Chris has been writing about small business topics since 2003. In 2015, he joined Merchant Maverick, where he writes about business financing, payment processing, and demographic trends in entrepreneurship. Chris has been featured in Fox Business, ABC News, Yahoo Finance, GoBankingRates, Newsweek, BizJournals, and other publications. He has a Bachelor’s of Arts in English Writing Arts from SUNY Oswego, and a Masters of Science in Interactive Media from the University of Central Florida. He currently resides in the Hudson Valley region of New York.
Despite tightening interest rates, companies founded or co-founded by women netted over $36.3 billion for the year ending in October, down from 2021’s $42.6 billion.
In Merchant Maverick’s inaugural data report on The Best States In Which To Survive Recession, our analysis found that the states in the best condition to mitigate the effects of a recession aren’t where you might expect. Most of them, as it turns out, are in the Heartland.
Stripe Payments is a powerful tool for some businesses that want to sell online, but it can easily be overkill for others. See whether the customizable checkout, extensive integrations, advanced invoicing, and recurring billing features are right for you.
Can you use Venmo for business purposes? The short answer is that businesses can take Venmo payments in three ways: online, in-app, or in-person. For most businesses, whether you should take payments through Venmo depends on your customer base.
GOBankingRates talks to banking expert Chris Motola about the benefits of credit unions.
Financial expert Chris Motola tackles why credit card rates dipped in 2020 in this article with GoBankingRates.
Business expert Chris Motola talks with Yahoo Finance at the height of the pandemic about the impact of government shutdowns on small businesses.
Loans expert Chris Motola discusses the paradox of obtaining credit cards with a high credit limit when building credit in this article from Medium.
Small businesses looking to take advantage of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) loan programs’ excellent rates and terms face what is often a complex and confusing application process. We’ll go over the minimum FICO score SBA loan requirements for each type of SBA loan and what you can do if you don’t think you’ll qualify.
A buy-now-pay-later can give customers the ability to spread out payments in a budget-friendly fashion. Issuing short-term loans to customers yourself can be risky, both financially and legally. The smart choice might be to partner with an established BNPL partner like Klarna to give customers financing options while keeping your own risk low. Read on for more information about Klarna!
Here are the best international merchant services that provide international payment processing, international payment gateways, and international merchant accounts.
Computers, IT equipment, and related items pose unique issues for businesses trying to decide whether to lease or buy. Tech equipment becomes obsolete more quickly than almost any other type of equipment, making it a poor long-term investment. At the same time, many businesses need to keep their tech hardware up-to-date in order to remain competitive. Should you buy or lease your tech equipment? Read on.
The SBA’s COVID-19 EIDL portal closed on May 16, 2022, and is no longer accepting applications, requests for increases, reconsideration, and appeals due to a lack of any more available funding.
When you’re ready to dive into the world of credit card APIs, you’ll want to compare and contrast the developer tools provided by payment services providers. It’s important to evaluate them not only by the strength of their API, but also consider more mundane factors, such as how much they cost, the types of transactions they support, and how secure they are.
Both Stripe and Authorize.Net offer a powerful suite of payment services along with robust support for developers who want to integrate their services into their websites. Both also provide excellent support for foreign eCommerce transactions. Evaluating Stripe vs. Authorize.Net comes down to the sheer volume of features vs. flexibility.
Stripe is a powerful online payment processor, but it can be a bit daunting if you’re new to the platform. Learn how Stripe works and how it can make running your online business easier.
Merchant category codes, or MCCs, dictate interchange rates, but they also serve other important purposes. See how MCCs affect your small business and what you can do about making sure your business is categorized with the right MCC.
If you want to sell online, you need more than a website. A payment gateway connects your payment processor to the internet and conveys the transaction information so that you can get paid.
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The vendors that appear on this list were chosen by subject matter experts on the basis of product quality, wide usage and availability, and positive reputation.
Merchant Maverick’s ratings are editorial in nature, and are not aggregated from user reviews. Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships.
Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone.
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