Best Payment Gateway Providers in 2024

Payment gateway platforms make it easy to make payments for online transactions. As there are a number of good gateway programs on the internet, you may be confused about which one to choose. This buyer’s guide of online payment apps will help you out by providing a list of features and factors you should consider while doing educated comparisons to select a suitable payment gateway for your needs.

• E-commerce stores use a payment gateway to receive payments from customers who buy their goods online.
• Small and large businesses that have an online presence and perform sales on the internet use a gateway for secure payment services.
• Individuals use payment gateway tools like those in the payment gateway list found here for online purchases and transactions.

• PayPal Payments: PayPal is a quick and secure way to send and receive money, make an online payment, and set up a merchant account. Also the best payment processor, PayPal Payments offers business solutions for users to get paid securely on their website, mobile apps, or directly through their email address.
• Amazon Payments: A fast, easy, and safe way to accept payments online. Companies can enable Amazon customers to simply log in and pay using their Amazon credentials.
• Stripe Subscriptions: Stripe powers any subscription model with robust features to reduce churn. You can build and manage all aspects of your recurring billing with Stripe’s APIs. Stripe is also one of the top payment processors to help you ensure that all credit card transactions are secured.
• Braintree: A simple, robust way to accept payments and enable commerce from anywhere—on your mobile app or online. Braintree offers a security-driven, full-stack payments platform for small business and large companies that enables processing and payment in one system, plus loads of other features.
• Authorize.Net: Enables ecommerce merchants to accept online payments via credit card and e-check. Its additional services do the job of a full-time employee and help you store data securely, avoid fraud and more.

Hosted payment gateways

These take a customer off from your website’s checkout page. After a user clicks on the “pay now” button on your website, they will be sent to the payment service provider’s page. Here, the user needs to fill the payment details. After the payment, the user will be redirected back to the website to complete the checkout process.

Pro/self-hosted payment gateways

For this gateway, you need to ask the payment details from users on your own website. After getting the details, you need to send the gathered data to the payment gateway’s URL. Some gateways need the info in a specific format, while others need a hash key or a specific security key.

API / non-hosted payment gateways

This gateway allows customers to enter their information directly on the merchant’s checkout page and processes payments using their APIs or HTTPS queries.

Local bank integration

These are similar to hosted payment gateways. The user is redirected to the payment gateway’s website, where one needs to fill the payment and contact details. After making the payment, the user will be redirected back to the ecommerce website, and notification data is also sent with redirection.

Platform-based payment gateway solutions

This type offers a platform to e-commerce merchants to sell goods directly from their servers. Merchants need to create subscriptions or products in the provided platform, and users are redirected via the checkout button to this platform.

International payments

Some payment gateway tools offer multi-currency and international payments, as well as an interface supporting multiple languages. You need to check where there are added fees for international and multi-currency payments and whether you need to set up a merchant account in a particular country. The best online payment processor should make this information easily accessible.

Security

Data security is essential for safe online payments. Make sure the gateway is level 1 compliant with PCI DSS and offers security features such as tokenization. Most gateways also offer fraud protection tools to ensure safe transactions with new parties.

Customer support

Good quality payment gateways offer reliable support through multiple channels. Do some research and ensure you can easily access support agents anytime. Find out if you need to pay extra for support. Read online reviews about the quality of support offered by various gateways.

Payment methods

Payment gateways usually accept MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and PayPal for online payments. For international payments, check whether the gateway accepts local credit cards beyond MasterCard, Visa, and Amex. Always make sure you check what the exact fees are. For example, you can examine our comparison of Stripe fees vs Paypal fees vs Adyen fees to get a better understanding of what’s the standard in the industry.

Integration

While your gateway solution guarantees the transaction, it’s also important to ensure that payment information is updated in your finance database. Having payment gateway software that seamlessly integrates with your existing accounting setup will definitely save a lot of time, money, and effort.

Invoicing

On the flip side, having a payment gateway system that generates an invoice would be very convenient to customers and vendors and help complete the transaction faster. As a result, the need for integration will be reduced.

