Credit Card Payments for Everyone!
Today we’re excited to announce that our testing is completed and we’re rolling out credit card payments for all teachers located in the US and Canada! Over the next few weeks you’ll receive an email with all the details. (For those of you outside North America, we’re working on a solution for you too. Don’t worry, you’re not forgotten!)
Great Rates for Great Teachers
We’re pleased to announce that credit card payments are available through PayPal Pro. A PayPal Pro account is different from a regular PayPal personal or business account because you can accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express cards directly. Usually PayPal Pro costs $30/mo, but the fee is waived for My Music Staff members.
Details on how to upgrade to PayPal Pro are available inside your My Music Staff account (and we’ll be sending out emails this week). Once your account is upgraded, parents and students will have the option to pay with a credit card directly and retain their card information on file for faster, easier payments in the future.
Why Not Stripe?
A number of you have emailed us asking for integration with Stripe.com. There are two major reasons we selected PayPal Pro over Stripe:
- Lower Rates: We were able to get a great group rate for payment processing from PayPal. Because we represent a large number of music teachers, we approached a number of payment processing companies to get a better deal on your behalf. PayPal stepped up to the plate and offered lower processing rates than anyone else. This is especially good for independent music teachers, as your monthly transaction volume probably wouldn’t qualify you for any special rates.
- Simplicity: Instead of managing two accounts (one for PayPal and one for credit cards) you can do everything with one PayPal Pro account. If you’re already comfortable with PayPal, then there’s nothing new to learn and only one company to deal with.
In addition to this exciting news, we’ve made the following changes to My Music Staff this week:
- We’ve removed the “Symbol” font from the website editor because it was causing problems for some sites.
- If you use the GPS feature in My Music Staff to track your trips, it will now determine the name of your destination when your trip ends instead of just the address. (i.e. “Smith Family Home”)
We hope you enjoy these changes! Have a great week everyone.
– The My Music Staff Team
Automated Credit Card payments — So does this mean we will be able to securely store credit card information and bill parents automatically every month based on their invoices? I’ve had a number of parents ask for this so they don’t send in payments late.
Hi Matt, cards can be stored securely to make payments faster. For now, the parents will still need to click the “Pay this Invoice” online link to actually make a payment to you. The ability to charge cards automatically to pay an invoice will be coming in the future.
This is really great news. But I have a question….will we have the ability to receive recurring/automatic payments as well?
Hi Michele, not currently, but we’re working on it. Parents can store their cards on file for faster payments, but they’ll still need to actually go through the “checkout” process to pay you. We’re working on automatic payments for a future update.
If I have a customer who calls me to make a payment by phone, could I process the credit card transaction on the “My Music Staff” side? Or, would I have to do it using Virtual Terminal in PayPal?
Hi Tramane, for the time being you’d need to use Virtual Terminal in PayPal. If you do use Virtual Terminal, My Music Staff won’t automatically capture the transaction details, so remember to add the Payment to the Family Account.
How exciting! I can’t wait to tell my studio about credit card payments — I have a feeling many parents will want to use this feature. Thank you, MyMusicStaff!
Above and beyond!!! We appreciate everything you guys do, so much, it’s an understatement really. You guys are awesome!
This is awesome! Thank you for making it easier for parents to pay, and for us to collect payments.
This is great information! But I’m trying to understand the difference from how we are processing the cards now?
Hi Jason, good question. The biggest difference is that if a student/parent is paying with a credit card, and you’re setup with PayPal Pro, the parent is never taken to PayPal.com.
The entire transaction is completed within My Music Staff (using a checkout page that’s branded with your studio name and invoice logo), and the parent is unaware that PayPal is used on the backend. It basically makes the payment process simpler, particularly for parents who might be overwhelmed by PayPal.
Will this ever be available for the UK?
Hi Vicky,
PayPal Pro is available in the UK, but there is a monthly fee associated with the account (and their standard processing rates apply). PayPal North America and PayPal UK are separate entities and they have difference processes for this type of thing, so we were unable to make the same arrangements with them.
You can learn more about PayPal’s fees here: https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/pro. If you do upgrade your PayPal account to PayPal Pro, you can add your PayPal Pro API settings into My Music Staff and take advantage of these new features.
If you have any other questions or need help setting this up, please contact us directly at support@mymusicstaff.com.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but this means that the parents themselves do not need to have a paypal account. Is this right? They can simply pay via Visa or Mastercard online and it gets processed through paypal on our end?
Also, once recurring payments are set up (will this be before September, OH PLEASE!!!), will it function just as our monthly payments do to your company? The parents set up a subscription payment?
Thanks for the help. This will be the first time I’ve been able to do online payments! All thanks to your ingenuity and persistence on our behalf. Thank you!!!
Hi Kati,
Yes, that’s right. Parents can pay with a Visa or MasterCard without a PayPal account (and without going to PayPal.com), but it is still processed by PayPal on the backend. So all your actual transaction data appears in PayPal (in case you need to lookup a past transaction or issue a refund). My Music Staff will still capture all the transaction details automatically.
The goal is to allow you to charge credit cards that are stored on file. We’re still working on it and haven’t finalized the level of automation. Odds are that we’ll require you to approve the charges before we put them through, but you’ll be able to do this in bulk, so it will just take a few clicks.
Hello. Does that mean I won’t get charged at all from PayPal Pro? Absolutely free to use this service with you? Wow!
Hello Dorothy,
Thanks so much for the message. All subscribed My Music Staff customers are eligible for a “Paypal Payments Pro” accounts at no monthly cost (savings of $30 per month). Paypal will also work with you to secure the best processing rates possible.
Thanks!
We are signing up for your software as soon as I return to work, since I’m the one who will be doing it. Can you tell me what the transaction rates will be? Or a range if they will vary? Does it depend on the type of card?
Hello Alyssa,
Thanks so much for the message. Please feel free to contact us directly at support@mymusicstaff.com for more details on PayPal Pro.
Keith
Please tell me how to get signed up for this option. I don’t currently accept credit cards or paypal, but I do think it is a GREAT option & I’d like to take advantage of the opportunity to make things easier & more efficient in my studio. Where do I get more information & how do I sign up> Do I sign up through MyMusicStaff or do I contact PayPal directly? Thanks for the GREAT update & option!