14 Alternatives to PayPal for Small Businesses in 2022

PayPal is a standard for online payment processing, with its expansive integration capability and its Zettle POS system for solopreneurs and small businesses. However, it’s far from the only option. There are excellent alternatives (or additions) to PayPal. Some have better rates, offer more stability with a traditional merchant account, or cater to more specific business types.

We evaluated dozens of options to find the top 14 alternatives to PayPal for businesses:

• Stripe: Best overall PayPal alternative for online payments
• Square: Best overall competitor for a small business POS system
• Payment Depot: Best non-PayPal choice for high-volume sales
• Shopify (and Shop Pay): Best non-PayPal option for online stores and retailers
• Zelle: Best alternative to PayPal for solopreneurs and bank-to-bank payments
• Amazon Pay: Best option for voice commerce
• Authorize.net: Best PayPal alternative for a flexible payment processor
• Braintree: Best for larger businesses doing international sales
• Google Pay: Best PayPal substitute for secure checkout
• Payanywhere: Best alternative for restaurants and food trucks
• QuickBooks: Best non-PayPal choice for B2B invoicing
• 2Checkout (Verifone): Best option for international VAT payments
• PaymentCloud: Best for high-risk merchants
• iATS: Best PayPal alternative for nonprofits

Best PayPal Alternatives Compared

PayPal at a Glance

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Stripe: Best for Online Payments

We rate Stripe highly for a multitude of payment processing needs, such as best payment gateway and best merchant service. It’s also our No. 1 choice for international merchant accounts, but its integration capability and online tools make it an even better alternative to PayPal for online sales. Its application programming interface (API) and software development kit (SDK) tools are top-notch and designed to give you a flexible payment processor.

When comparing Stripe vs PayPal, Stripe’s in-person processing fee is higher, but the online fee is lower. Stripe serves merchants in 47 countries and has a flat fee for international payments, as opposed to PayPal’s country-specific fee structure. Like QuickBooks, Stripe has tools for invoicing and billing.

Stripe is also a great bet for international sales. While we list Stripe as a great alternate choice to PayPal for online sales, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention its terrific international functions. Stripe, like PayPal, works in hundreds of countries around the world, presents in the local currency, and handles cryptocurrency.

Need in-person tools as well? Its mobile app, designed by FacilePay, is highly rated, and you can create your own in-person checkout with Stripe Terminal. Alternatively, you can integrate with a third-party POS. Stripe has a card reader and handheld terminal, but no POS system like Shopify or PayPal. Its in-person transaction fees are a bit higher: 2.7% + 5 cents for stripe vs 2.29% + 9 cents for PayPal.

Getting started with Stripe is easy but does require some technical know-how. You sign up for an account just like with PayPal, and then you start integrating it with your software.

Square: Best Small Business POS System

Square is the most popular competitor to PayPal for mPOS—and in general—because it offers payment processing at a reasonable flat rate, a free POS, and an online store. It also has over 100 integrations for ecommerce, delivery services, accounting, and more. Square’s POS is as easy as PayPal’s Zettle and has more features. In addition, Square offers a free virtual terminal and invoices with ACH payment processing. PayPal, meanwhile, has the advantage of being accepted by more online venues than Square.

Square consistently makes our lists for best merchant services, credit card processors for nonprofits, and restaurant credit card processing. Its POS system is on our lists for leading POS systems along with the best salon, inventory, and retail POS systems … you get the picture. Payanywhere and Zettle sometimes make our best-of lists but rank below Square.

Square is easy for hobbyists yet featured enough for SMBs. It’s super-easy to get started with Square. Just sign up for a free account. Then, order the card reader and set up the free POS while it’s being delivered. You can accept keyed-in payments right away.

Square’s transaction fees are slightly higher than PayPal’s: In-person payment processing runs 2.6% + 10 cents per transaction for Square and 2.29% + 9 cents for PayPal, and for keyed-in 3.5% + 15 cents for Square vs 3.49% + 9 cents for PayPal.

For more on how Square’s features stack up to PayPal’s, read our in-depth Square vs PayPal comparison.

Payment Depot: Best for High-volume Sales

PayPal’s rates can add up fast if you do brisk or high-ticket sales. If you generate over $10,000 in credit card transactions per month, then Payment Depot could save you money. In addition to being one of the best merchant services overall, it is on our list of the cheapest. Its pricing differs from PayPal in that it charges a monthly membership fee but the low, interchange-plus rates can make up for that quickly.

