We did a little bit of research on Avangate and found that they are one of the premiere e-commerce companies in the industry. They have won many awards and recognitions over the years. We also found that Avangate was very transparent, providing pricing structures for their subscriptions online. Another thing about Avangate is that they are growing. They have received numerous investments over the years to increase their efficacy and development. Recently, Francisco Partners in an equity deal acquired them. This gave them some more capital resource to further develop their e-commerce product.

• Pricing
• SSL certificate
• Reporting and analytics
• Payment options
• API integration

Pricing

The first thing that we noticed, up front, about Avangate was a transparent pricing paradigm. We found that they offer three service levels. In this industry, we sometimes couldn't get pricing information even with a phone-in. Here are the pricing levels we found with Avangate:

• Growth Edition: 3.99% + $.99 per transaction
• Standard Edition: 4.99% + $2.50 per transaction or 8% with minimum of $2.50
• Enterprise Edition: Custom Pricing

The Growth Edition is for large, new companies. We found that there is a $14,500 revenue limit per month. If you reach this transaction amount per month, you don't get billed if you go over your revenue limit. You simply get bumped up to the next revenue package. With other providers in the industry, we found that some large e-commerce providers would charge you a "revenue overage."

SSL Certificate

One of the nice things about Avangate is that you don't need to get an extra SSL certificate if you use their solution for your e-commerce store. We found that a shared SSL certificate through Avangate will automatically back any buyer using your store. Sometimes in the industry, we found that you needed an additional SSL certificate purchased through RapidSSL, Comodo, or other providers.

Reporting and Analytics

Another benefit of Avangate was the level of reporting and analytics provided. In addition to Google Analytics at all subscription levels, Avangate comes with the following built-in analytics:

• Standard reporting.
• Business intelligence.
• User audits.
• Subscription metrics.

With the Enterprise-level subscription, you also get the option to use Omniture or any other third-party analytics engine.

Payment Options

We also liked the number of payment options included with each subscription level. With the Starter subscription, you get:

• Four standard credit cards
• Post Pay
• PayPal

The other subscription levels get you a lot of different payment options, all the way up to 46 payment gateways with the Enterprise-level subscription. There are many foreign payment options...as well as over 120 currencies available upon request.

Avangate also has a unique solution in place that lets their customers get a prepaid credit card. This is a unique solution that lets a business get their money up front, an important feature when waiting upon the slow turnaround of deposits to your bank from PayPal and other online payment sources.

API Integration

We also felt like Avangate had a powerful array of app integrations available to users through API integration. With Avangate, it is possible to get the following types of integrations set up:

• Integrate your brand and legacy marketing systems.
• Your legacy CRM system, as well as third-party providers, can be easily added with Avangate's API nexus.
• 40+ payment methods available through API with Enterprise-level subscription.

• Sales percentage
• Shared SSL
• Third party integrations

Sales Percentage

We did have some concerns about Avangate. Even though we like the sales percentage approach with the subscription, we felt that this was a lot like transaction fees. A platform that takes a percentage of your sales each month can quickly add up as a form of capital expenditures. Additionally, we felt like the "bump" up to the next subscription level if you hit a revenue mark ($14,500 per month) with the starter subscription could increase your expenses.

In addition to the monthly percentage of your sales that are taken as a part of your subscription, we felt like the fee on top of the percentage ($2.50 per transaction, depending upon your subscription, made Avangate a little bit more expensive than the competitors.

Shared SSL

We did have some concerns about the shared SSL that comes with Avangate. With some of the other competitors that we saw, especially X-Cart, we saw that some of the large business subscriptions gave each business a dedicated SSL certificate. We felt that Avangate should provide dedicated SSL packages to each of its subscriptions.

Third Party Integrations

We also wondered about some of the third-party app integrations with Avangate as well as a development center. With other competitors of Avangate, we saw that there was a development center and list of integrations listed.

We recommend Avangate as a provider of e-commerce solutions for customers. We felt that, overall, they were one of the most transparent large-sized e-commerce in the industry. Additionally, we give Avangate a lot of credit for the dedicated list of features on their website.

The prices, while transparent, are a little bit more on the pricy end. Additionally, we felt that the additional fee on top of the monthly percentage of sales as part of your subscription made this e-commerce service a bit more expensive.

We would like to see some more mobile functionality from Avangate. They do have mobile optimization for the e-stores that they serve, but we didn't see any functionality listed on their website in terms of running your store from a smart device.