Online credit card processing companies allow you to accept payments on your website. The standard rate is 2.9%, plus 30 cents per transaction, but some offer lower rates. We considered a variety of online payment processing options and compared cost, point-of-sale (POS) features, and more to find the top six, and the best overall.
Top 6 Online Credit Card Processing Companies for 2019
| Online Payment Processing | Best For |
|---|---|
| PayPal | (Best Overall) Startups needing an affordable and recognizable plug-and-play payment processor |
| Stripe | Ecommerce businesses wanting a custom payment solution with a developer-friendly API |
| Square | Small brick-and-mortar or mobile businesses that also sell online and want an easy-to-use solution |
| Shopify | Online sellers needing a full ecommerce site and store with built-in payment processing |
| Chase Merchant Services | Retailers wanting lower rates from a trusted bank, plus fewer account holds |
| Fattmerchant | Established retailers wanting a merchant account with great rates and subscription-based pricing |
How We Evaluated Online Credit Card Processing
An online payment processing company typically acts as an all-in-one processor, so you don’t need a separate payment gateway. We looked for the online credit card processing companies that offer the best rates, and that are easy to implement with your website or online shopping cart system. The POS features included are usually a bonus, but we gave more credit to those that offer the business management tools you’ll need.
Brand-name recognition is important, too, because your customers are more likely to shop with a trusted name. Many ecommerce retailers noted anecdotally that customers prefer to see a brand name they know before sharing credit card information.
To find the best online credit card processing for small business, we considered this criteria:
- Pricing: The cost of online payment processing is of utmost importance, which is why we considered this above all else; we also considered additional fees for international sales
- Ease of Setup: You shouldn’t have to hire a developer or spend hours on the phone with support to figure out how to start accepting credit cards online, which is why ease of use and setup are important considerations
- Brand Recognition: We looked at public opinion of each processor brand and considered how it would affect a customer’s decision to shop on your website
- POS Features: We considered the tools online payment processing companies offer to help you manage your inventory, customers, and other data
- Customer Support: We evaluated the quality and availability of each online credit card processing company’s support team
- User Reviews: A deep dive into the customer comments sections and forums of several sites, including our own, helped us to determine which online payment processors are best
Taking all the above points into consideration, we recommend PayPal as the best overall online payment processing company. It offers the standard rate for online payments, and there’s no monthly fee. Plus, it has one of the most recognizable names in the industry, which means it also comes with built-in consumer trust. Its sales conversion rate in one study showed it at 88.7%, while other checkouts only had an average rate of 48.7%.
PayPal: Best Overall Online Payment Processing for Small Businesses
PayPal is an online credit card processing company that’s ideal for any small-business owner wanting to accept payments on their website. There are no monthly or setup fees, and the cost is industry standard. By accepting payments with PayPal, your sales conversion rate should increase, which no other payment processor can claim.
PayPal Pricing
There are no setup fees, and you’ll pay no monthly, gateway, or PCI compliance fees to use PayPal as your online payment processing option. You only pay 2.9%, plus 30 cents per transaction, which is the going rate for most online processors, such as Stripe and Shopify. International rates are a bit higher at 4.4%, plus a fixed fee based on currency. Chargeback fees are $20 each, but refunded if you win a dispute.
Here’s what you can expect to pay using PayPal in various monthly situations:
PayPal Fees
| Monthly Sales | $10 each ticket $10,000 total | $40 each ticket $10,000 total | $100 each ticket $40,000 total |
| PayPal Processing Fees | |||
| What You’ll Pay |
PayPal Features
The biggest selling point of PayPal is the brand recognition because it lends your business a high level of credibility because of PayPal’s built-in trust with consumers. In addition to accepting PayPal payments, you can accept credit and debit cards, send online invoices, and you can manage inventory and analyze sales data.
PayPal Brand
While the brand of a credit card terminal may not be important to in person shoppers, online shoppers need to trust the processor that’s handling their credit card data. There are hundreds of millions of people with PayPal accounts, and many prefer to pay for online purchases using PayPal. That’s why it’s important to offer customers a PayPal payment option, and it’s likely you’ll see an uptick in sales conversions.
Invoicing with PayPal
PayPal offers free online invoice templates you can use to send customers an invoice for payment. They can pay directly through the invoice, which means convenience and security for them, and no virtual terminal rates for you, which are often higher.
