Authorize.Net Review 2023

If you recognize the name Authorize.Net, you likely found it as a third-party payment gateway that a merchant service provider was using. But what most people don’t know is that the company also offers payment processing services. The company was founded in 1996, and later bought by CyberSource in 2007, before being acquired by Visa in 2010. This Authorize.Net review will outline the provider’s offerings and give you an in-depth analysis of the company.

It’s worth pointing out that Authorize.Net is not a merchant account provider, but best known for its payment gateways. Its gateway services are mentioned in several merchant service provider reviews, and Authorize.Net offers a variety of added services that can integrate with their payment gateway. While merchants sign up for an account with Authorize.Net, the merchant account will be provided by a third-party provider – usually through Global Payments or EVO Payments. 

Authorize.Net offers a basic but robust payment gateway with additional options such as a recurring billing system, checkout system, and a customer information manager. Merchants can also utilize fraud prevention and echeck processing, but these come with an additional fee. 

Services Offered by Authorize.Net

Being one of the biggest processors in the payment gateway sector, Authorize.Net has many services. You can find a review of their services below:

Payment Gateway

Authorize.Net offers its payment gateway services to all accounts registered with it. Payment gateways are a necessary part of a payment process where businesses need to take transactions remotely – whether it be through the mail, phone, or online. 

Merchant Account

Authorize.Net can easily integrate with most existing merchant accounts, but if a merchant does not have an account, they can set you up with one. The merchant account offered by the processor works on a flat-rate pricing model, and there is also interchange-plus pricing on accounts that qualify for it. If a business wants to be eligible for interchange-plus pricing, it must meet a processing limit of more than $500,000 per year.

While the processor currently partners with the two companies mentioned above, two dozen other partners are listed on their website. 

Virtual Terminal

Authorize.Net offers a complete point-of-sale system that merchants can access through their browsers, which also acts as a virtual terminal. Merchants can manually key-in transactions using their computers, which merchants need to conduct card-not-present transactions, allowing transactions over the phone or through the mail.

While this feature is free with the Authorize.Net payment gateway, additional costs may incur for card-present transactions. 

Value-Added Features

Being the processing giant that Authorize.Net is, one would expect added features that you don’t usually get with a less popular provider. It is important to discuss those features in this Authorize.Net review. Here are some features that add to the feasibility of using Authroize.Net;

• Automated Billing: Recurring and subscription-based billing are more popular than ever. The Automated Recurring Billing service or ARB allows merchants to customize the subscription process with free trial periods and installment-based payments, and it comes at no additional cost.
• Customer Information Manager: This is one of the best free features with the Authorize.Net gateway. Cardholder data is sensitive, and if it gets into the wrong hands, it can be misused, so Authorize.net offers encryption and tokenization of the data for protection.
• Account Updater: This is an optional feature that coordinates with the Customer Information Manager and automatically updates cardholder information if a new card is entered or data is changed.

Products offered by Authorize.Net

Authorize.net does not offer its own hardware, but they do offer hardware to their clients from third parties. You can review the equipment offerings of the processor below:

Mobile Payments

Mobile payments are a good option for businesses, and Authorize.Net enables its clients to receive them. Like any other processor, this includes a card reader that can work in conjunction with a smartphone or a tablet. In this case, it is the BBPOS Chipper 2X, which comes in a $65 headphone jack and a $130 Bluetooth version. 

In-Store Payments

This makes use of the BBPOS Chipper 2X as well, allowing merchants to conduct in-store payments using the VPOS terminal of Authorize.Net. For card-present transactions a card reader would be necessary, however, and the virtual terminal is only accessible through a Windows PC or Microsoft Surface tablet. 

Drawbacks of Authorize.Net

Customer reviews show several complaints against Authorize.Net, but it is due to a prevalent misconception amongst merchants that Autorize.Net handles their merchant accounts, when in fact Authorize.Net has nothing to do with account holds or reserved payments. Screening out the complaints that have nothing to do with the company, here are some of the most common allegations against the processor:

Issues with Billing

There are countless complaints about wrongly timed monthly payments and cancellation of services. Customers claim that they wrongfully signed up for a service they did not need and were billed for it. Clients need to double-check whether or not the service has been canceled, as the sign-up process is so deceivingly easy that merchants often sign up without realizing it.

High Prices

First of all, the all-in-one option by the processor confuses many customers about what offerings are free and what will be charged. But even considering that, the flat rate that merchants get when signing up for an account through Authroize.Net is higher than the industry average. It is often cheaper to sign up with another processor and use Authorize.Net as a gateway.

Transfer Of Data

Transaction history and other payment-related data are very precious assets of a business. When a merchant changes providers or looks for other processing opportunities, this data is essential for several procedures. Authorize.Net has had a reputation of being a problematic company to shift from. Even though there is no recent review about this, merchants should know that this has been an issue.

Conclusion

Authorize.Net has a positive image in the payment processing industry in 2023, mainly because of its payment gateway service. Not many merchants use their merchant account or hardware services, and they are not very popular. Most merchants don’t even know they offer such services, so this Authorize.Net review covered the less popular offering of the provider and analyzed their feasibility. While Authorize.Net is good at providing a reliable payment gateway, other offerings are much less appealing. If you are looking for a full-fledged merchant account provider, it is best to look for other alternatives.