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Canadian Payment Processor Price Comparison

Started by r0tt3n, October 23, 2006, 23:47:58 PM

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r0tt3n

It was buggin me that I hadn't seen anyone compare the relative prices of Moneris and Beanstream, the two major Canadian payment processors, so I did what was necessary to find out for my purposes, and thought I would post it up for all of you, should you care to know.

A few things you should know going into this comparison - It was assumed that you would need both an Internet Merchant Account, and an Internet Gateway Payment Processing Account, as well as the ability to accept both CDN & US dollar purchases.  Thus, the prices below reflect that.   Also, since you have to call Moneris to get a pricing quote, I had to commit to a few things that might not apply to you - I told the moneris sales rep that the company I was representing sold home garden watering systems, that it did about 100 transactions per month, averaging $125 per transaction, totalling about $12,500 CDN in monthly sales.  I can't say for sure, but I would imagine that Home Gardening system sales is a pretty low-risk market to be in, and also that the "Discount Rate" moneris quoted me (a.k.a. the %/transaction, a.k.a. the "rob you blind per sale" percentage) would probably be slightly higher if the monthly sales amount and/or volume were lower, and the discount rate is the single largest cost in this whole equation. So, take these numbers with a grain of salt, or, said another way, these numbers may not apply to you, but they're at least a start and something to consider.

So, without further ado...

   moneris   beanstream

setup   525   200
monthly   50   90
-------------------
$/trX   0.25   0.35
%/trx   2.5%   3.5%
---------------------

Assuming $125/trx
cost/trx:
   3.38   4.73
---------------

Assuming 100 trx/month
trx/yr   1,200 trx/year
cost/trx/year:
   4056   5676

Total Cost:
   5181   6956

So there you have it - in these specific circumstances, beanstream is slightly less expensive to start up, and slightly more expensive in the long haul my very narrow case, it would appear that Moneris would be the way to go, even if they are a bunch of slimy wankers.

Now for the good news: There are 3rd-party payment processor modules for both, found at the beanstream thread created by jabberwock (and helped by CiPHeR), and the Moneris thread created by yyzcity.  Nice work both of you!

So, there you have it.   Moneris would be cost you less if you're doing large volumes, but , beanstream is cheaper to get set up.  Thoughts?  Comments?  Other Canadian payment processors that I missed that you think should be added to this round-up?

floatingworld

Thanks for taking the time to write this, and for providing the link to the moneris and beanstream modules!

r0tt3n

glad I could help.  By the way - great pic - I had no idea bruce willis used virtuemart!

mjel

one important factor that you did not consider (but great effort here to post your knowledge for fellow canadians.

the pci compliance certificate required to establish online transaction processing is required by moneris and provided by beanstream.

not sure if you added that to the 550 setup for moneris - but i beleive it would add at least 100 to the setup -- plus some hoops to jump through.

yes - slimy on the moneris side