Accept credit card payments as a freelancer: Till now As a freelancer you must be getting your payments either directly transferred into your savings bank account via Paypal, the popular online payment method for freelancers for a decade now. Or some freelancers across the USA and other countries prefer to get paid via Payoneer. Or you must be getting your payment in cash or with bank cheques. But if your freelance business is growing or you want to provide flexible payment options to your clients and want to provide them with an option to pay you through credit card. Then here’s how you can accept credit card payments as a freelancer.
Register yourself as a sole proprietor or Independent Contractor to Accept credit card payments as a freelancer
To accept credit card payments first you need to register yourself as a sole proprietor or independent contractor. This registration will give you legal business rights and will make you a business tax payer in your state. Then by providing the registration documents to your bank you need to open a merchant account. In many countries this merchant account is called a business current account. Once your merchant account is opened with your bank then you need to find an online payment gateway and sign up with them. These payment gateways will enable you as a business to accept payments from credit cards.
Payment gateways charges
Depending on the payment gateway service provider you choose their annual maintenance charges may vary one provider to another. For example, Stripe, an Irish-American payment processing platform, does not charge any monthly or annual fees from merchants.
But instead they do charge a flat transaction fee starting with 2.9% per transaction or higher depending on the mode of payment and national vs international transactions plus 30 cents extra per online transaction. And payments made into instore-with a physical payment transaction machine they do charge 2.7% plus 5 cents per transaction. Same process goes with other payment processing providers but based on their policies and chosen services they may or may not charge an annual or monthly service fee. For transaction fees with different payment processing service providers you may check their website.
Advantage of using payment gateway
By using payment gateway services credit card payment validation and processing happens in real time. You do not need to worry about all these technical things of payment processing since it happens automatically. Payment made to you through credit card or any other payment method such as debit card or wallet gets deposited in your bank account automatically.
Payments reports are made automatically with your payment processing provider which help you to file taxes correctly. It does not require any other infrastructure or manpower to handle the payment processing. Everything is automated and happens automatically by the payment gateway with a high level of security. So you get more time to focus on your business rather than being worried about handling the payments.
Top 5 Payment Gateway For Freelancers in the United States
Top 5 Payment Gateway For Freelancers in India
For monthly or annual maintenance fees and transaction charges of these payment gateways, you may check their official website.
Opinion
Freelancers learn to deal with several other challenges about their job and clients almost everyday. But with a growing freelance business having you registered as a legal business entity certainly opens several doors for you. Which may contribute to your freelance business in the long run. Such as registering your business and having a merchant account with a bank gives you access to several bank offers which banks do offer to their customers from time to time who have stable monthly income history.
And it also helps you secure a business loan. So it is a win-win situation for freelancers who register their business and operate with a merchant account.
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