company uses industry-standard encryption, Secure Socket Layer (SSL). Merchants can also get the Advanced Fraud Detection Suite (AFDS) to detect and prevent dubious transactions.
AFDS is highly customizable and can be used by merchants to tailor it to the business’s unique needs. Furthermore, the company incorporates additional security measures vital for processing eCommerce transactions, such as Address Verification Service (AVS), Card Code Verification (CVV2), while supporting MasterCard SecureCode, as well as Verified by Visa.
Finally, as an additional safeguard, Authorize.Net also incorporates tokenization, a highly secure method of securing consumer data used in payment processing. Simply put, tokenization takes all the vital personal data needed for payment processing and replaces that with a string of numbers.
Awesome support
Authorize.Net has an excellent customer support setup. Merchants can find a FAQ page on the company website that also answers inquiries geared towards troubleshooting self-help. There is a listed email address as well as a dedicated number for phone support. For existing clients, online chat support is also an option. All in all, given the company’s proactive approach to support and FAQ, as well as considerable details regarding pricing, Authorize.Net exudes customer-centric best practices and seems to value the customer and their time.
B2B or government spending processing
Traditionally, for a credit card transaction to be processed, the data needed includes the cardholder’s name and card number, expiration date, and CVV2 code. Additional information may be required, such as a zip code as part of the address verification safeguard for card not present transactions. This is referred to as Level 1 data. Level 2 and level 3 expand on that data requirement, each asking for more data than the prior level. American Express, Mastercard, and Visa all have lower interchange rates for transactions processed with enhanced data.
Fortunately, Authorize.Net can easily facilitate enhanced data processing with its payment gateway. The company is one of the few that can efficiently process enhanced data transactions up to Level III.
Choose the right merchant account provider
Although Authorize.Net is one of the best payment gateway companies in the market, their services can be only as good as the merchant account provider a business decides to partner with. Look at any online forum or the Better Business Bureau’s website for the type of complaints merchants have about the company.
The complaints consist of billing disputes or unexpected charges are apparent complaints of not the payment gateway, the service that Authorize.Net offers, and the payment processor’s responsibility. Merchants should have no confusion about which party is responsible for process payment, resolving billing issues, chargebacks, or the merchant processor placing the fund holds and reserves on merchant accounts.
Merchants should ensure that they are working with a merchant services provider that offers competitive rates, provides top-notch customer support, and is capable of payment processing utilizing the latest security protocols.
Authorize.Net is a specialist for a very niche product. But that one service the company provides, it really excels at it and outshines the competition by a considerable margin. The company’s payment gateway is synonymous with excellent service, customer-centric business focus, its ability for seamless integration with numerous tertiary services needed by merchants. With eCommerce growing by leaps and bounds due to shifts in demographic purchasing habits, the company is uniquely positioned to offer one specific product that is the best in class in the merchant processing industry.
Authorize.Net’s payment gateway has a broad user base, mass adoption among payment processors, and a bevy of features that is part of the overall package with no additional costs.