How to Accept Credit Cards Online – For Small Businesses

You can easily accept online credit card payments for any business need, with or without an existing website. Credit card payments for sales, invoices, and even memberships and donations can all be accepted online without a tremendous amount of work or expense.

In this article, we cover the many ways you can accept credit cards online, show you the costs, and let you know how much technical setup is involved, if any. We also take a look at which solutions work best for certain business needs.

If you’re new to credit card processing, we suggest you check out Square. Square is an all-in-one payment solution that covers virtually every small business need, in-store, online, invoicing, and mobile.

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Accept Online Credit Card Payments: Without a Website

Here are several ways you can securely accept online credit card payments without having to set up and manage a website.

Online Payment Option	Who It's Best For
Square Invoices & Recurring Payments Learn More	Small businesses, stores, or service providers who want to offer online credit card payment options or automatic recurring payments to customers, plus tie in online, mobile, and in-store sales now or in the future
PayPal Invoices & Recurring Payments Learn More	Any small business or service provider who wants to offer online credit card payment options or automatic recurring payments to customers
QuickBooks Invoices & Recurring Payments Learn More	Any small business or service provider who uses QuickBooks and wants to offer online credit card payment options to its customers
PaySimple Online Payment Forms for Registrations & Subscriptions Learn More	Small businesses, service providers, event managers, and nonprofits who need to collect both customer information and online credit card payments through a form-based system

Accept Online Credit Card Payments: On Your Website

If you already have or are planning to launch your own website, there are many options that allow you to accept online credit card payments.

Website Payment Options	Who It's Best For
Adding PayPal Buttons to Any Website Learn More	Small businesses or organizations that want to accept online credit card payments for services, subscriptions, or products sold on a website, but don’t need business management features
Adding a Shopping Cart To an Existing WordPress Site Learn More	Small businesses or organizations who want to accept online credit card payments through their WordPress blog or website for services, subscriptions, or products
Adding A Shopping Cart To a Non-WordPress Website Learn More	Small businesses or organizations that have a non-WordPress blog or website and want to add a store to sell products, subscriptions, or services and accept online credit card payments
Dedicated Ecommerce Platform Solution Learn More	Small to mid-sized businesses that want to focus on product sales, list large numbers of products, manage orders and operational tasks, and accept online credit card payments

Secure Online Credit Card Payments: What You Need to Know

Online security is something that concerns us all as consumers. As a business owner, it’s even more important. By taking online payments, you take responsibility for protecting your customers’ data, and managing it securely can be a costly burden. But you can make it easy on yourself by using a PCI-compliant payment solution.

PCI compliance refers to the rules and regulations that govern data protection. Not every online payment solution is PCI-compliant, but the best are. As you read this guide, you’ll see that we feature PCI-compliant payment processors throughout. They take care of online payment security issues for you, so you’re free to manage your business.

Want to learn more about PCI compliance and how it affects your business? Check out our full article here.

Accept Online Credit Card Payments: Without a Website

Here are several ways you can securely accept online credit card payments without having to set up and manage a website.

Square for Online Credit Card Payments

Best for: Small businesses and stores that want to offer customers online credit card payment options for invoices and recurring payments. Also ideal for those that need to process credit cards for in-store, website, and mobile sales.

Square is the top-rated all-in-one small business credit card payment solution for many reasons. In this guide, we focus on its terrific invoicing features that let you accept online credit card payments without a website. But you can learn all about Square’s full suite of business management tools, including inventory and point-of-sale features, here.

If you don’t have a Square account, you can quickly set one up here. Getting started with Square is free, and you only pay transaction fees:

Square for Online Invoice Payments

Once you have your Square account, you can create and email invoices to customers. For details on creating invoices in Square, check on our step by step Square Invoice guide and Square Invoice Review. The online payment option appears on every invoice you send from Square. When customers click the payment button, they’re sent to Square’s secure PCI-compliant payments page to complete their transaction using any major credit card.

