Alternative to PayPal payment processing

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Hi,

can you suggest alternative to PayPal Payment processing


Thank you.

We suggest getting a merchant account. Fees should be lower than PayPal and you can do schedule credit card processing for second payments automatically rather than a manual process the guest must do with PayPal.

Do you already have a merchant account? If not, we recommend a company called Lynnbrook Group which is a purpose built credit card processor for vacation rentals. They are excellent and have great rates. Check them out here: http://www.lynnbrookgroup.com/

Jamzseid, definitely go with Lynnbrook Group. Tell them you use OwnerRez. You'll never look back.

Square. Allows to preschedule invoices, produces beautiful receipts. Only works for US transactions. Deposits into your account within 3 days or so. NO MONTHLY FEES, no set up fees. You can get $1000 worth of processing for free https://squareup.com/i/66953894

square does not integrate with OQ but is is good for standalone or one off transactions.

@BlueMtn: But it's expensive! 3.5% for typed in or 2.75% for in person... ouch. You should be getting a rate closer to 2% for in person. I agree that Square is easy and simple though. Square exploded in use awhile back because of that. PayPal tried to copy their mobile swipe reader but has't managed to catch up. Don't use them for online though - you'll pay way too much for that. Other groups will get you down around 2.5%. Another thing - better to pay a small monthly gateway fee ($15-20) and get a cheaper transaction rate then have no monthly fees. The difference in, say, 2.3% and 3% is dramatic when you process $5k or more per month. You're doubling or tripling that gateway fee

where can I find cheaper WITHOUT monthly fees? most want $20 monthly fee. I do not use typed or swiper, obviously, because I am remote to my vacation rental and all transaction take place via invoices.
I think their pricing is about the same as Stripe (2.9%) which I use via OR but stripe does not offer invoicing. I could not find anything cheaper, that has invoicing, prescheduled invoices AND ==does not== have monthly fees.
Monthly fees make no sense for me because there are some months when most or all of my bookings happen to be through VRBO or AirBnB for example, I would not be using my processor/gateway at all. Paying monthly fees makes sense if you consistently process large amounts thru gateway every month. My rental rates I guess are no that high to warrant monthly fees.

@BlueMtnCabins:

Give Lynnbrook a call. Their rates should be way lower for you - like 2.3 to 2.5%. We are working on integrating their in-house gateway which should be free (or close to it) so your monthly would be nothing. However, at the moment, they will put you on Authorize.Net for $15/month I believe. When we get their in-house gateway added to OwenrRez, your monthly should be free. Either way, call and at least ask them. Great group over there.

Braintree and Stripe are both 2.9% with no monthlies. Not sure what level of invoicing you're needing but I know that they both handle recurring billing. So you can set up a payment schedule and request payment and that should be built in.

Square is charging you 3.5% which is quite a bit higher. If you can get that 2.5% rate from Lynnbrook, you're talking about a difference of $50 per month which more than covers whatever the gateway is monthly.

When you say invoicing and pre-scheduled, are you talking about outside of VR bookings? For vacation rental stuff, we provide an invoice (quote) for guests and do payment schedules - does that not work for your needs? I guess that's the thing that it comes down to ultimately since it dictates what all processor you can go with. If there's a invoice/software feature you're needing, let us know so we can kick it around on this side!

I do not know where you get 3.5% for square. it is 2.9% for non swiped non keyed (invoiced).

yes I mean for one off stuff. for example, my AirBnB or VRBO renter who already paid via VRBO or AIRBNB wants to add an extra night to their stay. I do not do that via AirBNB or VRBO, I just invoice them for extra night cost via Square. or sometimes I have VRBO renter who booked via VRBO and paid deposit via VRBO, and now wants to split balance payment 3 ways (between 3 families) - I send them 3 separate invoices for 1/3 of amount each via Square. Granted I do not need all that for bookings that are processed via OR because I can simply send them payment link and they can pay however they want. I have also used Square when there was some issue with VRBO payments and renter could not make their payment of balance - I just invoiced them via Square.

Situations like Renter forgot their jacket in my VR. they want it mailed back. My housekeeper charges shipping/handling to mail it back. I send invoice via Square to cover shipping/handling.

