As you know, I have a membership site launch coming up this month. I am rushing to have it ready to go for a launch date of either February 18th or 19th.

One aspect I just decided on today was my payment processor. I was very torn between using PayPal or using Clickbank.

I had to look at the pros and cons of both.

PayPal is cheaper, only 2.9% + 30 cents. On the other hand because of recurring billing charges and my price point Clickbank would take 9.9%. Plus, with ClickBank i’d need to pay a $50 set up fee.

For a while, I just assumed I would go with PayPal. Then I realized that ClickBank would be better for my membership site for the following reasons…

1. Not everyone has a paypal account and many people may not feel comfortable registering for a paypal account just to join a membership site. That one is a biggie. Sure, clickbank might have higher fees, but if that means more members… it is worth it. Therefore, with ClickBank I wouldn’t have to worry if people had a paypal account or not.

2. ClickBank will pay all my affiliates for me. Not that I wouldn’t mind doing it myself, but that is one less thing to think about. They have been in business since 1998 and have never missed a payment.

3. Tax Reasons. If I were running my own affiliate program I would have to collect the tax information of all my active affiliates and file 1099s for them each tax year. Imagine having hundreds of affiliates and doing all that paperwork! ClickBank does all this on their end. They do all the tax information.

4. Bookkeeping Reasons. Currently I log every single transaction that goes through my paypal account into Quicken. With ClickBank I will get statements with all my transactions and will get my share deposited every 2 weeks.

5. Larger Affiliate Base. It is a great way to get more exposure for my site.

I have put in a ton of work on the affiliates section of my membership site. So far I have banners and a few brandable viral reports where my affiliates can actually embed their clickbank ID right into the .pdf and give it away.

I am also doing review templates, articles, promotional emails, text ads, keywords and possibly even squeeze pages for my affiliates to use. I want to make anyone who chooses to help me promote, has all the tools necessary to make some great money.

I am also choosing to go with a 40% commission, which is residual on a monthly basis for each member referred.