Miva - Merchant & Gateway Options

Payment Gateways and Merchant Accounts are the 2nd and 3rd items necessary to complete the realtime/credit card, online ecommerce cycle (a shopping cart being the first). Your shopping cart communicates with your Payment Gateway provider as soon as your online customer hits the "Submit Order" button. The Gateway verifies if the customer card is valid, if the funds are present, and what bank and account to deposit the funds to if the transaction is successful.

A Merchant Account allows you to take credit card charges and sets you up to be charged for each transaction - a way of compensating the card companies whose cards you allow your customers to use.

We suggest you start with your bank and find out what they offer for both - often they can be the best service and even the least expensive. If you are going to use Miva they now offer a complete Gateway/Merchant solution and their rates are in the same ballpark as other providers.

Payment Gateways compatible with Miva merchant 4.1:

• Miva Payment (Gateway and Merchant Account together)
• Complete list of gateways available for Miva (this is a PDF document, look for the "Payment Configuration" link midway down the page)
• http://verisign.com/ Look for Verisign's PayFlow Pro
• http://authorize.net
• PayPal - not exactly a Gateway or RealTime Processing, but a way in which to allow customers to use their credit cards with Miva.