How can I restore authorize.net as my payment gateway after switching?

[Pross190]

I recently switched my store from Wordpress to Shopify.  It was setup and functioning with authorize.net as the payment gateway.

I temporarily switched to Shop Pay to test conversions for a 30 day period.

Conversion rate dropped over 60%.

I went to try to switch back and authorize.net is gone as gateway option.

How do I go back without crawling back to Wordpress hat in hand?

[kjproweb]

Hi Pross190,

You don't have to switch back to WordPress. There are several other Shopify-friendly, alternative payment gateways that work great! 

• The preferred payment gateway whose name I won't promote here offers much better pricing compared to Authorize.net (I'm just giving full disclosure)
• More feature-rich tools such as a free Virtual Terminal, SMS text invoicing and email invoicing
• Apple Pay and Google Pay (included at no additional charge)
• eCheck-By Web and Plaid (which lets customer pay by logging into to their bank account while still on your website checkout page).
• Automated email receipts...and much more

No sign up fee. No application fee and only $0.10 cents per transaction when accepting credit cards and debit cards.

If you're experiencing difficulty getting online with Authorize.net, just send me an email. I'll reply with a link to the preferred payment gateway. Accounts are getting approved and activated on the same day or within 24 hours.

Happy Selling, 

Kevin James - Shopify approved partner

Full-Stack Developer & eCommerce Expert

KJ ProWeb Inc.

(818) 850-1034

[Pross190]

That’s great,. It how do I go back to authorize.net?

[kjproweb]

Hi Pross190,

According to recent statements from Shopify, [new activations] for Authorize.net cannot be supported at this time.

Merchants who've been using Authorize.net prior to this relatively new change will NOT be impact. Only new integrations cannot be supported at this time.

As I shared in a previous statement, there are a number of excellent Shopify-friendly alternatives that merit consideration.

Happy Selling,

Kevin James

[ActorMike]

As of today, you can absolutely activate Authorize.net as a 3rd party provider and I just did it.

The link below will take you straight there.  Replace YOURSHOPNAME with your shop's name.

https://YOURSHOPNAME.myshopify.com/admin/settings/payments/third-party-providers/7

[kjproweb]

Hi ActorMike,

Authorize.net has always been visible in the payments options dashboard. Unfortunately, brand new Shopify users are still unable to actually active the gateway. 

Earlier today, I spoke with a Shopify Guru and had a conversation with Authnet support at 1-877-447-3938. Give Authorize.net a call as I did. 

• Both companies are still in talks.
• The situation has not changed as of October 13, 2022.
• New accounts to Shopify will not be able to activate service until issues get resolved.

Meanwhile, PINWHEEL gateway is an outstanding alternative to Authorize.net. They're a Shopify approved gateway with excellent pricing and same day activation. I included a link to their service as highlighted in blue.

PINWHEEL (click to sign up) - Basic Plan: $0.10 cents per transaction plus 0.60% of monthly credit card processing volume. No activation fees. No sign up fees. They accept merchants in all global markets where Shopify offers service.

Happy Selling,

Kevin James

[ActorMike]

@kjproweb I just setup a new shop today and activated Authorize.net as seen above, so as you can imagine, I am confused! Was I able to do this because I already have a shopify account?

AN Setup Today

[valiermedia]

Hi there!

I run a payments processing company and am a web developer for several prominent payments companies, and I can tell you that if your conversion rate dropped by 60% when you tried Shopify Checkout, that something else must be going on. That's also something that must be cleared up...there is Shop Pay, which is more of a dynamic checkout option for customers, and Shopify Checkout, which is a payment gateway (rough equivalent to Authorize.net in this instance). Did you enable Shopify Checkout and Shop Pay?

Basically, the checkout experience between a third party gateway and Shopify Checkout isn't substantially different than the checkout experience when connected via Authorize.net. You also have to pay a substantial processing fee to Shopify if you use a third party checkout, so your best bet is almost 100% of the time to use Shopify Checkout. I say this as a owner of a payments company, that I can't honestly recommend to any of my merchants that they use a third party payments provider, like mine, in place of Shopify Checkout. They basically have that on lockdown at this point.

