Merchant account is a bank authorized account which allows you to accept major credit cards, electronic checks, etc. Note though that rates banks will charge you are higher if you are operating an online store because the “card is not present”
Payment Gateway is a software which actually processes customer order information, address, credit card number, etc. The data is sent to a credit card authorization network which verifies that the credit card is valid and verifies that the shipping address matches the billing address. Example of payment gateway is Authorize.net
If you have only a few items, you can operate without a payment gateway and only with a merchant account — as long as you can manually assess the order and identify signs of fraud. All you need is a merchant account and a terminal where you can manually key in the credit card information
With a payment gateway, the order and credit card information is directly sent to your merchant account. So if the customer pressed the BUY NOW button twice, their card can be charged twice, as against when you manually key in the number, you can ignore the duplicate order
Comments on What is the difference between Merchant Account and Payment Gateway?
Merchant account is a bank authorized account which allows you to accept major credit cards, electronic checks, etc. Note though that rates banks will charge you are higher if you are operating an online store because the “card is not present”
Payment Gateway is a software which actually processes customer order information, address, credit card number, etc. The data is sent to a credit card authorization network which verifies that the credit card is valid and verifies that the shipping address matches the billing address. Example of payment gateway is Authorize.net
If you have only a few items, you can operate without a payment gateway and only with a merchant account — as long as you can manually assess the order and identify signs of fraud. All you need is a merchant account and a terminal where you can manually key in the credit card information
With a payment gateway, the order and credit card information is directly sent to your merchant account. So if the customer pressed the BUY NOW button twice, their card can be charged twice, as against when you manually key in the number, you can ignore the duplicate order