Epoch and CCBill VISA fee

[jaroq]

Thanks to everyone for your advice and perspectives! All of it helps!

Yup, my site will require the Visa fee...my warriors and warlocks get naked and get it on big time...even though they're just artwork. Like I've read somewhere on this site, cartoons are people, too...so now I'm wondering how to age ID my drawings for the 2257 regs and Australia -- none of them have driving licenses or passports!

Chip, I appreciate the supportive "dip my toes in the water" -- that's what I was thinking. If I make over $750 with MC., etc., then I can use that for the Visa fee. Like I said, I'm just starting this website venture to share my fantasy world, while protecting and financially supporting it at the same time. And if it starts to actually make some money, then I can always upgrade the billing, right?

Jar'

[ccjax]

Jumping in late on this -
CCBill does not require VISA to process with us, and we have a lot of clients who add VISA later in the game. And we have no minimum monthly volume requirements.

As Chip mentioned - You can process MasterCard, JCB, Discover, Online Checks (ACH), EU Debit and DirectPayEU (kind of like billpay in Europe) - so you could provide some decent options until you are ready for VISA.

Drop me a line - gary at ccbill.com

[BradBreakfast]

$750 isn't that bad compared to the money you can make with a decent membership site.

[derekt]

A suggestion, this is only a suggestion.
What we did when we first began with membership sites....

We were first with Verotel's tickets club. We received one sign-up per maybe every 2 weeks (not accepting visa).

After being with Verotel's tickets club for 3 short months, we switched over to CCBill. We did not register with Visa at that time. However, conversions came in at a larger scale than the once per 2 weeks.
We are "THINKING" that those did not really like the Tickets Club processing.

Several months later we had a problem with a client support representative with CCBill. (This has been addressed and taken care of by CCBill - I would rather not bring this situation up again).
We went to Epoch.

As I've said before on the board, Epoch primarily wants high volume accounts. We were dropped for this reason. Epoch came to us and gave us two options:
1- Accept Visa and remain with Epoch
2- Leave Epoch

We accepted Visa. 2 weeks later after Visa was activated with us, we were terminated by Epoch due to being a low volume client.
We went back to CCBill, we have been with CCBill a year and a half now with Visa.

I would say a good 95% of our members subscribed using a Visa credit card.

What we planned on doing when we first started was we processed without Visa to bank up the $750 fee.

Now the difference between Epoch and CCBill on the Visa annual renewing is:
EPOCH: My UNDERSTANDING is that you have to pay this annually by credit card.
CCBILL: They will debit out incriments of something like $62.50 per week until the $350 has been paid. They take that out of your account prior to cutting you checks.

We are a big supporter in CCBill. I can honestly personally say that they will do the best that they can at whatever possible to assist their clients in growth.
A year ago with CCBill we were processing 2-5 signups per week.
We are now doing that a day, if not more.

Epoch offered us no materials to grow on nor did they care to assist even when we questioned.

I highly suggest accepting visa. If your serious about reaching a profit with your membersites, accept Visa. That is where a vast majority of your signups will generate from. If you don't accept Visa, you will lose many signups.

[derekt]

Drop me a line - gary at ccbill.com

I highly suggest that you have Gary as a rep if you go with CCBill. He handles our account. He is very good at what he does, he will help you go far! I am not saying this for brownie points, hell I'm the account owner. It would do me no justice either way. But Gary has really provided us the tools necessitate to grow. Gary got us set up with password abuse protection (Ie members sharing passwords), he got us set up with the programming back end of xxxdto.com which is doing extremely well, and we are now starting a downloadable clips store that we own that is starting to generate traffic.

Just my suggestions.

[ccjax]

I highly suggest that you have Gary as a rep if you go with CCBill. He handles our account. He is very good at what he does, he will help you go far! I am not saying this for brownie points, hell I'm the account owner. It would do me no justice either way. But Gary has really provided us the tools necessitate to grow. Gary got us set up with password abuse protection (Ie members sharing passwords), he got us set up with the programming back end of xxxdto.com which is doing extremely well, and we are now starting a downloadable clips store that we own that is starting to generate traffic.

No brownie points needed - love you guys!

[derekt]

awww thanks Gary! We all love you too!

[gaybucks_chip]

I echo Derek's comments regarding Epoch. Additionally, for both Epoch and CCBill, keep in mind that the *first year fees* for Visa are $750 and renewals are $375 (though I think Epoch is charging more now.)

[basschick]

the problem is that not using visa, you won't make many sales. it won't really give you an idea of what to expect, and unless you have plenty of your own traffic, you won't make much $. either way, you'll make probably a max of 30% of what you would have made with visa plus you won't have any quality affiliates since they'll know you don't have visa.

the review sites that list you aren't going to make an issue about it, but most will simply wait till you add visa. that alone will cost you $750 within 2 months of operation without visa.

to me, those things are more than worth a measly $750.

Thanks to everyone for your advice and perspectives! All of it helps!

Yup, my site will require the Visa fee...my warriors and warlocks get naked and get it on big time...even though they're just artwork. Like I've read somewhere on this site, cartoons are people, too...so now I'm wondering how to age ID my drawings for the 2257 regs and Australia -- none of them have driving licenses or passports!

Chip, I appreciate the supportive "dip my toes in the water" -- that's what I was thinking. If I make over $750 with MC., etc., then I can use that for the Visa fee. Like I said, I'm just starting this website venture to share my fantasy world, while protecting and financially supporting it at the same time. And if it starts to actually make some money, then I can always upgrade the billing, right?

Jar'