Square for Recurring Payments

Square makes it easy to manage recurring payments for things like repeat services, subscriptions, and memberships. Square lets you set up recurring payments in two ways:

1. Recurring Payments — Best for automatic payment amounts that don’t change week-to-week or in a given billing period, like subscriptions.
2. Repeat Payments — Best for invoicing repeat customers for amounts that can change from week to week or between billing cycles, like lessons or childcare services.

Setting up either type of recurring payment in Square is a breeze, and their step-by-step tutorial walks you through it in minutes. The only drawback is the pricing. Recurring payments process at a higher fee than regular invoice payments. But if you manage a large number of repeat payments, the time saved can offset the added cost.

PayPal for Online Credit Card Payments

Best for: Small businesses that want to offer customers online credit card payment options for invoices and recurring payments.

PayPal is the most popular small business payment solution for many reasons, including price, ease of use, and secure PCI-compliant payments. PayPal’s basic business account, PayPal Payments Standard, lets you accept both credit card and PayPal payments with or without a website. Setup is Free, and you have no monthly fees. You only pay per transaction, and the fees are very reasonable:

PayPal For Online Invoice Payments

PayPal’s online invoicing tool is a terrific way to offer your customers an online invoice payment option. With it, you create an invoice in PayPal and email it to your customer. To pay, customers click on the payment link in the email and complete the transaction in PayPal’s secure payments window. Here is our full article on how PayPal online invoicing works.

PayPal For Recurring Payments

PayPal also handles recurring payments for things like repeat services, subscriptions, or memberships. You simply create the payment amount and recurring payment schedule in your PayPal account, then email a link to customers or subscribers.

The link takes them to PayPal’s secure, PCI-compliant payment page where they agree to the recurring payments plan. Scheduled charges are automatically processed for you, plus PayPal provides handy subscriber management tools. Learn more about PayPal’s recurring payments and see how PayPal compares to Square in detail in our Square vs. PayPal guide.

QuickBooks for Online Credit Card Payments

Best for: QuickBooks users who want to offer customers online credit card payment options for invoices and recurring payments.

If you already use QuickBooks for your business, you can accept online credit card payments for invoices, no website needed. You have full control, too. You can enable online payments on just some or all invoices, and create automatically generated invoices for things like monthly services and subscriptions.

QuickBooks for Online Invoice Payments

To accept online credit card payments using QuickBooks, you need a QuickBooks merchant account. This is a convenient way for QuickBooks users to accept online credit card or check payments from customers. You’ll receive money faster than waiting for mailed checks, plus save time since the payments are automatically recorded in QuickBooks.

QuickBooks’ online credit card processing fees, shown below, are very competitive. Best of all, QuickBooks’ online payments page is fully PCI-compliant. That means QuickBooks takes care of payment security for you. Learn more about PCI compliance and your business here.

Once you have a merchant account, you’ll see the online payments option in your QuickBooks invoice screen, shown below. You can enable the online payments option on any invoice, including automatically generated invoices for recurring charges, like monthly service fees.

When your customer receives their invoice, they will see a “Pay Now” button, shown below. When clicked, it takes them to the secure QuickBooks online payments page where they complete the payment via credit card or online check (ACH) payment.

QuickBooks for Recurring Payments

With a QuickBooks merchant account, you can set up recurring payments that charge customer credit cards a set amount at scheduled times. Your customers will appreciate the convenience, and you’ll enjoy getting paid on time for things like repeat services and lessons. This is a simple task in Quickbooks, and it even creates a printable authorization form for your customer to sign. Their How to Automate Payments video walks you through the entire process.

Here’s a look at QuickBooks’ automated payments setup screen:

PaySimple Online Payment Forms & Registration Management

Best for: Any business that needs to collect and manage customer information, and accept online credit card payments through a registration-type form.

Sometimes an invoice doesn’t get the job done. Lesson programs, school registration, event sign-ups, and donations all call for a form to collect user contact and payment information. Without a website, managing form-based online payments can be tough. But not if you use PaySimple.

