a list of available online chat systems for 100 users or more (for
live psychic readings online), each chat window needs a timer and log
of the chat...the timer
accesses a payment gateway with merchant account...callers credit card
is preauthorized prior to chat to verify card and at end of chat will
process the payment into merchant acct.....this chat sys will not
charge per month
per user/window...the charges to client are per minute of live online
psychic
chat and automatically processed through payment gateway tied to timer
inside each chat window.....webcam/phone as part of this system is a
plus...this is NOT for x-rated use

Howdy!

While I did not find any pay-per-minute chat servers, I did find a
number of scripts and services that allow pay-per-minute access to
your web site. With one of these services, you could use any chat
software you like, and simply host the chat page on an area of your
site that has restricted pay-per-minute access (thus making the chat
pay-per-minute). This would also allow you to integrate pay-per-minute
webcam services as well.

- Verotel offers pay-per-minute access services for a number of
different countries. Verotel does not charge a setup fee or a base
fee. They do charge a 50% transaction fee. You can read more about
Verotel's pay-per-minute service at:
 http://www.verotel.com/m04000.html

- X3 Scripts offers a java script that will handle pay-per-minute
access to your web site. They recommend it specifically for chat rooms
and video feeds. The script costs $1500, which includes installation
and setup. There does not appear to be a monthly or transaction fee.
More information about X3's pay-per-minute script is available at:
 http://x3scripts.com/ppm.html?

- Live Cam Network ver 1.6 is software/hosting services aimed at
pay-per-minute video chat. Pricing information is not included on
their web site. WARNING! While their product information does not
contain nudity, their examples/customers list are all pornographers
and thumbnails contain adult content.
http://www.urownporno.com/

While I am aware that you are not offering x-rated content, many adult
hosting services offer pay-per-minute technology. You may want to
consider this as an option.

In addition, if you have a nominal amount of scripting skills, you can
probably setup something similar yourself using PayPal's Instant
Payment Notification system. You would not be able to charge per
minute with PayPal's system, however, you could easily pre-sell blocks
of time in minutes. This is a fairly inexpensive solution. PayPal does
not charge to use their scripts, and they do not charge a base fee.
They do charge 2.2% plus 30 cents per transaction for business
accounts. You can read about PayPal's IPN service at:
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/ipn-intro-outside 

The IPN system works by contacting your web server whenever a payment
is made. If you are using an Apache based web server on Linux, PayPal
provides a sample Perl script that automatically updates user
authentication information whenever an IPN transaction occurs. The
script does what you are looking for, but the script is not designed
to work in time increments less than one day, so it would require some
modification to work in minutes instead. You would want to sell your
time blocks as "single item purchases" instead of subscriptions--but
still using the IPN--to make this work properly. In addition to the
Perl script, there are several examples on their site that describe
how to achieve similar results using ASP/VBscript. In particular, you
should read the article Securing Software Downloads and Digital Goods
Purchases Using the PayPal IPN.
(http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/pdn/how-to-outside) This
article contains vbscript source code that can be modified to do what
you want to achieve.

You did not specify what operating system your server is running, but
here are a list of several free ASP-based chat systems that will run
on any IIS or other ASP-enabled server:

ASP Chat - Freeware
http://www.123apps.net/page.asp?page=aspchat

ShoutBox
http://www.xigla.com/shoutbox/

RiskyChat
http://www.riskypoint.com/riskychat.asp

Web-Based Chat Room 
http://aspalliance.com/peterbrunone/chatroom.asp

ConquerChat
http://www.theill.com/asp/conquerchat.asp

Because these chat scripts provide source, it would be easy to add a
visible timer or other features to the script, as well as to integrate
them with the PayPal example code.

Hope this helps!



Search Strategy:
"pay per minute" chat hosting
://www.google.com/search?q=%22pay+per+minute%22+chat&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=20&sa=N

great detailed data to research further, this saved me alot of
time...i will use this Researcher again for sure!

hello leviah-ga

his would 'probably' need to be a custom programming project
There would associated charges for setting up/integrating the online
credit card processing too

regards

lot-ga

I personally would suggest an IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
system. You could have a programmer custom script the
added functionality you need. You would own the servers
that it resides on, and thus could control security.

This has a brief description about IRC:
http://www.mirc.co.uk/irc.html

hello leviah-ga
.

I did a quick enquiry of what the costs would be 'IF' it was
programming and it is in the region of $1500. The webcam and voice
function starts from $10k for this particular programmer.

. 
but in the meantime I'm still looking for the free solution
.
kind regards
.

lot-ga

thanks buds for the input...i am told to take regular chat software
and add a timer and then create psyment gateway...in otherwords the
software for chat should be obtained somewhere else and then
modified...question is whos?  prob need java chat...many of the chat
software systems are outdated and run slow...is there a shareware java
chat? or similar at low cost without charging for each user?

again..thanks for looking at this application

a program called conference room will meet some of your needs. it is
available at www.webmaster.com. Unfortunatly it is licensed per
maximum simultaneous users. The more users you expect, the more money
they expect. They have a 1000 simultaneous user developer's license
which comes with a java client and allows you to modify the java
client to suit your needs. This, combined with someone with
programming experience to modify the program to meet your other
requirements, might work well. Unfortunatly, this license costs $1000.

They have a 10,000 user enterprise license as well. The enterprise one
costs $4,300 and lets you use 10,000 users per server, which I assume
is meant to say you may use the software on as many servers as you
wish. They also advertise an encryption module which may help with
transaction processing, but I am not fully sure on that note.

This is not intended to be a product review or an endorsement of a
product. I am only writing to show as one example the kinds of
products that are available.