PayPal Inventory Management
You can track inventory by item or option in PayPal’s dashboard, and set up low-stock inventory emails, so you don’t oversell. It’s in the setup process that you can add item IDs, stock quantity, and the alert quantity (for low-stock emails). It’s a basic inventory management system, and doesn’t match the level of tools you get with Square or Shopify.
Reporting in PayPal
Like many online payment processing companies, PayPal offers you a look at your data, so you can analyze a variety of information. From user engagement, sales by date or date range, and user behavior, you can study the trends to help you manage your business more effectively. The data can be exported in a CSV file, so you can use it in other apps or software for further analysis.
What PayPal is Missing
Unless you opt for one of PayPal’s paid business tools, you won’t get much by way of POS features. There’s also no option for a virtual terminal, so you can’t take phone orders the way you can with Square. Plus, you’ll need to build an ecommerce site and store separately — PayPal Payments Standard is simply an online payment processor.
PayPal Reviews
You’ll find a lot of PayPal reviews that mention held funds or frozen accounts, but this is common with many third-party online payment processing companies. If a transaction throws up a red flag, such as an unusually large amount, PayPal may investigate it. Otherwise, users seem satisfied with PayPal, especially that it’s so well-known and trusted as a brand.
How to Get PayPal
PayPal offers online credit card processing that’s easy to add to your ecommerce website and has no monthly fee. Also, it has a proven track record of upping sales conversions compared to other online payment options. A PayPal business account is free. Visit PayPal to sign up.
Stripe: Best Online Payment Processing for Ecommerce Customization
Stripe is the best online payment processing solution for any ecommerce business that wants to customize the checkout process for customers. You or your developer get to design the cart the way you want it. Pricing is at the industry standard, and Stripe allows you to create mobile in-app payment forms.
Stripe Pricing
Stripe is as affordable as most online credit card processing options because it sticks to the standard 2.9%, plus 30 cents per transaction. It has no monthly or startup fees. The international rate is lower than PayPal at 3.9%, plus 30 cents per transaction, and there may be a currency conversion fee. Chargeback fees are also lower at $15.
As you can see in the chart below, the amount you pay to Stripe is exactly what you’d pay to PayPal:
Stripe Fees
| Monthly Sales | $10 each ticket $10,000 total | $40 each ticket $10,000 total | $100 each ticket $40,000 total |
| Square Processing Fees | |||
| What You’ll Pay |
Stripe Features
The key feature of Stripe is the ability you have to customize the checkout process on your ecommerce website. You can also design mobile online payment processing options for in-app purchases. Plus, Stripe gives you fraud protection on its PCI-compliant system, and you can create invoices, recurring subscriptions, and analyze data.
Stripe’s Customization
Stripe is easy to use with almost any ecommerce solution you’ve chosen. There are ready-made user interface (UI) elements you can use to create a checkout flow that suits your site. If you have some coding experience, or you have a developer, you can use Stripe’s APIs to design your own checkout form precisely how you want it.
Mobile Payments in Stripe
If you have a mobile site that you want to transform into a mobile ecommerce site, Stripe is an excellent choice for your online credit card processing. Stripe offers more UI components specifically for mobile apps, so you can create a checkout flow meant for your mobile app. The only nearly equal competitor in this area is Square.
Stripe Fraud Protection
Stripe Radar is the machine-learning-powered fraud protection that allows legitimate customers in, and keeps fraudulent transactions out. It uses data to predict whether a payment is legit or not, and it’s similar to what Shopify does. Unless you’re working with Stripe to get a customized pricing plan (for lower transaction rates), there’s no cost to enable Stripe Radar.
Reporting in Stripe
You can access reports and data from your Stripe dashboard. It’s here where you’ll find the day’s sales, projections for the month or year, and other date-based analytics. All this data can be exported in CSV or IIF files to be used in spreadsheets and QuickBooks.
What Stripe is Missing
Stripe isn’t an every-sales-channel payments processing solution, like Square or Shopify. It also doesn’t offer a virtual terminal, so you cannot take phone or mail orders. You’ll also need to have an ecommerce platform already, as Stripe doesn’t offer one. Business management tools are also lacking, with the exception of reporting.
Stripe Reviews
In most Stripe reviews, it’s clear to see many of those who use it for their online credit card processing like its ease of use and flexibility with checkout design. Some users point out that despite the 24/7 customer support, response time can be a bit slow.
