The Complete Guide To Accepting Credit Card Payments Online: Processing, eCommerce Websites, & More

Why We Chose Square For Accepting Credit Card Payments Online

Any list of recommendations for online credit card processing would be incomplete without Square.

Square offers accessible payment processing for small businesses, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. From an online store builder (Square Online) to a virtual terminal to an inventory tool to invoicing to recurring billing, Square’s lineup of merchant services is truly remarkable — there are very few equivalents in the online credit card processing space.

Even amongst the select few providers offering all-in-one online payment processing/an online store app/POS/etc, Square stands out regarding the number of features it offers for no monthly fee. Square offers unequaled value in terms of its free business services, and as your small business grows, many free Square tools, such as Square Online, can be upgraded to paid versions to give you stronger functionality. Either way, there are no long-term contracts to sign.

Square isn’t the best online payment processor for every business type and size — large, high-volume businesses may find a full merchant account provider to be a better financial fit, while businesses in many high-risk categories will have to find a specialized high-risk processor. However, for a vast array of business types, particularly small and/or seasonal businesses, Square’s value as a means of accepting credit card payments online is unmatched.

Our one caveat to using Square is that, since you don’t have a true merchant account, underwriting guidelines are stricter, and there’s an increased chance of an account hold, freeze, or even termination. Customer service options are also limited, although the company has improved in this area in recent years.

Square Features

Square’s support for online selling is strong and constantly getting stronger. Even if you don’t have a website, you can send a payment link and take credit card payments online using Square Online Checkout. With this feature, you can also create shoppable Instagram or Facebook posts, turning your existing social media accounts into sales channels. You can also set up recurring billing through Square’s invoicing feature.

Square Online allows you to build your online store, manage inventory, and accept payments online. Best of all, there’s a free Square Online plan that comes with no monthly fees and offers everything you’ll need to get started. As your business grows, you can upgrade to one of three paid online store plans.

Here’s some of what else Square offers online merchants:

• Recurring billing and subscriptions
• Invoicing
• ACH payment processing
• Real-time reporting
• PCI compliance
• eCommerce integrations
• Pre-made and custom online checkout forms

Note that Square also offers several Square POS systems — one general-purpose POS and specialized POS systems for retail, restaurants, and appointment management. It is easily one of the best free POS systems available for small businesses. Card readers, stands, and terminals are all available as well. However, in this article, we’re focusing on the online side of things.

Square Pricing

Square’s simple flat-rate pricing is easy to understand, and as we’ve said, you’ll get a remarkable amount of features for no monthly fee (and even more features if you do pay a monthly fee). It’s a pricing scheme that best fits lower-volume merchants and seasonal businesses, as large businesses with higher processing volumes can typically save money on processing costs by going with a merchant account provider with interchange-plus or membership pricing.

• Online Transactions: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (2.6% + $0.30 with a Premium Square Online subscription)
• Online Rate For CBD Merchants: 3.8% + $0.30 per transaction
• Monthly Fee (Square Online): $0 for the Free plan, $29/month for Plus, and $79/month for Premium
• Chargeback Fee: $0 (we love this!)

For more details on why we think Square is a great option for many businesses to start taking payments online, you can check out Square Payments review and our Square Online review. And for a detailed pricing rundown on everything Square has to offer, see our Square pricing explainer.

Why We Chose Stripe For Accepting Credit Card Payments Online

Stripe Payments was an obvious choice for this article as the company is laser-focused on eCommerce, offering many services and options that most traditional merchant account providers can’t match.

What truly sets Stripe apart from its competitors is its robust support for developer-friendly solutions that allow you to create the payment flow you want with your branding front and center. Stripe offers customization with extensive code libraries and tools you won’t find anywhere else. However, you’ll either have to hire a developer or do the coding yourself to take full advantage of these features. If you need a simple, out-of-the-box solution for your business, you’ll be better off with Shopify, which uses Stripe as its back-end processor.

Stripe, like Square and Shopify Payments, is a third-party processor, so the caveats about having to guard against potential funding holds and account terminations apply here.

Stripe Features

From its inception, Stripe has been synonymous with eCommerce, offering outstanding international acceptance (135 currencies and numerous global payment methods are supported), exceptional developer tools, and a vast selection of integrations. Unlike Shopify and Square, Stripe doesn’t offer an in-house DIY eCommerce website builder, but if you’re prepared to use a web developer to design a custom online store for your business (or if you already have an online store and want to switch merchant service providers), Stripe gives you a broad array of custom tools to integrate into your eCommerce site.