I do not think I process 5K worth of transactions consistently every month via OR ( I use stripe with OR).
Also, if I already have Stripe currently(and prescheduled payments for future rentals), how would I transition to other provider (Lynnbrook)for example?

Maybe you have a grandfathered in rate at Square? Here's the pricing page on their website:
Pricing page: https://squareup.com/pricing

To transition to another merchant account, you just go get the new merchant account set up and add it to OwnerRez in the settings area.

To add another merchant account payment method, go to Settings > Payment Methods > Add Payment Method and add it just like you did for Stripe. Change the "use on properties" field to check off the properties you want the new one to be used for and that's it. From then on, as guests accept quotes/make payments, it will use the new payment method instead of Stripe. That "Used on properties" field dictates which payment method is the official credit card one for the property.

You can add as many credit card payment methods as you want. We have PMs that have dozens of them so that the credit card transactions flow to different bank accounts depending on the property.

No, because it is not "keyed" . keyed is when renter gives ME their CC # and I key it in. Higher risk- higher price. When I generate invoice and send to renter, and they enter their CC on their end (I never handle the CC - lower risk) it is 2.9%
I understand using new merchant acct going forward for new bookings, but If I have bookings that already paid the deposit but balance is not due yet (deposit was paid via Stripe), will balance be changed via Stripe or the new merchant account?
I guess i will wait till your suggested merchant account processing gets integrated into OR.

thanks

I see what's going on. You're getting their special "Invoice" software rate that it shows on this page:

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees#pricing-for-software-products

If you weren't using the Invoice feature, it would be 3.5%. If the customer pays with a "card on file" for a particular invoice, it goes up (strangely) to 3.5% as well.

Generally speaking, "Keyed" means when anyone physically keys it in (you or the customer). There is typically no distinction between you keying it in and the customer keying it on their side. Industry wide, this is know as "card not present" because it's not physically being handed to the merchant for swiping.

I didn't realize that they had a different price for using their Invoice and Online Store tools.

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On the bookings that already paid, the future payments (or security deposit) would be taken on whatever the official credit card merchant account was at the time it is processed. So if you change merchant accounts, any new payments (even on old bookings) will be on the new merchant account.

That being said, we are careful to make sure that refunds and security deposit releases use the OLD merchant account - or specifically, the merchant account that they were originally linked to. This is necessary because the new merchant account won't be able to find the old transaction to refund or release. But our system handles all that for you under the covers.

Confused now? :-p

Thank you, Not confused at all. I had over 14 years of experience working in IT for a CC issuers LOL.

So i will wait till Lynnbrook becomes integrated (meaning not or little monthly fee) b4 considering switching. Not wanting monthly fees was the primary reason for choosing Stripe vs others.

I have used Lynnbrook Group for the last year and their customer service (and rates) are fantastic! Any time frame as when you would anticipate the integration of the Gateway account so it is free?

Thanks!
Melissa

Melissa, we do not have a specific timeframe/ETA for the Lynnbrook gateway, but it's rising rapidly in importance. Since we started recommending them recently, we've been inundated with requests to get the gateway portion going because we have users who need 5 or 10 merchant accounts (they process as a PM for multiple users). So they can't do Lynbrook because they'll get hit with 5 or 10 gateway fees every month. There are also users who have always had free-if-not-used processing accounts and don't want a gateway that costs. So it's rising rapidly in importance and will probably be looked at later this month or next.

Lynnbrook gateway is now out and ready for use. Look for it under Settings > Payment Methods > Add. We aren't announcing it yet because we have some marketing tie-ins that are still being worked on, but you can go turn on the gateway part. Enjoy!

We have to sign up with Lynnbrook 1st?

Yes. They're at lynnbrookgroup.com

I see they offer e-check which is great. Wonder if we can offer discount somehow for paying by e-check vs credit card.

I ran a calculation on using Lynbrook (with gateway fee of $15 but lower %) vs Stripe (no gateway fee and 2.9%) on bookings using my current payments totals for the year (approx 68K). The savings for me would be $49 using Lynbrook (granted I do not have all my bookings volume yet for the year, but still). The $15 gateway fee kills the savings....This may work better for those who have more volume/higher priced rates.
Assumptions made: all transactions are credit card.