Ecommerce Merchant Accounts for Online Businesses.

It's a bank account that lets an online store accept card and digital wallet payments. Paired with a payment gateway, it authorizes each order at checkout and deposits the funds into your business bank account.

The gateway is the technology that sends card details from your checkout for approval. The merchant account is where approved payments land before they're deposited. You need both, and we set up both. Merchant account vs. payment gateway explains the difference.

Card-not-present sales carry more fraudulent transactions and more payment disputes than in-person sales. Online businesses are often deemed high risk for dropshipping, pre-orders, subscriptions, high-ticket items, international sales, regulated products or sudden sales volume spikes, and for having no processing history or past chargebacks.

For a low-risk store, often yes. They approve you in minutes and review you later, so stores with long shipping times, pre-orders, subscriptions or a rise in disputes are the ones that get payouts held or accounts closed. A dedicated merchant account is underwritten up front.

Compare more than the rate. Ask each provider whether they underwrite your business model up front, what reserve and processing limits they'd set, how fast funds reach your bank, what fraud prevention and chargeback tools are included, and who you call when something goes wrong. Red flags are long contracts with early termination fees, vague pricing and payment processors that approve you instantly without asking what you sell.

Yes. Shopify lets you connect a third-party payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments. Shopify adds its own transaction fee when you do, from 0.2% to 2% depending on your plan. Merchant accounts for Shopify walks through the setup.

Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix, Magento, and custom sites through our gateway's API. You can also take payments through a virtual terminal, payment links and invoices.

Your acquirer assigns the code for what you sell, not for selling online. A clothing store uses an apparel code, an electronics store uses 5732, and a general online store often uses 5999. Digital goods have their own codes, 5815 to 5818.

Business documents and your EIN, ID for each owner, a voided check, recent bank statements and any processing statements. Your website needs clear prices, shipping and refund policies, contact details and terms of service.

Yes. New stores without processing history may start with a monthly processing limit or a small reserve that comes down as you build history.

Often, yes. Many online stores come to us after Stripe, Shopify Payments or PayPal froze their account. We look at why it happened and what's changed. We also work with merchants on the MATCH list.

Most online stores are approved in a few business days once we have your documents. Stores with complete paperwork and a finished website move fastest.

Yes. Underwriters look at your supplier, your shipping times and how you handle tracking and refunds. Showing real delivery times at checkout and sending tracking numbers keeps "item not received" disputes down.

Yes. Visa's rules say shipped goods are charged when they ship, so we set up pre-orders to charge the card at shipment, not at checkout. Custom and made-to-order goods can take a deposit with clear disclosure. State the expected ship date and tell customers if it slips.

Yes. Every business that takes cards must follow PCI DSS. Using a hosted payment page or our gateway's fields keeps card data off your servers, which keeps your PCI scope small. You still complete a yearly self-assessment questionnaire.

Card testing is when fraudsters run stolen card numbers through your checkout with small purchases to see which ones work. CAPTCHA, velocity limits and gateway fraud filters block it, and it matters because Visa's VAMP program now tracks card-testing rates.

The FTC's Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Rule says you must ship within the time you advertise, or within 30 days if you don't state one. If you can't, you must tell the customer and let them cancel, with a refund within 7 working days.

Usually, once you pass a state's economic nexus threshold. Since the Supreme Court's 2018 Wayfair decision, most states set it at $100,000 in sales into the state a year. California, Texas and New York use $500,000.

No. There are no setup fees or application fees.

It depends on your history and how you sell. New stores, pre-orders and long shipping times can mean a rolling reserve. Stores with clean processing history often start with a low reserve or none.

Visa's VAMP program flags merchants at a 1.5% fraud-and-dispute ratio with at least 1,500 disputes and fraud reports in a month, and Mastercard starts at 1.5% and 100 chargebacks. Banks usually act well before that, so aim to stay under 1%.

Use a billing descriptor customers recognize, show shipping times at checkout, send tracking numbers, answer customer emails fast and refund when it makes sense. 3-D Secure shifts fraud liability to the card issuer, and chargeback alerts let you refund before a dispute becomes a chargeback.