Beginner question...

[MaDd0g]

I would like to accept payment on my website without ever leaving my site. from what I understand Authorize.net(AIM) will allow this.

Does it then not matter what merchant account I use from the customer and leaving my site perspective?

The way I understand it is that the payment gateway does all of the work getting the info to my merchant account to get paid.

What would be the benefit or need to have a module installed that is merchant specific?

Could someone PM me the Merchant/Gateway combo you use that you have been succesfull with? I can't afford high monthly service charges and "discount" rates but I don't want to have any issues either.

[stevesh]

What would be the benefit or need to have a module installed that is merchant specific?

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but the on-site payment processors like the one you mentioned include the merchant account and processing gateway.

The payment processing business is very competitive for most normal ecommerce websites, and I doubt you'll see much diifference among them when everything is taken into account.

Be sure to read up on 'PCI Compliance' and ask the processors you're considering about their requirements and fees. Often they don't disclose them upfront.

Increasingly, I'm using off-site processors like Paypal and Google Checkout. I think more people are comfortable with them than used to be the case, and the whole PCI thing is on them, not you.