PaySimple offers a full suite of online payment products, but one feature sets them apart. PaySimple’s stand-alone forms offer a unique solution for anyone needing to collect customer data and payments online without having a website. This clever solution allows you to collect, store, and manage user information and process one-time and recurring credit card payments. Best of all, it all happens on PaySimple’s secure, PCI-compliant system.

Here’s a look at an online registration form on PaySimple:

With a PaySimple account, you can create an online form for your service or event and specify pricing and data to be collected. When complete, give the link to your sign-up page to your customers via email, social sites, and printed marketing materials.

PaySimple charges a monthly fee plus transaction fee, so it can be a pricier way to accept online credit card payments. However, its powerful suite of customer management tools make tracking registrants and subscribers simple and efficient. Plus it’s a month-to-month service. If you need a short-term solution such as event registration, it’s possible with PaySimple. All of that, combined with secure data management, can be worth the extra cost.

Accept Online Credit Card Payments: On Your Website

If you already have or are planning to launch your own website, there are many options that allow you to accept online credit card payments. However, payment solutions can differ depending on which platform and website hosting service you use. We cover the most common ways to accept credit card payments on a website below. Chances are, one of these will work for you.

Adding PayPal Buttons to Any Website

Best for: Small businesses that want to accept online credit card payments for services, subscriptions, or products sold on a website, but don’t need business management features.

The simplest and cheapest solution for accepting credit cards on virtually any website is PayPal. Its “Buy Now” button can be added anywhere to turn a web page into a product sales page. Physical goods, digital goods, memberships, and subscriptions, you can sell them all using PayPal this way.

To do this, you need PayPal’s Payments Standard which includes PayPal’s PCI-compliant Express Checkout. This is free with every Paypal business account, you just pay fees per transaction.

To enable PayPal buy buttons and checkout on your website, you simply need to copy and paste a short line of code into the web page where you wish the “Buy Now” button to appear. This sounds complicated, but is easy with PayPal’s step-by-step instructions. You also can edit each button to list products at different prices as needed. Clicking on the button will route customers to PayPal’s secure checkout, where they complete the transaction.

PayPal offers several levels of online payment service, including PayPal Payments Pro, which allows your customer to check out without leaving your site. But beware! These options can require more setup and put checkout security responsibility on your shoulders.

The Next Level Up: Online Shopping Carts

If you have more than a handful of products or services for sale, then a website with an online shopping cart can be a better solution. Of the many options available, PCI-compliant shopping carts are the best choices for online credit card payments. They handle the checkout security for you, so you can spend your time managing your business.

In addition to security, shopping carts can make online selling downright easy. As customers browse your site, they can add or remove items in the cart as they please. The shopping cart re-calculates their total automatically. At checkout, your shopping cart adds shipping and tax, then provides order confirmations upon completion. The entire transaction process is easy and seamless for your buyer.

Along with a smooth user experience, shopping carts let you manage your online store. You can add, remove, and organize products easily, plus manage orders, promotions, and customer contacts all in your cart management dashboard.

Here is an example of an online shopping cart:

There are plenty of ways to have a website with a shopping cart. We’ll explore some of the easiest ways to get started below, including:

• Adding a Shopping Cart to a WordPress Site
• Adding a Shopping Cart to a non-WordPress Site
• Using a Dedicated Ecommerce Platform

Adding a Shopping Cart To A WordPress Website

Best for: Small businesses that want to accept online credit card payments through their WordPress blog or website for services, subscriptions, or product sales.

WordPress is hands-down the most popular blogging platform. It’s quickly becoming the most popular shopping platform, too, thanks to shopping cart plugins. These are apps that integrate with WordPress to enable all types of ecommerce and shopping cart functions. Learn more about selling products on a WordPress site here.

WordPress is a free website platform, but you do have to host it somewhere. BlueHost is our preferred WordPress host and offers several low-cost hosting options. Learn how to setup a WordPress site on BlueHost quickly in our step-by-step guide.

Ecwid is our top-rated WordPress shopping cart plugin and even offers a free version! It’s a great way to get started selling on WordPress. Paired with secure payment providers Stripe or PayPal, Ecwid is a secure and low-cost way to sell products and accept credit card payments online.

