You may have wondered about the payment methods you would like to accept such as credit card or checking and what costs are involved.  Good news!  E-Rental Tools will allow you to accept both credit card and checking account payments right through your website at a cost that wont break the bank.  In this post, we’ll discuss the two types of payment methods your business can use and the benefits and drawbacks of each. 

ACH Payments

Typically, rents are collected using checking account deductions also known as ACH (Automated Clearing House) payments.  Why?  Because paying by check is cheap.  In fact, we recommend that our customers only use ACH for online rent payments because the processing costs are much lower for tenants.  These costs are typically only a few dollars per online rent payment and are added on as a processing fee at the time when rent is paid.  Add up the cost of a stamp, envelope, checks, and the time spent finding a mailbox, and this becomes a great convenience for your tenants.

Credit Cards

Credit cards are a great convenience and are always ready in a pinch when there isn’t an ATM nearby.  But, what you may not have known is that credit card processing is expensive!  Because of the high processing fees involved, we don’t recommend them for larger purchases such as online rent payments.  These fees are typically in the range of 2.25%-4% of total payment and can vary by which company issues the card and type of purchase made.  On a $1,000 rent, a 3% fee, for example, would end up costing an extra $30 in additional processing costs which is more than most tenants are comfortable paying.

So what do we recommend? We suggest that all of our customers use checking account processing for online rent payments, and credit cards for smaller payments such as online rental applications.   This offers the most flexibility and cost effectiveness for both you and your tenants.