How to Get Stripe
Stripe is first and foremost an online payment processing solution, but it pairs this service with customized UI components to help you create a checkout that is unique to your ecommerce site. An account with Stripe is free. Sign up with Stripe today.
Square: Best Online Payment Processing for Easy-to-Use Tools
Square may have one of the most recognizable names on this list, and though it’s best known for its pocket-sized mobile card reader, it’s also a great online credit card processing option. It charges the industry standard rate, but you also get a suite of easy-to-use business management tools that are second to none.
Square Pricing
The cost of online payment processing with Square is the same as most: 2.9%, plus 30 cents per transaction. Also, you won’t pay setup or monthly fees. There is no separate posted pricing information about international rates. A virtual terminal is included and comes with a rate of 3.5%, plus 15 cents per transaction. Square handles chargebacks a bit differently, too. There’s no fee for chargebacks, up to $250 per month.
Square fees for online credit card processing are the same as PayPal and Stripe, as you can see here:
Square Fees
| Monthly Sales | $10 each ticket $10,000 total | $40 each ticket $10,000 total | $100 each ticket $40,000 total |
| Square Processing Fees | |||
| What You’ll Pay |
Square Features
Where Square shines is in its offering of POS features and ease of use. If you already have an ecommerce website, you can simply add Square as your online payment processing option and start accepting payments immediately. The business management tools help you run your online store, customers, and sales data.
Square Brand
When it comes to brand recognition, Square is as known as PayPal, and the consumer trust is there, too. In 2017, Square’s payment volume hit more than $65 billion, so customers clearly trust Square with their credit card data.
POS Tools in Square
The greatest value of using Square is that you get POS features included for free with your account. The inventory management feature is far more robust than that of PayPal’s, as is the customer directory. There are low-stock alerts, invoices, and a virtual terminal for occasional mail order or telephone orders that come through.
Square’s Online Store
Although Square doesn’t offer its own ecommerce store solution, it has paired with Weebly, and it works with almost any other ecommerce platform out there. So, you can easily add Square as your online credit card processing option to your existing store, or sign up for a low-cost online store with Weebly to get started.
Reporting in Square
Another feature where Square pulls ahead of the competition is its analytics. You can access real-time data, so you can see how your sales are doing at, say, 1:30 p.m. on a Tuesday. You can also tap into data on sales by date range, or see which employees are making the most or least sales, see what your top sellers are, and more.
What Square is Missing
While Square has brand recognition, it doesn’t have the proven increase of sales conversions online that PayPal does. Unlike Shopify, Square doesn’t offer its own online store, either.
Square Reviews
On the whole, Square reviews are positive when it comes to pricing because there’s no monthly fee or startup costs. Common complaints include account termination and freezing of funds. It’s a typical issue with third-party processors because they’re quick to flag suspicious-looking activity, even if it’s on the up and up.
How to Get Square
Square is one of the easiest-to-use and flexible online credit card processing companies around, and it offers more tools than most competitors. An account is free and you can start accepting credit cards within a day of connecting Square to your online store. Sign up for Square today.
Shopify: Best Online Payment Processing for New Online Stores
Shopify is a fully loaded online credit card processing solution with an ecommerce site and store for those who choose the service. It uses the industry standard rate for transactions, but it includes a $29 monthly fee at minimum if you need the online store. Shopify also includes useful POS features, like Square.
Shopify Pricing
Although Shopify doesn’t have a free plan such as Square and PayPal, it does have a $9-per-month plan for social media selling. However, as an ecommerce seller, you’d do better with the $29 monthly plan, which is what we’d suggest. There’s also a $79 and $299 monthly plan available, which can lower the transaction rate from 2.9%, plus 30 cents to 2.6% and 2.4%, respectively. A chargeback fee is $15.
To see what you might pay with Shopify as your online payment processing option, check out the chart below:
Shopify Fees
| Monthly Sales | $10 each ticket $10,000 total | $40 each ticket $10,000 total | $100 each ticket $40,000 total |
| Shopify Processing Fees | |||
| What You’ll Pay |
*Includes $29 monthly fee
Shopify Features
The reason to choose Shopify over another online credit card processing option is its ecommerce store and website. It also includes 24/7 support, fraud analysis, and POS features that rival, and in some cases surpass, Square’s.
Shopify Store
It can take as little as minutes to set up a store and website on the Shopify ecommerce platform. Once you have your products in your inventory, you can start selling. Plus, Shopify includes label printing for when you’re ready to print and ship products to customers. It’s easy to create your store and site, and you need no coding knowledge.