Here’s a look at Ecwid’s mobile-friendly online store that works with most WordPress themes:

Here’s Ecwid’s feature-laden product entry screen. Using it, you can control every detail of your product pages, including descriptions, images, pricing, and more.

Adding a Shopping Cart to a Non-WordPress Site

Best for: Small businesses with a non-WordPress blog or website that want to add a store to sell products, subscriptions, or services and accept online credit card payments.

If you’re not using WordPress, many website platforms like Weebly and Wix offer plans that include a secure shopping cart. With it, you can accept credit cards payments online for anything from product sales to subscriptions. The shopping cart features come with higher monthly charges, but they are very competitive. See pricing and learn about their many features and options here.

If you have an existing website on a platform that doesn’t offer a shopping cart option, contact them. They usually can recommend a third-party shopping cart plug-in or add-on that will work.

Of the many third-party shopping cart solutions out there, we recommend PrestaShop. It integrates with many website platforms to add ecommerce features. PrestaShop boasts over 4,000,000 downloads and is consistently rated as one of the top add-on cart options.

PrestaShop is free to use and integrates with PayPal, plus other competitively-priced PCI-compliant payment providers. The only cost is your payment gateway and processing fees. This guide and video tutorial series walks you through the process of setting up PrestaShop on your existing website.

Here’s a look at PrestaShop’s product listing page:

Here’s the PrestaShop cart:

Using a Dedicated Ecommerce Platform Solution

Best for: Small to mid-sized businesses that want to focus on product sales, list large numbers of products, manage orders and operational tasks, and accept online credit card payments.

If online product sales make up a significant portion of your business, then you need a platform specifically dedicated to ecommerce. These platforms are designed to put your products front and center. They’re ideal for businesses that sell a variety of products, including items that ship and digital products delivered via download.

Ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, Bigcommerce, and Volusion are designed to efficiently service online stores that sell anywhere from a few to thousands of products. Because of their many features, they can cost more than the website options discussed above. But for managing volume sales, they offer every tool a business needs, making them worth the cost. Compare the monthly pricing and many selling features of these top platforms here.

Ecommerce platforms provide many important tools, including:

• Secure checkout, plus numerous payment gateway options for online credit card payment processing
• Advanced product selling tools and inventory tracking
• Order management and promotional tools
• Integration with shopping comparison and review sites
• SEO tools such as custom URL’s, automatic redirects, and product page optimization
• Real-time shipping rates
• Inventory tracking and low inventory alerts
• Integration with Ebay, Facebook, and Amazon

Our top pick for dedicated ecommerce platforms is Shopify. Shopify has lots of selling features and great customer service. Plus it offers integrated online and in-store selling options, allowing you to streamline and consolidate all of your business operations. Learn how you can put Shopify to work for your business here.

Here’s a look at Shopify’s product listing page:

This is Shopify’s tidy, distraction-free shopping cart page:

The Bottom Line

Accepting online credit card payments isn’t difficult at all, and you don’t even need a website of your own to do it. Gathering customer payment data securely is your responsibility, but choosing a PCI-compliant payment solution can relieve much of the security burden.

Without a website, any small business can receive payments through a simple PayPal link sent in customer emails. Service providers especially can benefit from low-cost, easy-to-use online invoice and recurring payment features offered by Square, PayPal, and QuickBooks. And if you need to collect and store customer information from registrations or subscription services, PaySimple’s online forms are hard to beat.

With a website, your online credit card processing options open up with shopping carts that come in all shapes and sizes. If you have an existing blog or website, PayPal is an easy online payment solution for any platform. Ecwid and PrestaShop let you set up an integrated store section on your website and accept online credit card payments.

If your goal is a full-featured ecommerce store, then a dedicated ecommerce platform with a PCI-compliant checkout may be the best choice. Providers like Shopify allow you to build websites that put your products front and center and sell through a secure checkout. Plus, their store management features make tasks like order fulfillment and inventory tracking a breeze.

Have questions or comments about how to accept online credit card payments for just about anything? Drop me a comment in the comments section below.