Is there such a thing as a free merchant account?

Don't be fooled by merchant service providers that advertise free merchant accounts. Don't waste time looking for a free merchant account. Instead, look for a fairly priced merchant account.

Most independent sales organizations (ISO) and merchant service providers are in business to make an honest living. They have expenses just like any other business, and they need to make a profit to pay their bills. You should ask yourself, "how would it be possible for an ISO or merchant provider to offer a free merchant account and still pay there bills?" The answer is simple, it's not possible at all.

The advertising that is used by many merchant service providers may give the impression that a merchant account is free. Some providers even make it sound as though they will pay you for your business. Don't believe the hype. The fact of the matter is that it costs money to process credit cards and someone will have to pay the merchant account fees.

The card associations (VISA & MasterCard) charge an issuing bank fees to issue their credit cards, and an acquiring bank must pay an issuing bank to accept the cards. To cover expenses and turn a profit, providers and resellers will raise these rates and resell processing services to a merchant (you). By offering merchant services free of charge, the reseller would be losing money. Obviously, any business that constantly loses money will not be around for long.

Don't waste time searching for a free merchant account to process your credit card transactions. Instead, take a moment to learn how to find the best merchant account for your business. The information on this web site is free, accurate, and unbiased. Needless to say, a few moments of reading will save you a lot of time, energy, and it will show you what to really look for in a good merchant account.

Free merchant accounts are the credit card processing industry's unicorn in the way that they don't exist but people continue to believe in and search for them anyway.

A search for "free merchant account" on any Internet search engine will produce results pages chock-full of businesses that are advertising merchant accounts that supposedly cost nothing. In reality free merchant accounts simply don't exist. It costs money to process credit card transactions and providers still have to make a profit.

You can't blame merchant service companies for advertising using the key phrase "free merchant account" because so many people are searching for one. However, once you begin to read the fine print you'll quickly notice that the "free" part was only talking about a single fee. For example, most companies that advertise free merchant accounts are referring to the set-up or application fees, all other fees such as the discount rates, monthly fees and possible annual fees would still apply.

You're probably wondering if it's possible to accept credit card payments without a merchant account or if perhaps there's a service available that will accept credit cards on your behalf. Both of these types of services exist but neither of them offer credit card processing for free.

It's an awful truth, but time spent searching for a free merchant account would be much better spent searching for a legitimate low-cost processing solution to fit your business needs.

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