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swbrains

16 Sep, 2011 03:03 AM

Hi,

I'm researching recurring payment services for our SaaS (hosting) business. Here are some questions I have about how CheddarGetter works:

1) We want to use hosted payment forms to reduce our PCI scope. I saw you recently introduced this feature based on discussions I read here. Is it complete or still in beta?

2) Does the hosted payment form feature also have a hosted "update" form to allow customers to update their billing info via a hosted form? -- again, to help us reduce PCI scope on our part by not having to collect billing info updates on our side.

3) We don't have a merchant account yet. Can we bring any merchant account to you or does the CG gateway only work with certain account providers?

4) I saw that the accounts are free until we start billing customers. Does this mean that I can set up a Blowing Up plan and I won't be charged any fees until the first customer signs up via that account?

5) How customizable are the hosted payment forms? Can we customize more than just the company name at the top and a logo or can we specify colors, page background, and other page attributes?

6) Can we specify custom text input fields to collect additional customer data on the hosted payment forms with each order or must we collect that info on our end before directing the customer to the hosted payment form?

I think that's it for now... ;-)

Thanks!
-- Vinnie

1. 1 Posted by vucetica on 20 Sep, 2011 12:48 AM

   

   My questions are pretty much identical to the one that Vinnie asked, but I would add few more:

   1. For Blowing Up account type, you say that that Gateway is included...what is my price at the end? For example, I have 5000 customers and selling service for $5/mo. I would like to know what are my total expenses per month...is it 5000 * 0.20 + 79 and that's it...I get 5000 * 5 - (5000 * 0.20 + 79) = 23 921 on my bank account and do not have to pay anything else to gateway processor...just tax to the goverment :)
   2. Am I able to export my data if I decide to switch to another provider one day...how would that process go?
   3. Do you have any SLA where you can guarantee that your API will not be "down" more than, for example, 2h per year or something?

   Thanks
   Alex

   • Edit

2. Support Staff 2 Posted by Marc Guyer on 20 Sep, 2011 02:49 PM

   

   Hi guys

   1) We want to use hosted payment forms to reduce our PCI scope. I saw you recently introduced this feature based on discussions I read here. Is it complete or still in beta?

   It's complete and in use by several merchants. FYI, we're days away from releasing and upgrade to enable full CSS customization of the interface.

   2) Does the hosted payment form feature also have a hosted "update" form to allow customers to update their billing info via a hosted form? -- again, to help us reduce PCI scope on our part by not having to collect billing info updates on our side.

   It sure does. Here's some detail on the hosted pages.

   3) We don't have a merchant account yet. Can we bring any merchant account to you or does the CG gateway only work with certain account providers?

   You can bring your merchant account to CheddarGateway as long as it's compatible. In most cases, US domestic merchant accounts are compatible. However, I'd suggest at least exploring the option to get a new merchant account with Gravity Payments (free CG login required). Their support is second to none. Highly recommended. Also, the solution is known to be compatible in every way.

   4) I saw that the accounts are free until we start billing customers. Does this mean that I can set up a Blowing Up plan and I won't be charged any fees until the first customer signs up via that account?

   No. As soon as you switch to the Blowing Up plan, you will begin to be charged. The first payment is one month after the switch.

   5) How customizable are the hosted payment forms? Can we customize more than just the company name at the top and a logo or can we specify colors, page background, and other page attributes?

   You can specify colors and background currently but we're days away from releasing support for full CSS customization.

   6) Can we specify custom text input fields to collect additional customer data on the hosted payment forms with each order or must we collect that info on our end before directing the customer to the hosted payment form?

   The hosted pages do not collect additional info.

   For Blowing Up account type, you say that that Gateway is included...what is my price at the end? For example, I have 5000 customers and selling service for $5/mo. I would like to know what are my total expenses per month...is it 5000 * 0.20 + 79 and that's it...I get 5000 * 5 - (5000 * 0.20 + 79) = 23 921 on my bank account and do not have to pay anything else to gateway processor...just tax to the goverment :)

   The Blowing Up plan includes CheddarGetter and CheddarGateway service. Merchant account fees are separate. You can learn specifics about merchant account pricing when you contact Gravity Payments.

   Am I able to export my data if I decide to switch to another provider one day...how would that process go?

   Yes. All data in CG is available via the API. Full credit card numbers are available from CheddarGateway as long as you are PCI compliant to the appropriate level.

   Do you have any SLA where you can guarantee that your API will not be "down" more than, for example, 2h per year or something?

   No. We think SLA's are nonsense. I'll try not to rant but just give you the facts. We have a high availability setup and real-time data replication. In more than 2 years, we have had unexpected downtime of a total of 35 minutes. Once for 20 minutes while Rackspace was down and once for 15 minutes when our Memcached array was failing.

   That said, we suggest that you only communicate with CheddarGetter when necessary (new customer, customer edit, etc). When downtime is planned, the API returns '503 Service Unavailable' so you can handle it appropriately.

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3. Dean closed this discussion on 16 Jan, 2013 09:42 PM.