Choosing the best payment gateway for your site is an important decision. A payment gateway is the operation that reads and transmits the payment information of a sale from the customer’s bank account, to the merchant’s bank account.
It will verify that the customer has the necessary funds available and ensure that the merchant gets paid.
Ensuring a smooth and secure interface for processing payments online can be the difference between a sale and a lost customer.
In this article, we will discuss our top 3 payment gateways and let you in on what to avoid when looking for the best payment gateways.
As a digital agency we work with many ecommerce clients and, in turn, a lot of payment gateways.
This means we have had plenty of experience in choosing the right payment gateway to suit our clients and their business needs.
To help you decide, we have narrowed down our top 3 best payment gateways to use:
PayPal
Most people have had an interaction with PayPal at one point or another as it is a trusted and widely used payment gateway by 295 million users worldwide.
This familiarity can encourage more sales, as customers know their money is being processed securely by a trusted source. But is it one of the best payment gateways?
Paypal boasts that it is ‘built for you, no matter what your size,’ from small business to enterprises – however, the transaction fees are relatively high if you have a low-volume of sales.
The software is very easy to use and it can be integrated with popular content management software like WordPress and Shopify.
| Features | Reasons to Buy | Reasons to Avoid |
| Global Processing | Easy set up | Rates are variable |
| POS Integration | Easy use | You will need to create a PayPal account |
| Mobile Payments | There are options to customise | The gateway is only customisable on most expensive version |
| No contracts or termination fees | Many customers will already have PayPal accounts |
Stripe
Stripe stands out amongst payment gateways because of the flexibility it offers in terms of development and customisation.
It’s a great overall payment gateway which offers flexibility to create a customised payment solution, unlike the majority of payment gateways which offer out-of-the-box solutions.
With over 100 currencies and support for mobile payments, subscriptions and single click checkout, Stripe can meet a wide range of business needs. This does mean it relies on a greater technological understanding from the user.
Stripe is especially advantageous for European merchants thanks to lower processing fees for European cards compared to the rest of the world.
Stripe can also be seamlessly integrated with WooCommerce thanks to the WooCommerce Stripe plugin, and works on both Android and iOS devices.
| Features | Reasons to Buy | Reasons to Avoid |
| Global Processing | Built in APIs and dev tools | Tech understanding needed |
| POS Integration | Mobile payments | |
| Mobile Payments | Personalise experience to fit your websites brand | |
| Variable rates | Customer-friendly design |
Opayo
Opayo is a highly secure merchant account and payment gateway service. It’s a great solution for both small businesses and large scale companies, and thanks to a flat-rate monthly fee, there are no transaction fees.
You can fully customise the Opayo payment gateway to fit in seamlessly with the design of your website, and thanks to the variety of integrations including POS, you can keep all your payment records and data together.
Seamlessly integrate Opayo on your WooCommerce site with a choice of 3 gateways to meet all of your business needs.
| Features | Reasons to Buy | Reasons to Avoid |
| Integration with Sage accounts | Payment and security protection | Pricing based on transaction quantities |
| POS Integration | 24/7 customer support | Calls to helpline aren’t free |
| Phone payments | Easy to set up and integrate |
One payment gateway to avoid
Whilst there are plenty of great payment gateways out there, one that we don’t recommend as one of the best payment gateways is Worldpay.
Firstly, their sales department uses misleading tactics to get customers on board. New businesses are likely to get caught out but businesses switching from a new provider might get caught out too.
A major issue with the Worldpay gateway is the limited appearance of the payment screen. Although it has been slightly improved recently, you can’t change the appearance to fit in seamlessly with your website’s design.
When it comes to contracts, Worldpay initially offers a standard three-year contract that auto-renews at the end of your first contract.
This then continues to auto-renew each year.
To avoid this from happening, you must send written notice that you don’t want your contract to be renewed within 30 days of the expiration period. If you don’t do this, you’ll face an early cancellation fee.
Choose the best payment gateway for your business
When choosing the best payment gateway, it’s important to consider scaling fees, set up costs, and integration with other platforms. The 3 examples we’ve discussed all integrate easily with platforms such as WooCommerce which will help make the process even smoother.