What Is A Payment Gateway?
A Payment gateway is where online shoppers can securely enter their payment information when they want to buy a product regardless of the location they live in. The payment gateway encrypts and transmits data from credit cards, bank accounts, online wallet, and other payment methods and enable a transaction. And it enables you to accept payments from anywhere in the world.
Why do you need a Payment Gateway?
A payment gateway is necessary to run an online business. A payment gateway offers a simple solution for you and your customer to exchange transactions. A good and reliable payment gateway helps you to increase your sales volume and overall payment requirement to make your business a success.
Which Payment Gateway is the best?
Paypal: Best For Overall Payment Options.
Payoneer: Best Alternative To Paypal.
Stripe: Best alternative to Paypal.
Payoneer: Best for creating offshore virtual accounts.
Stripe: Best Alternative To PayPal.
Square: Best for a storefront.
Braintree: Best For Accepting Different Payment Types.
Authorize.net: Best For More Complex Payment Needs.
1. PayPal: Best for overall payment gateway.
Paypal is a leader in developing and accepting payments in innovative ways, including payments through Venmo, QR codes, payment links, and buy-now-pay-later financing. It literally has everything under one roof.
Monthly cost: Free.
Payment processing: 1.9% to 3.5% of each transaction, plus a fixed fee ranging from 5 cents to 49 cents.
Pros:
- Can be used as a payment processor or a payment gateway.
- It accepts different currencies.
Cons:
- Payment processing can be expensive for small purchases. For example, a $10 purchase using PayPal would cost 74 cents, while the same transaction on Stripe would cost 59 cents.
2. Payoneer: Best alternative to PayPal and creating Offshore virtual accounts
Payoneer offers an easy and simple process for receiving or making payments online.
You can actually open a virtual bank account in different countries like the US, UK, Singapore, and Germany. It will give you a checking bank account that is functional. This is quite helpful to add your payout method to Amazon.
If you have an Amazon Central Seller account, you are required to submit a bank number that is based in the US, and Payoneer allows you to create one.
Monthly cost: Free
Payment processing: Banking fee – 3% on credit card payments and 1% on e-check payments. $1.50 for domestic funds and a 2% fee for non-local currency.
Pros:
- Easy and convenient to use.
Cons:
- Higher transaction fees.
3. Stripe: Best Alternative to PayPal
Stripe allows payment-related needs such as subscription management and recurrent billing and it allows to build a payment experience that meets the specific needs of a website, app, or any service with its prebuilt checkout pages.
Monthly cost: Free.
Payment processing: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction.
Pros:
- Customer-friendly design.
- Pre-built checkout pages which are not complicated.
Cons:
- Needs some technical involvement for full functionality.
4. Square: Best if you also have a Square storefront
Square is a popular payment gateway who have a Square storefront.
Monthly cost: Free.
Payment processing: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. 2.6% plus 30 cents per transaction with a Premium subscription ($72 per month).
Pros:
- Easy checkout interface.
- Transparent pricing structure with no contract or cancellation fees.
- Square supports in-person sales with its capable POS system.
Cons:
- Limited options for international payments.
- Works with Square sites.
5. Braintree: Best for accepting different payment types
Braintree is owned by Paypal and it provides different options for making payments.
Monthly cost: Free.
Payment processing: 2.59% plus 49 cents per transaction.
Pros:
- Accepts PayPal and Venmo in addition to credit and debit cards.
- Simple checkout page that looks good on web and mobile.
- You can get your own merchant account with Braintree, but you can use others, too.
Cons:
- Requires web development.
6. Authorize.net: Best For More Complex Payment Needs
Autorize.net is owned by Visa. It gives flexibility to businesses and lets you work with other merchant account providers, provides high-risk accounts, and, if you are a U.S.-based business, enables you to accept payments from anywhere in the world.
Monthly cost: $25 per month.
Payment processing pricing: 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction if you choose the all-in-one plan that includes a merchant account. 10 cents per transaction if using another merchant account, plus a 10-cent daily batch fee.
Pros:
- You can use Authorize.net with a wide range of merchant account providers.
- Pricing is transparent and doesn’t require a contract.
Cons:
- You have to pay a $25 monthly fee regardless of usage.
- It doesn’t have a robust point-of-sale system for in-person transactions.
