The end goal is to move off of PayPal to manage our subscription billing.
Can someone explain exactly what I need? It seems like at least Authorize.net, one of the services above, and maybe also a merchant bank account. Thanks!
I believe Chargify only supports Authorize.net currently, and it looks like Spreedly supports a few more.
Authorize.net is only the payment gateway, so you'll need a merchant account as well. A merchant account with a bank is where you have the transaction fee (flat fee per transaction) and discount rate (percentage per transaction). The payment gateway is a monthly fee on top of that ($10 p/month or so), and then you have the fees for the recurring billing service as well (and any special services they require, for instance Chargify requires the customer management part of the Authorize.net API which is another $20 a month or so).
As far as the merchant account goes, start with this blog post: http://danieltenner.com/posts/0006-how-to-get-a-merchant-acc...
1- Logic engine that handles all the complicated stuff (chargify, zuora,etc.) 2- Merchant processor that handles the actual processing of the charges. They're the ones taking 2-3% (or less or more) 3- Bank account that stores your money until you feel like spending it on hookers and blow.