PayDotCom vs ClickBank

[Jim Guinn]

Hi Lynn,

I have had a few affiliates sign up already and they have made few sales; I can now see the money goes directly into my PayPal or StormPay account bypassing PayDotCom (I'll say a little about this when I respond to Sandra) so I can easily see who the subscription is for and credit the appropriate affiliate each month. With PayDotCom, the money goes right into your account, you pay the affiliate at the end of the month, and then you pay PayDotCom the "fee" they charge in one bulk payment at the end of the month.

Jim

[Jim Guinn]

Hi Sandra,

Yes, that was a pretty slick move Mike made to save money on his side. Since he (PDC) does not collect the money, he doesn't incur the merchant fee.

My product costs $24.95. Paypal charged me a $1.02 fee. At the end of the month, I have to pay PDC $3.00 for each transaction. So, the $24.95 comes down to $20.93 right away. Now, half of the PDC fee is supposed to be assessed to the affiliate when he/she gets paid, so affiliates will wind up with $10.98 (half of $24.95 minus $1.50 for PDC) and I'll wind up with $9.95 (half of $24.95 minus $1.50 for PDC and minus $1.02 for PayPal). This is higher than CB, but PDC has so many good features...many already mentioned in this thread...that I think it is worth it.

One other drawback I would like to see PDC change is to list products in categories by their performance like CB does. After my first sale I was placed in the the PDC marketplace, (You have to make one sale before you are listed...same as CB) but, I was added on to the end of the list in the category I chose...unless I move up as more sales are made....we'll have to see as time goes on, but I didn't see any rating system.

Jim

[deniseoberry]

[ebizturbo]

hi all, did paydotcom still pay $5.00 to every person that register from us?

[Ellen C. Braun]

Hi ebiz... No. They have another incentive plan going on where you get 7% of your signups' money... something like that- check on their site.

Denise, thanks so much for the explanation.

I still have my concerns about PDC, although I already set up an account with them. My ebook will be ready shortly, and I know that Clickbank has lots of traffic of affiliates looking to promote products.. and PDC is not nearly as well known. I've heard of people setting up mirror sites and using both Clickbank and PDC... has anyone here done that?

[flyer727]

Lynn,

Thanks for the good review. I like it when reviewers mention the pros & cons, rather than just saying "It's great- buy it now!"

I've been using Clickbank for years & am just starting with Paydotcom. I think people should realize this doesn't have to be an either/or decision.

I have some ebooks that sell well through Clickbank, have affiliates promoting them, etc., so obviously I don't want to ruin that... here's what I'm doing:

I'm making a copy of my sales page, naming it something like pdc.html, & changing the links to go to Paydotcom. Then I'll put that page in the Paydotcom marketplace, leaving the main page of the site set up for Clickbank. That way affiliates from either site will be able to promote it, without confusing the customer... since I don't really care which page they buy from. And setting up this page shouldn't take me more than half an hour per site... if I type slow.

I figure since I've sold thousands of ebooks already, it's well worth $29 to be able to add ALL of them (plus future products, not to mention physical products) to another marketplace. There are probably some PDC affiliates who don't use Clickbank at all.

It's such a no-brainer to do this, that I don't know why there is even a discussion. I'm not saying everyone has to use Paydotcom exclusively, but at least add it as an option. I mean, $29 is a day's worth of Adwords clicks for some of us... if I find one good affiliate, it's well worth it.

Clickbank is a dinosaur to me- they seem unwilling to improve or even to listen to the concerns I see merchants & affiliates posting on forums all over the web. Every time I visit their site, I hear a Prince song, because it reminds me of 1999, not 2006. They remind me of General Motors in the 1970s... right before the foreign automakers started cleaning their clock by providing what customers wanted to buy.

Why can't they pay us electronically, provide better stats, follow their own stated rules, give us a way to contact affiliates, provide a search function, make it harder to "hijack" affiliate commissions... I could go on & on.

[Ladan Lashkari]

I agree that PDC provides a lot of powerful features that ClickBank lacks, but I think the fact that they can only accepts orders through PayPal and StromPay is a drawback because some people either don't have a PayPal or StromPay account or they can't open one. So the merchants won't be able to accept orders from these people and so they'll leave money on the table. What does everyone else think about this?

A couple of months ago in another thread in SSWT, someone recommended another third-party solution to accept online orders which was called . After I compared their features and prices with others like ClickBank, I decided I liked it more so I started selling two of my products through them. Up to this day I'm really happy with the wealth of professional featutres they provide that neither ClickBank nor PDC offer.

So I'm just wondering why not many people use Plimus instead of ClickBank? Have you ever heard of it at all? I've been using them for a while and I'm more than happy with their service. They offer a very professional built-in shopping card and accept orders via credit card, mail, fax, phone, wire transfer and more. They also manage affiliate tracking and payments. What's more, they don't have any set-up fee.

Does anyone know why not many people use them instead of ClickBank or PDC? I'm really curious!

[Lynn Terry]

Probably lack of promotion. Do they have an affiliate program? If not, that would be the main reason, I would guess. I have used them to make a purchase, and also been an affiliate for a merchant that used Plimus - and both were positive experiences. I do have a page on SSWT about payment processing, and would be happy to add your thoughts on Plimus if you want to write up a short article or testimonial for them (along with your photo & link, of course )

[Ladan Lashkari]

[Lynn Terry]

[ElevatingYourBusiness]

Sandra,

Another alternative would be Third Sphere. They have a shopping cart and affiliate program built into their hosting package.

Many of my clients become an affiliate first, get 3 subscribers and that pays for their hosting.

http://1990619906.thirdsphereclassic.com/

[Kimmy]

[Kimmy]

I was just on their site and i saw this announcement about them not accepting Stormpay anymore
https://www.stormpay.com/stormpay/handle_gen.php

[Lynn Terry]

[bizdev]