CD Baby Credit Card Swiper Program

How It Works

There is a $30 security deposit on the swiping machine, but you get it back if/when you return the swiping unit.
No hidden costs. No future costs.
If you already have a credit card swiping machine through another company, but would rather run your sales through CD Baby, we can send you everything you need to do that FREE - no deposit needed.
Keep the swiper terminal as long as you want. Return it to get your deposit back, or keep it forever.

One very portable swiper terminal (No electricity or phone line needed.)
All the supplies that you need for your first 25 transactions
Pre-addressed envelopes for your credit card batches, which are computer coded to come back to CD Baby for processing
Little green stickers for your envelopes. They have your unique CD Baby Account number on them so that we know who to credit the sales to.
Refill order forms for when you are running low on supplies. (Refills are FREE!)

Write the dollar amount on the sales slip along with the item description
Using the swiper terminal, get the imprint of the customer's credit card
Ask the customer to sign the sales slip and write down their phone number and/or email address.
Give each customer the little yellow “thank you” card (important!) - reminding them that their credit card will be charged by “CD Baby Live Music Sale”
Batch up each show's sales slips into a one of our pre-addressed envelopes. As a backup, keep the carbon copies for yourself !
Write the venue/event name and date on the green sticker on your envelope so that we can include it in your sales report and have it on file in case a customer is confused about a charge.

When we receive your credit card batch, we process your sales right away, and add the money to your account
You get paid for them in our every-Monday-night payments.
If you sign up for Direct Deposit, this payment will go right into your bank account.

We email you the detailed batch information so that you can double check it for errors.
The full details are permanently stored in your members login area.
Your sales report will include every transaction you have ever made with the swiper and will be categorized by date and venue for easy referencing.
Listed under each venue/event category is every customer who made a credit card purchase at that show along with the customer's contact information ( assuming that you got this info from them ), dollar amount, and how much was paid to you after the 9%.

Assuming the card is accepted, the money is added to your CD Baby account, minus 9%
It is in one combined payment with all your other CD Baby activity (CD sales, digital downloads, etc) - that runs every Monday night
It's up to you whether or not you want to pass the 9% processing fee to your customers. (To do so, you must add the 9% in the tip/misc field on the actual sales slip and then include it in the total.) We strongly recommend NOT doing this, though. You should not penalize people for paying you.
Since we are in Oregon (where there is no sales tax), and technically the sale takes place in Oregon, you don't have to charge sales tax to your customers. (This may change!)

If a card is declined, don't worry! We will notify you by email so that you can contact your customer to get new card information or arrange some other kind of alternate payment with them.
A signed, imprinted charge slip serves as a contract of sale between you and the customer, but we find that music fans are usually eager to settle any debt with the independent music community.
Unlike payments by check, there are no “bounced” or overdraft fees for the merchant when there are insufficient funds while using credit/check cards.

(You need to LOG IN to your CD Baby account to sign up.)