Online Payments by the end of the week.
I speak to a lot of small business owners who thinking taking payments on their website is going to be too complicated and too expensive. Gone are the days where PayPal and Worldpay are the only choices for small businesses. You also do not need to pay high fees to your business bank for a merchant account thinking it might give you more credibility. Now you can have security, easy to use, easy to set up, very low fees, and a very large choice when taking payments through your website.
Isn’t technology great?
In the 8-10 years since I first starting taking payments online I’ve tried them all. From the very first attempt at creating an ugly Paypal button for every single product, to paying HSBC ridiculous monthly and transactions fees while needing to update my code and security every year to keep up. Life is so much better now.
Here are just 3 payment processors that I can highly recommend for small to medium sized businesses.
Paypal – still the go to for those just starting out. But now, they offer much more seamless integration and a good variation in how you choose to do it.
Stripe – a newish but great system that integrates with WP and Drupal easily. Reasonable fees and absolutely no coding if you don’t want to.
SagePay – they have been around almost since the beginning too, but unlike Worldpay they have rolled with the punches. They’ve updated, improved, and made their payment system affordable for small businesses while providing easy integration on any site.
| Processor | Monthly Fees | Approx Cost per Transaction |
|---|---|---|
| Paypal | None | 3.4% + 20p |
| Stripe | None | 1.9% + 20p (domestic cards) |
| Sagepay | From £19.90/mo | Up to 350 transactions 6p each |
Each of these processors have different advantages depending on your situation. If you are working in WordPress and do not want to deal with a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo then Stripe is a great option. This is what I recommend with Gravity Forms if you want to take payments on your site within 3 days.
If you have more time to develop, want more options and flexibility, then all options would work and its up to you and your developer to choose which will work best for your situation.
Here is a great example just completed this week for a campsite that allows booking and payment online. And yes, it did take 3 days to complete!
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