Also...I question any offer to process credit and debit card payments for $0.10. As a payments company, you will always need to cover the cost of interchange, which $0.10 isn't going to cover for payments above a certain amount. If it's below that amount, then you are paying a higher effective rate. If you go above that amount, the processor would start losing money to banks and card companies and would freeze your account and implement an interchange plus account, which with Shopify's fee, is going to come out to an effective rate well over 3%.

What I would do is take a deeper look at the conversion rate drop off. Is that a 60% drop from that same period last year or versus the previous period? Did you change anything else about the store? Did you run paid advertising? Did you update pricing or your design in any way? Do you run a seasonal business? There are a lot of factors to consider, but switching to Shopify Checkout isn't going to crush your conversion rate by 60%, I can promise you that 🙂

[kjproweb]

Valiermedia,

Outstanding recommendations and you're 100% on point. I hope that Pross190 heeds your wise advice. Notwithstanding...

• Do not call into question nor challenge my statement fact regarding the $0.10 cents per transaction fee. The service provider is listed in Shopify's directory of US domestic payment processors.
• The $0.10 per transaction fee is actually written into the service agreement.
• Yes, your description of how "interchange" works is 100% accurate. Again, hat's off to your expert wisdom. However, interchange is a non-issue as our processor/payment gateway owner is a fintech who owns and operates a decentralized blockchain driven platform.

Thanks for contributing to the success of Shopify users, Valiermedia. As an expert coder and Shopify approved partner as well, my goal was simply to clear up any confusion.

Best regards,

Kevin James

[valiermedia]

Hi Kjproweb,

I will always question statements that go against my professional experience. Your statements about interchange being a non-issue raises questions. It's 100% OK for us to challenge one another or call advice into question, its not an attack on you or the payments company that you work with.

Be well 🙂

[jamisongsg]

@Pross190 Probably too late for you, but for others in this situation. I did something similar (temporarily disabled Authorize.net) to run test transactions, per the Shopify article https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/checkout-settings/test-orders#place-a-test-order-by-simulating-a-.... But when I finished testing, and went to re-enable Authorize.net, it was no longer an option. Fortunately for me, I was able to talk to Shopify Plus support and they made an exception and their IT team was able to get us back to functioning with Authorize. They said at that time that Authorize.net will still work for existing users, but is no longer allowed to be added as a gateway. And the Shopify Plus support staff I talked to was confused to not find Authorize.net as an option also--so the support staff didn't even know of the change.

That was several months ago, so possibly around the time you wrote this post. So I don't know if it's still true. I recall Authorize.net was still listed as a compatible gateway, which is still shown today: https://www.shopify.com/payment-gateways/united-states/authorize-net.

I even recall when disabling Authorize.net, there was a modal that said, "don't worry, you can reactivate Authorize.net anytime." Wow! that's negligent of Shopify to not fix that warning, to not update their documentation, and to not notify all Authorize.net users in the first place.

So if your store is reliant on Authorize.net, don't disable Authorize.net from your Shopify account without checking with Shopify first, even if a modal prompts you that "you can reconnect anytime," because that may not be true, and you may not be able to get Authorize.net back.

Our store was down for about a day, which is very painful--lost sales during our most important annual promo, swamped customer support, and lost time fixing a problem that Shopify should at least warn Authorize.net users when disabling the gateway. And if Shopify hadn't made an exception and re-connected Authorize for us, we would have been down much longer, while we scrambled to apply for a new gateway account and get our store back online.

As asked by @ActorMike, is it possible to activate the Authorize.net gateway if you're already have a Shopify account; the answer for me was NO. We had been using Authorize.net with Shopify for years. So based on Mike's post, it's promising to hear Authorize.net may again be available.