Support from Shopify
Shopify offers customer and technical support 24/7, which is a much better offering than Square’s 12 hours per day (Pacific time). You can reach a representative by email, live chat, or by phone.
Shopify’s Fraud Analysis
One way in which Shopify helps you avoid chargebacks is with its built-in fraud analysis. Like Stripe, it uses machine-learning algorithms to determine whether a charge is suspicious. You’ll have the chance to verify information provided with an order to ensure you don’t put through a fraudulent charge and thereby avoid a chargeback (and angry customer).
POS Features in Shopify
The Shopify dashboard (and mobile app) lets you manage your store better than other options on our list. You can set up discounts based on time, customer groups, and quantity. Manage customers in a directory where you can add information about each one, collect email addresses for marketing campaigns, and more. Plus, there are reporting features, so you can track sales, voids, discounts, and more.
What Shopify is Missing
As an online credit card processing solution, Shopify is simply more expensive than most other options because of that monthly fee. You can rate shop and use a traditional merchant services provider, but then you’ll have to pay an added percentage fee to Shopify for the opportunity to use another payment processor.
Shopify Reviews
Most Shopify reviews are positive when it comes to the ease of use of setup and use. You also get a lot of options for themes for your ecommerce site. However, Shopify also gets mixed reviews for its steep price with the monthly fee, and customer support isn’t always helpful.
How to Get Shopify
Shopify is more than online payment processing — it’s an all-in-one ecommerce platform and business management tool. You can get started with Shopify by simply signing up for an account at its website, and you’ll have 14 days to try it out free. Get your free trial here.
Chase Merchant Services: Best Online Processing for Account Stability
Chase Merchant Services is the online credit card processing option offered by Chase Bank. It’s a direct processor, so there’s less chance of funds being frozen or your account being terminated suddenly. You’ll have access to a virtual terminal, as well. The flat-rate fee is lower than the industry standard.
Chase Merchant Services Pricing
Similar to Square and PayPal, Chase Merchant Service’s online payment processing for small business has no monthly or setup fee. The flat-rate fee is 2.9%, plus 25 cents per transaction, which is a little less than the industry standard, but that savings of 5 cents per transaction can make a difference. There is no chargeback fee or additional international rate on the flat-rate fee plan.
Here’s what your charges from Chase Merchant Services would look like given the specific situations:
Chase Merchant Services Fees
| Monthly Sales | $10 each ticket $10,000 total | $40 each ticket $10,000 total | $100 each ticket $40,000 total |
| Chase Merchant Services Processing Fees | |||
| What You’ll Pay |
Chase Merchant Services Features
Chase Merchant Services focuses more on providing business owners fair rates, 24/7 customer support, and resources to help with connecting ecommerce stores to its payment gateway. You can also choose authorize.net as your preferred gateway, for a number of reasons, which will be explained below.
Chase Merchant Services’ Integrations
As an online credit card processing solution, Chase Merchant Services focuses on rates and support, rather than providing POS tools, like Square. However, you can find helpful integrations, such as FreshBooks for accounting and BigCommerce for your ecommerce site. If your preferred ecommerce platform isn’t included on Chase’s list of integrations, there’s still a viable solution (more on that below).
Customer Support with Chase Merchant Services
One of the best features of Chase Merchant Services is its customer support. It’s available 24/7, so you can email or call any time when you have an issue. The support center online has several FAQs with helpful information, so you may be able to find your answer there.
Chase Merchant Services’ Payment Gateways
If Chase Merchant Services’ proprietary gateway doesn’t work with your ecommerce platform or other software you use, you have the option of choosing authorize.net as your gateway. The good news here is that Chase is a certified reseller, so you won’t pay any added fees for authorize.net, and you’ll have a few more options, like the ability to send invoices to customers (at Chase’s online flat-rate fee).
Fraud Protection with Chase Merchant Services
As with any good online credit card processing company, you’ll get fraud protection for each transaction. Plus, Chase Merchant Services takes its time when setting up your account (three to five business days, typically) to ensure they understand the type of business you have. This extra time is extra security for your account.
For example, if you suddenly have a transaction of $2,000, when you typically process $20 tickets, your account is less likely to be suspended. If funds are frozen, it should only take days to verify activity, and then you’ll get access to your money soon thereafter.