Payment Depot gives you a free virtual terminal and, in some cases, free POS terminals. It uses the SwipeSimple app for mobile sales and sells the mobile reader for $99. SwipeSimple is more basic than PayPal Zettle but lets you take payments and calculate taxes or discounts and also has inventory tracking. It has excellent reviews for both Android and iOS.

Unlike the others on our list, Payment Depot is only available for US merchants, and you must apply and get approval to join. You can talk to sales or fill out the application online. To make it easier, be sure you have your business information, including EIN/federal tax ID number and a voided check ready. Approval usually takes 24 hours.

Shopify: Best for Online Stores

If you are looking for a stronger online store than PayPal provides, Shopify is a great choice. This is one of the best and most popular ecommerce solutions on the market and is also on our list of best payment apps and POS systems for multichannel retailers. Unlike PayPal’s Zettle, you have to purchase Shopify’s shopping cart/POS plan, which starts at $29 per month. It does include a virtual terminal in the form of its backend ordering system, so when considering that, the basic plan nearly matches what you’d pay with PayPal.

Like PayPal, it’s easy to add Shopify to social networks like Facebook or multichannel sales platforms like eBay. Shopify also integrates with dropshipping companies. Plus, it offers deep discounts on shipping, something PayPal and the others on this list do not do.

One of PayPal’s biggest selling points for ecommerce is its one-click buy button. However, Shopify offers a similar solution called Shop Pay that can be added as a one-click checkout option to any Shopify site. Anyone with a Shopify account (business or customer) can save their checkout information to use across all Shopify sites through Shop Pay.

To get started with Shopify, sign up for an account. There’s a free trial. Once you’ve logged in, you can set up Payments, including Shop Pay.

Zelle: Best for Solopreneurs & Bank-to-Bank Payments

One of the great things about PayPal is that it works for peer-to-peer transfers, which many hobbyists, solopreneurs, and small businesses use to get payments. Zelle does the same thing, with an added advantage: It transfers to and from your bank account directly. Both you and your customer must have a Zelle account, but the process is super simple and generally free. (Some banks may charge small businesses to use this feature.)

Zelle is extremely simple. There’s no invoicing and no POS. You log in, choose who you’re sending money to, set the amount, and send. However, it’s a great alternative to ACH transfers (which PayPal cannot process) and e-checks, which PayPal charges a processing fee for. Naturally, it’s cheaper than Square or Payanywhere.

Zelle is by no means meant to act as a high-volume payment processor, but if you need a free and easy way to accept or send a few payments, it fits the bill.

To use Zelle, either your bank must be enrolled in Zelle, or you will need to attach a Visa or Mastercard debit card to the account. Talk to your bank or go to Zelle and click on Get Started.

Amazon Pay: Best for Voice Commerce

One of the biggest selling points of PayPal is that you can add it to any online site as an additional payment method. Now, Amazon can make the same claim with Amazon Pay. Like PayPal and Google Pay, you can integrate it into your online store, social selling, or elsewhere and let customers buy your products on your site but with their Amazon accounts. Plus, Amazon Pay lets your customers order using Alexa. How cool is that?

Like PayPal, customers don’t need to add any other information. It’s all in their Amazon account. This can help customers feel more secure, as their credit card information is not going to yet another online site. Even more, Amazon guarantees qualified purchases for you, especially for physical items. That improves customer confidence.

However, Amazon Pay falls short against PayPal because its approval process takes weeks instead of days, and it lacks a mobile app or POS.

Visit Amazon Pay and apply for an account. It can take up to 30 days for approval. After you are approved, you can put Amazon Pay on your sites and start building an Alexa skill.

Authorize.net: Best Flexible Payment Processor

If PayPal is not the right solution for you for general payment processing, Authorize.net is an excellent alternative. It’s unique in that it offers two plans: If you have a merchant account, you can get only payment processing at cheap rates, or you can secure a merchant account as well via its all-in-one plan. It does charge a monthly fee but no chargeback fees. Authorize.net earned the top spot in our evaluation of the best payment gateways.

