Fee Fighters Launches Samurai, A New, Flexible Payment Gateway

FeeFighters, one of our favorite credit card processing comparison sites, recently launched its own online payment gateway. The new software, Samurai, connects merchants with one or more credit card processing networks and allows them to process credit card and debit card transactions online. We think Samurai is pretty neat, because it gives merchants an unprecedented level of control over their credit card processing system.

More options for merchants

FeeFighters was founded on a mission to help people find the best credit card processing deal. After hearing numerous complaints about gateways from their customers, they were inspired to build their own. A variety of payment gateway companies exist, but most lock merchants into a relationship with one credit card processor. “Business owners would always complain of being locked into using certain processors because of the gateways,” said Stella Fayman, director of marketing and customer service. “Even if they found a better deal on a merchant account elsewhere, they couldn’t switch because their gateway was incompatible with the processor.”

FeeFighters wanted to create a product that gave merchants more flexibility. Samurai allows merchants to process credit cards on their favorite network, or set up multiple networks and route transactions on the one that offers the best price, international compatibility, or whatever other perks their hearts desire. It’s currently compatible with four major credit card processing networks: First Data, TSYS, Fifth-Third (Vantiv), and RBS Worldpay. In the future, Samurai should be compatible with all processing networks, and the ones it has now are compatible with most banks.

Customizable interfacing and more

Samurai is flexible in other ways too. Unlike most processors, it offers a customizable gateway interface. Many merchants are reluctant to switch payment gateways because they’re comfortable with one already, or have already written their own code that may not be compatible with another gateway. To solve this problem, Samurai is designed to support a variety of programming languages, including the big names like Ruby, Python and PHP. Although this feature hasn’t been rolled out to the public as of September 2011, the folks at FeeFighters assure us that it’s on its way. Samurai also offers “intelligent routing”, which automatically sends international and small ticket transactions to the cheapest processor, and it even enables merchants to show PCI compliance in only 5 minutes.

A good deal all around

Samurai is also one of the more affordable payment gateways on the market. The pricing is similar to Authorize.net, but they offer more features. “We chose pricing that would be fair, while emphasizing affording ability,” Stella told us. FeeFighters charges a $10 monthly fee and 10 cents per transaction to use Samurai. That just includes the payment gateway, not a merchant account. However, if you don’t already have one, they’re happy to offer you a bundle deal. To get a processing and gateway combo, it’s $25 a month, plus 2.3% + $0.30 per transaction. That’s still a pretty good deal in the world of payment processing, especially since some gateways tack on extra fees to include a merchant account.

Samurai is still in its beta stage, and only available in the United States, but FeeFighters has received a lot of requests to expand internationally, so they’re working on it. More information on Samurai is available online at the official FAQ page.