Anna Lynn Dizon

As the name suggests, startups are businesses that are in their initial stages. A startup begins with one or more individuals forming a business idea to fulfill a market demand with a single, unique product or service. The goal of a startup is to develop and grow into a revenue-generating business with the help of…

Level 2 and 3 credit card processing are transaction types reserved for businesses that accept payments from other organizations (typically high-volume B2B transactions) instead of individual customers. These processing levels can save your company money—but they come with additional requirements, so you need a card processing service that can handle that additional data. We’ll explore…

A franchise is a business model in which a parent company, or licensor, grants permission to a licensee to share its business concept. The resulting business, a franchise, helps the licensor expand while retaining control over products, delivery methods, marketing, and concepts. In return, the licensee receives an established product with permission from the franchise…

Every aspiring entrepreneur should have a roadmap—a strategy for growing their business from a core idea to a profitable venture. A business model defines an entrepreneur’s overall plan for making a profit, identifying its core product (or service), target market, value proposition, and strategy for sustainability. This guide will introduce you to the basics of…

Stripe is a popular payment processor with numerous tools for selling products, services, and subscriptions online and integrating with hundreds of sales, ecommerce, and business software. Chargebee is a powerful software for managing subscription services and works with payment processors—including Stripe. Stripe is more versatile and more technical, while Chargebee does one thing—subscriptions—with easy-to-use tools…

Authorize.net is a Visa-owned company that offers one of the oldest and most trusted ecommerce payment solutions. It is a payment gateway that can facilitate virtual terminal, recurring, and virtual point-of-sale (POS) payments. Authorize.net is popular among merchants primarily for its compatibility with most payment processors and a wide variety of software. We compared Authorize.net…

Recurly is a powerful subscription management software that works with multiple payment processors. Stripe, meanwhile, is a powerful payment processor that works with subscriptions. Stripe integrates with hundreds of third-party apps—including Recurly. Both offer strong tools for invoicing, billing, and preventing the loss of subscribers because of expired cards and other involuntary reasons. Stripe does…

SumUp is an affordable mobile-first payment processor for small businesses. The payment software is free to use and there are no long-term contracts. Its range of card readers is among the cheapest, particularly the basic 3-in-1 card reader with a PIN pad that costs only $54. SumUp transaction fees start at 2.75% for in-person payments…

Helcim is a Canadian credit card processing and merchant services company catering to all kinds of small and growing businesses. It offers a suite of free payment processing tools and integration with various business systems. Fees start at interchange plus 0.15% + 6 cents with built-in volume discounts. These features earned Helcim 4.38 out of…

The business-to-business (B2B) payments market is growing, with payments becoming increasingly digital. Although the market as a whole is becoming more flexible and secure, some challenges inhibit businesses’ ability to manage B2B payments efficiently, not to mention expand internationally. Whether you operate a B2B company or need to make regular or recurring payments to your…

Even as we move toward a cashless economy, accepting cash payments is still common, and, in most places, expected. While cash transactions are free from additional fees and risk of chargebacks, the manual nature of processing cash transactions makes it more susceptible to human error. Below are seven cash handling best practices and tips to…

In a nutshell, electronic fund transfer (EFT), sometimes called “pay by bank,” is a broad term used to classify all types of digital exchange of funds between two banks. While EFTs are generally slower to process than card payments, EFT payments (such as ACH and e-checks) are cheaper and equally secure as card payment transactions….