If you are a high-risk business, it can work with its partners to accommodate you. (PaymentCloud serves high-risk businesses as well, but PayPal does not.) Authorize.net offers a wide variety of integrations, and it has partnerships with developers that can design integrations for you. Like with PayPal, you can program button codes to put on social media or websites, or you can create a customized payment page. It has a virtual terminal, too–PayPal charges for its virtual terminal.

Like PayPal, Authorize.net has more complaints about frozen funds and canceled accounts than PaymentCloud and Payment Depot. However, according to cardpaymentoptions.com, many issues seem to be not with Authorize.net so much as its partner merchant accounts. Be sure you pick a reputable merchant account when working with Authorize.net.

Getting started is easy: Go to the website, pick your plan, and fill out the form. If you don’t have a merchant account, you may need to select one, which could require a validation process.

Braintree: Best for Larger Businesses Doing International Sales

Braintree is a PayPal company that focuses on international payment processing. While it works closely with PayPal, even depending on it for some tools like POS, it differs from PayPal in that it assigns each merchant their own account. This sets it apart from Verifone as well. You may face a longer approval rate, but it pays in better account stability than PayPal gives. Braintree also provides interchange-plus pricing for high-volume merchants, making it a great choice for larger businesses.

This international payment processor works with merchants in the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR China, Malaysia, and New Zealand, although it can handle payments from around the world in 130 currencies. Braintree also accepts Samsung Pay, which is a highly popular mobile payment solution. Verifone does not accept Samsung Pay. Its pricing schedule is simple, with a flat rate and a 1%–2% addition for transactions in foreign currency or cards issued outside the US.

Braintree has several advantages that come from being a PayPal company: name recognition, access to tools like Zettle, and even PayPal support teams for certain ecommerce integrations. Naturally, it processes PayPal and Venmo (also a PayPal company). Like others across this list, it relies on integrations and APIs rather than having its own POS solutions.

You can use Braintree’s free sandbox to test integrations to make sure it’s right for you. Once you’ve decided, it’s easy to sign up for an account.

Google Pay: Best Free Alternative for Secure Checkout

Google Pay is essentially a zero-fee payment processor and an increasingly popular substitute for PayPal. Consumers sign up for the app and tie their credit card to it. From there, whenever they pay, Google presents you with an encrypted code that ties to the account. You don’t handle any credit card information. This makes it very secure. You’ll be charged whatever credit card fees your merchant account charges, but Google does not add anything to it.

Google Pay can tie to your online store, POS system, or other ecommerce software through an API or integrations with one of its many partners. It has integrations for BigCommerce, Clover, Payline—even some of the PayPal alternatives on our list like Square, Stripe, and Shopify.

Like PayPal and Amazon Pay, Google has the advantage of being a trusted and recognizable source. It works for payment processing in 75+ nations. However, it’s wildly more popular than Amazon in certain countries. For example, the National Payments Corporation of India reported that in October 2021, Amazon Pay reached $68.8 million in transactions, but Google Pay recorded $1.45 billion.

Google Pay also has the advantage of integration with the Passes app. Through Passes, you can list and promote your loyalty programs, gift cards, offers, and more. Passes lets you send location-based notifications to customers as well. One disadvantage is that Google Pay does not have a POS system like PayPal.

It’s free to use Google Pay. Visit Google Pay to learn more and sign up.

Payanywhere: Best for Restaurants & Food Trucks

If you have a restaurant and neither Zettle nor Square appeals to you, try Payanywhere. It offers open tabs, split payments, employee scheduling, and tip functions that make it good for small restaurants. It also has an offline mode, which PayPal Zettle lacks, making it an even better choice for food trucks or food booths. Top that off with next-day deposit of funds earned before 10 p.m.—better than PayPal. It does not have the same breadth of online integrations as PayPal or Square, but the POS system is pretty good, and (like Square) it integrates with some delivery systems like GRUBBRR.

Payanywhere’s free plan has a higher transaction rate than PayPal’s, but because it does not add a flat rate, it’s actually cheaper for transactions under $22. It also has plans with monthly fees and lower rates. Altogether, decent POS features and low prices earned Payanywhere a spot on our list of the best credit card payment apps. (Check out how Payanywhere compares vs Square.)

To sign up for Payanywhere, go to the website and click on Create an Account. You’ll answer a few questions about your business, then choose whether you want flat rate or custom pricing. Then, you order your hardware. In the meantime, you can download the app to get started.

