The merchant account provider will usually do the set-up for a fee. Set-up fees can usually go as high as a hundred dollars and down to 0, if you're lucky.

Being the designer, it will be natural for the client to ask you for recommendations. You have two choices here. First, you can go the traditional route and recommend the big boys (big banks), or you can direct your client to a few providers that you are familiar with. The downside to this is, if you do a recommendation and the client has a bad experience, it will reflect on you.

Merchant account industry standards are pretty much straightforward. Fees, fees and more fees. when your client signs up with a merchant account, they will have to pay for the service. This means they will be losing money. They should look for a provider with minimal fees and low transaction rates.

I recommend using Social Business Bank as a measuring stick against other providers. They don't ask you to pay much in fees and they don't charge for the setup. The transaction fees are also 50% lower than industry standards.