What Chase Merchant Services is Missing
Chase Merchant Services doesn’t offer a suite of POS tools, nor does it have an ecommerce store or site. It is strictly a payment processor. So, you won’t find inventory management tools, page design tools, or much else that you would find in Square or Shopify.
Chase Merchant Services Reviews
It’s difficult to find Chase Merchant Services reviews regarding its recent changes, so it’s not possible as of publish date to factor in user reviews. The services changed after Chase’s initial offering, which is formerly known as Chase Paymentech.
How to Get Chase Merchant Services
Chase Merchant Services is more like a merchant account, so you’ll get more attentive services, but with a flat-rate fee that is more affordable than even Square or PayPal. To get started with the online credit card processing service, go to the website to sign up for a free account.
Fattmerchant: Best Online Payment Processing for Established Businesses
Fattmerchant is a merchant services provider that offers an online credit card processing solution for established businesses that want to get into ecommerce sales. The monthly fee is steep for startups, but if you’re processing $10,000 or more in credit card sales monthly, the interchange-plus rate is a cheaper alternative to all-in-one options.
Fattmerchant Pricing
Fattmerchant’s interchange-plus pricing is one of the most fair and affordable ways to handle online payment processing. However, it’s only feasible for businesses with a proven track record of sales totaling $10,000 or more per month. Also, there’s a $99 monthly fee, or $199 monthly fee, if you’re bringing in more than $500,000 in annual sales.
You’ll pay the fee credit card companies set, plus 10 cents per transaction, and assessment fees on top. It shakes out to about 1.78%, plus 25 cents per sale for a Visa card. Other cards have varying fee percentages.
Fattmerchant Fees
| Monthly Sales | $10 each ticket $10,000 total | $40 each ticket $10,000 total | $100 each ticket $40,000 total |
| Fattmerchant Processing Fees | |||
| What You’ll Pay |
*Calculated using Visa credit card rates; other cards’ fees will vary; $99 monthly fee included in total
Fattmerchant Features
When you use Fattmerchant as your online payment processing solution, you aren’t getting the same suite of business management tools or ecommerce store that you would with Square or Shopify, but there are some helpful features. When you log in to the dashboard, you’ll find analytics, and you’ll have access to transaction history. Plus, there’s 24/7 support, and you can likely integrate Fattmerchant with your preferred ecommerce platform.
Fattmerchant Analytics
Your web dashboard from Fattmerchant includes a variety of helpful information. This is where you’ll find a summary of sales data and transaction history. You can also analyze that data to see when sales were made, or see voids or refunds, which can help you course correct, if needed.
Customer Support from Fattmerchant
Fattmerchant offers 24/7 customer support, much like Chase Merchant Services. You can contact the team by email, live chat, or give them a call any time of day or night. Plus, there’s a help center with documents and FAQs designed to help you find the answer you need without having to contact support.
Fattmerchant Integrations
If you’re approved for a Fattmerchant account, your account manager will work with you to find out which tools you’re using to power your ecommerce store and website. If you need certain apps, like QuickBooks Online, to integrate, Fattmerchant will help you find a way.
What Fattmerchant is Missing
Fattmerchant isn’t for every small-business owner, and that may be its biggest downfall. It has requirements of its merchants that most startups and ecommerce sellers won’t be able to fill.
Fattmerchant Reviews
The Fattmerchant reviews that are available from customers are few and far between. Those that left positive reviews mostly comment on the high quality of customer support. Issues are settled quickly, and typically to the customer’s satisfaction. Negative feedback has more to do with application denials or frozen funds.
How to Get Fattmerchant
The pricing for Fattmerchant is right, if you can meet the $10,000 monthly minimum, afford the $99 monthly fee, and if you can be approved for a merchant account. Traditional retailers looking for an online credit card processing solution should consider Fattmerchant. To apply for an account, go to Fattmerchant’s website today.
Bottom Line
Online credit card processing usually starts at the industry standard rate of 2.9%, plus 30 cents per transaction. So, it’s important to consider the value of each online payment processing company, its tools, and brand recognition, as those are the add-ons you’re paying a little extra for.
PayPal is widely known as a secure, easy-to-use, and affordable option for small businesses, and its consumer trust is strong. The proven sales conversion rate makes it nearly impossible to not include as a payment option on your small business’ ecommerce site or store. Plus, an account is free. Sign up for PayPal today.
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