QuickBooks Payments: Best for B2B & Accounting

PayPal offers free invoicing and integrates with QuickBooks, but if you are a freelancer that sells items and works under contract, or do B2B sales that primarily involve invoices, then QuickBooks is a strong alternate choice. There is a monthly fee because you must be a QuickBooks user to use Payments. However, you get the accounting software, which integrates almost as widely as PayPal. The transaction fees are close to PayPal’s, and if you regularly process over $7,500 a month, you can apply for a discount of up to 40% per transaction.

One advantage QuickBooks has over all the PayPal alternatives here is that it lets you deposit money into different accounts. You can set up recurring payments and get notified when an invoice is paid. It also has a highly rated mobile app for selling products in person. Overall, QuickBooks Payments is one of our favorite credit card payment apps and is also on our list for the best B2B solutions.

Start by signing up for a QuickBooks account with a free trial. Then apply for QuickBooks Payments.

Verifone (2Checkout): Best for International VAT Payments

If international sales are your thing but PayPal isn’t, then look at Verifone (formerly 2Checkout). This global online payment processor has a lot to offer: 120+ ecommerce integrations, 45 payment methods, 100+ currencies, and 200+ countries. In all, its reach exceeds that of PayPal and earned it a spot on our list of the best payment gateways and international merchant accounts. Plus, it can act as a merchant of record, handling global VAT and sales taxes for you, something neither PayPal nor Braintree provide.

Verifone is similar to PayPal in that it can provide your customers 24/7 support for issues with purchases. It offers phone and email support in nine languages, and lets you customize the support page to your branding. PayPal, by contrast, has email support only and works through the customer’s PayPal account while Braintree does not offer this service at all.

There’s no monthly fee, but the processing fee of 3.5% + 35 cents–6% + 60 cents is higher than PayPal’s. You can sign up for free to one of its plans or contact sales about custom pricing. You can then start integrating Verifone into your ecommerce software.

PaymentCloud: Best for High-risk Merchants

PayPal does not normally support high-risk businesses and has a reputation for canceling accounts or freezing funds for suspect transactions. If you are in a medium- or high-risk business, such as CBD sales, liquor stores, or pawn shops, then PaymentCloud is a great option. It’s our top choice for high-risk merchant accounts and integrates with online stores and POS applications, but, unlike PayPal, does not have a mobile app or POS of its own. You can send invoices through its Paysley app.

What it does have is excellent security, chargeback protection, and customer service. Despite the kinds of industries it serves, there are few complaints about canceled accounts or held funds. This could be because of its diligent approval process. When you sign up, it can take several days to get approved. Fill out the form on the webpage to get started.

iATS: Best for Nonprofits

PayPal offers deep discounts to nonprofits using its system. However, if you need an alternate option, or want something more focused on the needs of nonprofits, look to iATS. This merchant service works exclusively with nonprofit organizations and can process donations around the world in credit card, ACH, and other methods. Larger charities that use Salesforce will appreciate its integration, Brickwork by iATS, but it also integrates with hundreds of other applications, many of which are charity-centric.

Overall, it’s one of the best nonprofit payment processors. Unlike PayPal, iATS does not have its own POS; however, it lets you create online forms you can embed in your website or use as a standalone solution, and you can build a shopping cart with its Aura program. It recently added hosted pages, pre-populated forms, and the ability to let donors cover processing fees. It has a mobile app that works with iOS only; most on our list work with Android and iOS.

Unfortunately, iATS does not list its pricing online, as PayPal does. However, we found rates ranging from 2.49% to 3.2% + 26 cents. For comparison, PayPal’s rates are 2.89 + country fee. Unlike PayPal, it may have a monthly fee and an annual contract as well.

To get started, go to iATS and fill out the contact form.

Bottom Line

PayPal is a hugely popular payment processor for international, online, and even in-person payment processing. However, it’s not your only choice, and in some cases, may not even be your best option. The payment processors listed here each have some features in common with PayPal as well as their own strengths. Any of these work instead of PayPal—or can be used in conjunction with PayPal.

If we had to pick the overall best alternative for PayPal, we’d choose Square because it’s so versatile. Solopreneurs and hobbyists can use it with a magstripe reader and free mobile POS, and it also offers features for running a busy store, restaurant, or salon with an online store on the side. Visit Square to get your free account and get started.

Visit Square

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