Our payment gateway reviews show that you can use one to do the following:

• Accept online payments for your ecommerce business.
• Accept multiple payment methods and currencies.
• Process payments safely by ensuring the security of payment details.
• Avoid unauthorized payments with fraud protection safeguards.
• Quickly handle customer refunds and returns.

Mobile apps are replacing countertop checkout

Consumers are using their mobile phones to access cloud apps to checkout inside the shop and to pay for things before they step inside the store. Savvy brands like Starbucks, Taco Bell, Domino’s Pizza, Target, and Kohl are keeping up with this trend to offer mobile payment apps and have seen a boom in their sales.

Faster and safer payments  

Many countries have implemented systems to facilitate faster payments. Beyond speed, payment gateways and apps are becoming more efficient and flexible. They are ensuring their systems meet security, compliance, and risk management regulations for safe online transactions. With the additional capability to process credit card payments, some of the leading payment gateways are also considered as the best payment processors.

Contextualized commerce is driving payments innovation

Payments are enabling the different digital experiences consumers engage in every day. Consumers spend many hours on the internet every day on different tasks. Companies are tracking their online behavior and habits to influence and trigger purchases. They are payment-enabling impulse purchases in innovative ways.

Invisible payments

As more and more customers are preferring online payment gateway for everyday expenses, customer experience is slowly shifting towards making the processing invisible. This means that transactions are blended with the checkout, and users don’t have to repeatedly enter their payment information. Examples of seamless, invisible payments include e-wallets, in-app credits/rewards, or device authorizations.

Chargebacks and fraud

Payment gateways need protection against data theft and fraudulent misuse to ensure secure transactions. They need to use fraud-monitoring tools like purchase tracking, validation services, and risk management to detect fraud before it happens. Chargebacks are expensive and can damage the reputation of a gateway. Therefore, they need to use effective customer service practices to reduce or eliminate chargebacks.

Technical integration

It can be difficult for some gateways to integrate with other platforms, which can result in processing delays, expensive fees, and lost transactions. Payment gateways need to ensure smooth technical integration with other systems to offer easy and secure transactions.

International transactions

International payments can be slow, expensive, and inefficient. Payment systems need to tackle this challenge and ensure fast and secure cross-border transactions and payments by managing the costs and risks more effectively.

There are a number of payment gateway providers on the internet. Luckily, there are many reputable sites that can provide you with reliable rankings for these gateways that enable you to do a comparison. In addition, be sure to try demos of your shortlisted gateways to select a suitable one for your needs.

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Base of operations

While the physical distance of your company and your gateway provider may not be a big of a deal, the rules governing the business plays an important part. Before even starting accepting payments, ensure that you have adequate knowledge of incorporation rules  (and how they affect payment processing) of your provider and check if they are in sync.

Nature of business

You may also want to disclose your business to your gateway provider prior to closing a deal. There are some providers who, for some reason,  can get picky with the business of their clients. There are industries that are termed “high-risk” such as gambling, gaming, and adult entertainment, that providers may be averse to and refuse to serve.

Payment terms

How soon can you receive your payments, and how much does you gateway charge? These are some of the questions you might need to finalize with your provider before signing the dotted line. Most vendors will be more than happy to provide you with information upfront, but you may need to do some comparison shopping.

Payment processing capabilities

Payment gateways can now also function as online payment processors, which is necessary for businesses that accept credit card payments. Looking for a platform with this functionality will not be as difficult as some of the best payment gateways are also the largest payment processors.

While there may be some who think that a payment gateway solution is all that’s needed to start accepting online payments, there is also a thing called a merchant account that is needed as well. A payment gateway solution is distinct from and works hand-in-hand with a merchant account.

The merchant account is the vendor’s account that collects all transaction data and payments. When a customer pays online, the funds typically land in the merchant account until the transaction is cleared. Once finished, the funds are then sent to the vendor’s actual bank account. And if the customer uses a credit card to pay for an online transaction, the payment gateway will first send the details to an online payment processor, which is responsible for safely routing the payment data between the customer’s card-issuing bank to the merchant’s receiving account.

The payment gateway is the communication link between a customer’s and merchant’s account. Some payment gateway systems only deal with certain merchant account types, so make sure you know this information prior to deciding which merchant account to adopt.