Bluesnap Review: Everything You Need to Know

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If systems like PayPal or Stripe are restricting your ability to expand, or if you’re just starting to search for a new payment processor, it’s prudent to keep your eyes on rates and reports.

A PayPal report is nothing more than a glorified spreadsheet, and you’re bound to run into some hidden fees with other payment processors along the way.

Luckily, BlueSnap has some solutions to these problems.

After speaking with the folks at BlueSnap and diving into what the platform has to offer, it became clear to me that the company embraces freedom for the merchant.

Starting with an open API and ending with some incredible reports, BlueSnap offers your company an intriguing solution for scaling up and forecasting.

Since BlueSnap recently appeared on my radar, I wanted to give it a shot and truly understand what the platform has to offer. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the experience.

BlueSnap’s Top Features

With payment processors, the features are generally the same across the board. However, BlueSnap does a good job of expanding upon the usual and really honing in on the tools that are bound to improve your conversions.

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Some of the standout features from BlueSnap include:

  • Intelligent payment routing
  • Flexible integrations with with systems like Magento, WooCommerce, Google (Analytics and AdWords) and PayPal
  • Subscriptions and recurring billing

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  • The ability to take payments over the phone or through the virtual terminal
  • An area to choose and customize your own fraud settings
  • A strong payment gateway
  • Payment processing with merchant account all in one
  • World-class fraud prevention, thanks to partnership with Kount
  • A hosted checkout page with dynamic localization for global shoppers
  • Merchant and shopper support
  • Free eCommerce Platform payment processing plug-ins
  • Ecommerce tools like coupons, upsells, post sale promotions, managed trial periods and digital distribution
  • An option to build your own checkout flow with the API

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BlueSnap’s Ease of Use

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For the shopper, the checkout process looks seamless. Even when the checkout page is hosted through BlueSnap, the merchant can still build the branding and layoutof the page. This way you maintain more control over the way your site looks. The checkout also provides mobile responsiveness to remove any problems people might have shopping on your site through a tablet or smartphone.

As for the BlueSnap dashboard (the merchant backend,) all of the tabs are located to the left for easy access. You’ll find tabs for reports, an account snapshot, transactions, products, coupons, page design templates, integrations and more. Nothing looks too overzealous or fancy, which is a blessing in my opinion. BlueSnap gets straight to the point and doesn’t try to confuse you with a complicated interface.

BlueSnap’s Pricing

BlueSnap claims that it can meet or likely beat any current rates you may have with your existing processing. Therefore, they suggest that you contact them to discuss just what they can do to improve your rates.

On the other hand you may be a startup that’s shopping around for the ideal payment processor. In that case you receive a rate of 2.9% + 30ยข per successful transaction.

Volume discounts are available, and the you won’t have to worry about the following:

  • Monthly fees
  • Hidden costs
  • Value added services
  • Annual renewal fees
  • Cancellation fees
  • Setup fees
  • Minimum monthly processing

This is pretty darn impressive considering so many competitors are charging fees for at least one of these categories. Whats more is that all full and partial refunds are provided at no charge to your business.

The only area that generally has to require extra fees is with chargebacks, and it’s no different with BlueSnap. You will be charged $25 per chargeback.

BlueSnap’s Security

BlueSnap delivers world-class fraud prevention with PCI Level 1 compliance. That’s the highest standard, ensuring that your data (and all customer data) is secure.

The security section is generally boring, but with BlueSnap it’s a little different.

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You actually have the ability to choose your fraud settings, which I’ve never seen offered through a payment gateway. The rules are configurable by the merchant, and BlueSnap claims that this can reduce fraud by up to 80%.

Now that’s a security feature you don’t see every day.

BlueSnap’s Reports

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Here’s the part that stands out the most. BlueSnap is overflowing with in-depth reports. I took a quick look into the primary reporting page and saw some of the following links:

  • Sale by product and currency
  • Declined transactions
  • Today’s transactions
  • Conversion rates by month
  • Transaction count success grid
  • Payment declines by reason code
  • Reports for recurring charges
  • Active subscriptions
  • And dozens more.

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It’s evident that BlueSnap has a healthy relationship with conversion boosting, because the onslaught of reports dedicated to revealing your conversion numbers is staggering.

It would take a short novel to explain each of the reports, so let me just say that if you like numbers, these are going to blow you away.

Countries Served:

A strong reason to go with BlueSnap is if you’re having trouble with other payment processors because of your location. The usual support is given to companies in places like the US, Canada and the UK, but BlueSnap also offers support for 110 payment types, 100 currencies and 29 languages.

The restrictions get minimized quite a bit regardless of your geographical location, and they can work with you to get a solid rate no matter where you are. For example, you can utilize BlueSnap in the following regions:

  • Australia
  • Asia
  • Middle East
  • Africa
  • South America
  • North America
  • Europe

BlueSnap Customer Support

BlueSnap has a presence on social media, along with an email newsletter to get updates on the platform and to potentially send over a message if you want. The help and support knowledge base gives you a search bar for completing your own research, and it’s filled with articles, documents and videos that touch on hot topics and various other items that are being discussed. Merchant support is available via email, phone, and an online ticketing system. The support hours aren’t 24/7, but they are not far off and you do gain access to in-house reps who know what they’re talking about.

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Finally, my favorite part of the support area is the BlueSnap Developer Hub. This is for the more advanced developers who are trying to construct a unique experience on their own website. As an example, one of the documents in this hub shows users how to build a checkout form, and the API is open for you to make goals for even more branding and structural possibilities.

Who Should Be Using BlueSnap?

BlueSnap seems to focus on companies that are growing away from systems like PayPal and Stripe. The functionality is far more advanced, and the API accessibility certainly allows for a more scalable processor.

That said, some of the companies that go with BlueSnap are rather small, like startups in Silicon Valley. Others are rather large, such as Symantec, AutoDesk and FedEx Bongo. Therefore, anyone selling online can take advantage of the solid rates and features from BlueSnap.

And the incredible reporting allows you to quickly see if it’s worth it after maybe six months.

If you have any questions about this BlueSnap review, feel free to drop a line in the comments section below. Also, if you’ve worked with BlueSnap in the past we’d love to hear from you!

Comments 5 Responses

  1. BRYAN NSAKA says:

    hello, i’m living in congo, and i wanna make dropshipping business
    i hope bluesnap can help me because stripe and paypal don’t receive payments from my shop
    thank you.

  2. Jose Gonzalez says:

    Do you know if they accept dropshipping business?

    1. Bogdan Rancea says:

      Hello, as far as I know they do.

  3. Will says:

    We renewed a software license who uses BlueSnap as their payment manager. After purchasing the renewal in Canadian dollars we realized that they sneakily charged a 5.8% premium without any warning vs the quoted USD. Had we known this we would have purchased the renewal in USD. It’s a bad reflection of the software vendor because as a customer it didn’t feel as if they were looking out for their customers. Do yourself a favor, if you want to keep your customers don’t use BlueSnap.

  4. Hasan says:

    Hi sir, i would like to know what is the process of getting paid in bluesnap merchant account?

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