What do you recommend, Paypal vs Authorize.net

[GoTrends]

Hi all,

I have a friend who wants to set up a website for her business and take transactions over the net.

She has no clients as yet and even when her business grows she won't be selling high volumes.

I suggested using paypal because it was easy to integrate but others are recommending she use Authorize.net or another payment gateway to appear more "professional" to larger buyers.

What's your take?

And can paypal be integrated into a shopping cart style that appears professional and not have people see big orange paypal buttons all over on checkout?

Thanks,

- TRENDS

[Kenster]

Paypal has some program I believe its called Paypal Pro or Paypal Payments Pro or something like that. For a modest monthly fee you can accept cc's without any PP buttons or branding. Very similar to AUthorize it.

I want to say its like $20 a month...not bad at all, and generally I found paypal to be very helpful and agreat service.

[JPMaroney]

We use both ... and both can pretty much be integrated into most good carts because they're so widely used.

[TimGross]

Just to clarify for anyone who doesn't know, PayPal processes orders as a "gateway" and also functions as a 3rd party merchant account. (ie, it's all included)

Authorizenet functions as a gateway to process orders online, but you need your own existing merchant account to use it.