Payment gateways play an important role in the customer buying experience; a good payment gateway should be smooth, fast, secure and reliable.
The best payment gateways guarantee customer security and confidentiality and leave a good impression and reliability of your e-commerce website or application. A functioning payment gateway should allow merchants to accept secure means of multiple transactions (debit cards, credit cards, wallets, etc.) on the website as well as on the mobile app.
PayPal is one of the oldest and most popular payment gateways for online businesses. PayPal has the most active users and creating a PayPal account is very easy. They have no setup fees and the structure for successful transaction fees is also very transparent. It is based on the monthly transaction volume and merchants can apply for a discount after crossing a certain monthly threshold.
PayPal is available in 203 countries worldwide. It integrates with an incredible number of shopping carts so any business/platform can use it. In addition to regular transfers to your PayPal account, you can also receive link payments by sending links to your customers. Paypal is accessible via the website as well as mobile and iOS apps, making it a good choice for omnichannel businesses.
Stripe is a leading competitor on the list of gateways to pay with ZERO setup, monthly or other hidden fees. It works on a pay-as-you-go scale and is great for businesses starting small but looking to expand soon.
Stripe is very easy to integrate and has many tools that make it work with almost any type of stroller or platform. The flexibility of the Stripe platform makes it an ideal candidate for personalized payment requests to business needs. Stripe is ideal for the eCommerce industry as it supports simple payments for debit and credit card processing. They also offer mobile app integration and periodic billing support.
Stripe supports multiple currencies and also offers personalized discount coupons. It accepts payments in all major currencies worldwide and also supports payment processing like ACH and Bitcoin.
Authorize.net is one of the oldest and best online payment systems for small merchants and is touted as a “Small Business Payment Solution”. They have different fee structures based on 2 plans viz. Gateway Plan and Gateway Package + Merchant Account only. They charge set up and monthly fees and also have transaction fees.
Authorize.net has powerful simple checkout and recurring billing support. It also supports eCheck processing and has strong anti-fraud mechanisms to protect merchant interests.
Amazon Pay is quickly catching up as an option for small and medium-sized businesses to host payment gateways. An Amazon Pay merchant account gives you access to state-of-the-art fraud protection services. This simplifies on-site payment options, which improves the customer experience. Amazon Pay is a simple API that is managed and has made several eCommerce platforms available to solution providers with free plugins. Amazon offers the use of Alexa to better retain your customers, make recommendations, and improve customer service.
Square is recommended for businesses that have a brick and mortar setting. It brings together payments, software and hardware and offers everything you need for your online and on-site sales. Square’s main focus is on virtual terminals, which allow you to accept payments from any device (desktop, mobile, tablet) and is therefore aimed at companies that don’t need an online store but must accept payments on the site via device practice. Square collects consumer payment information at the point of sale and works with credit card payment gateways to process transactions in real-time.
This payment gateway is one of the best credit card processing companies and accepts almost all major credit cards. This facilitates on-site validation, providing a seamless end-user experience. Compared to others, FirstData is chosen when expecting a higher number of sales consistently. FirstData does not present the rates online; you have to define a quota for your company, which is the basis for the price announcement for you. It is considered the most expensive payment gateway service.
2Checkout is one of the lesser-known payment gateway services. It accepts payments worldwide in more than 200 countries and allows over 80 currencies. Although it is more expensive than its competitors, it is chosen for its ease of integration. There are no monthly fees or setup fees. Although it allows international payments, the exchange rate is 2-5% higher than the average bank interest rate.
MeS offers a simple integration solution, providing information to cardholders and ensuring PCI compatibility. You can manage your offline transactions with the payment processing option at the point of sale. Recurring charges and fraud detection are provided as additional services that need to be combined separately. MeS offers an integrated check reader, printer and PIN as well as a mobile, online and personal solution. They accept payments in over 150 currencies while avoiding currency conversion fees and promote their fixed payment terms with end-to-end data transparency.
Payline provides solutions for businesses ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies with a focus on the payments experience.
Payline offers gateway payment processing and its web solutions are designed to be integrated into more than 175 online shopping carts. The company also offers a mobile solution that accepts payments via a mobile app. Payline’s payment processing gateway also integrates with QuickBooks to simplify payroll and general corporate finance. Prices for brick and mortar stores include a monthly fee plus a small percentage of transaction fees. In online stores, the monthly fees and transactions are slightly higher.
Focusing on SMEs and startups, SecurePay acts as a solution that offers all kinds of payment options with easy registration and steps to integrate with existing shopping carts. SecurePay offers a free trial plan along with plans for your online and eCommerce payments. They are determined based on the number of transactions processed each month and apply to large transactions.
These are some of the best global payment gateways from which you can choose one for business based on your requirements, budget and service charges, setup sees, gateway fees, and monthly fees.