Let’s go through some of Stripe’s feature set:

• Payment links that you can send via text, email, or social media DM
• Industry-leading developer tools
• Dynamic currency conversion
• Recurring billing and subscriptions
• Invoicing
• Custom and pre-made online checkout forms
• ACH processing

For offline sales, the company offers Stripe Terminal, though this solution falls short of being a true ready-made POS.

Stripe Pricing

Like Square and Shopify, Stripe offers simple, easily-understood flat-rate pricing. It’s the same rate you’ll pay with Square and Shopify under their basic plans. However, higher-volume merchants may be eligible for custom interchange-plus pricing, though Stripe doesn’t spell out the eligibility requirements you’ll have to meet for this.

• Online Transactions: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
• International Transactions: +1%/transaction
• No Monthly Fees
• Chargeback Fee: $15

For more information about Stripe’s costs and features, check out our full Stripe Payments review and our Guide To Stripe Pricing.

Why We Chose Host Merchant Services For Accepting Credit Card Payments Online

Host Merchant Services is a reputable provider of full merchant accounts and will work with your business to match you with an online store builder that fits your eCommerce goals. We selected HMS for this list of top processors for these reasons and for the fact that the company’s credit card processing services are particularly well-suited to web hosting, cloud service, and other SaaS platform providers.

With an HMS full merchant account, your business will enjoy a greater level of account stability than a third-party processor can offer. HMS will work with some high-risk business types as well, offering high-risk services through its partner, Electronic Merchant Systems.

Host Merchant Services Features

We love that Host Merchant Services offers full merchant accounts with no long-term contracts and no early termination fees. The company offers a full set of features for online businesses, and its reputation for customer service is much stronger than that of your average merchant services provider.

Let’s go through some of what HMS has to offer internet-based businesses:

• Web hosting
• A virtual terminal
• Your choice of the in-house payment gateway and Authorize.Net’s gateway
• Recurring billing
• Check imaging
• Free basic website with hosting
• Numerous online store integrations (HMS will help you select the right one for your business)
• Gift cards and loyalty cards
• Business financing
• Mobile processing, credit card terminals, and POS systems for in-person sales

Host Merchant Services Pricing

HMS offers competitive interchange-plus pricing. Read our piece on interchange-plus pricing to see why it is our preferred pricing model for payment processing. It’s a model that particularly suits businesses with a relatively high credit/debit card sales volume.

• Online Transactions: Interchange + 0.35% + $0.10
• Monthly Fee: $14.99
• 1099 Reporting Fee: $24/year
• Gateway Fee: $5-$10/month
• Chargeback Fee: $15

This pricing scheme works best for business processing over $10K/month — thankfully, if you process under $10K/month, HMS may offer you a custom rate package that better fits your business.

Why We Chose Dharma Merchant Services For Accepting Credit Card Payments Online

Dharma Merchant Services is an exemplary merchant account provider, offering quality services, fair pricing, and personalized customer support to its overwhelmingly satisfied customers (as attested to on online review sites). Dharma is a particularly strong credit card processing choice for nonprofit organizations — not only does the company offer discounted transaction fees for registered nonprofits, but it also partners with 4aGoodCause to provide nonprofits with donation pages and event registration services.

For these reasons, we feel that Dharma Merchant Services stands out from the pack and thus merits inclusion in our list of the best online credit card processors.

Dharma Merchant Services Features

When you sign up with Dharma, you’ll be using MX Merchant as your integrated payments platform. This service offers everything you’ll need to process payments online, including:

• A virtual terminal
• Online reporting
• A customer information database
• Recurring billing
• ACH/eCheck processing
• B2B processing
• Invoicing
• A mobile processing app
• Donation pages and event registration for nonprofits

Note that Dharma does not accept high-risk or international merchants, instead referring these applicants to PaymentCloud, another one of our preferred online credit card processors.

Dharma Merchant Services Pricing

We’re big fans of the fact that Dharma offers interchange-plus pricing exclusively. We also love the fact that Dharma allows qualified nonprofits to process payments at a discounted rate.

• Online Transactions: Interchange + 0.20% + $0.11
• Online Transactions For Nonprofits: Interchange + 0.10% + $0.11
• Monthly Fee: $25 ($20 for nonprofits)
• Chargeback Fee: $25

Like many full merchant account providers, Dharma’s pricing makes it a good fit for businesses and organizations processing at least $10K/month.

Why We Chose PaySimple For Accepting Credit Card Payments Online

PaySimple bridges the gap between payment service providers like Square and PayPal which cater to very small businesses and traditional full-service merchant account providers. If you sign up with PaySimple, you’ll receive a true merchant account, which should help to prevent account holds or terminations.

We chose PaySimple for this list because it is a great choice for service industries, which typically don’t require features such as inventory management or point of sale (POS) systems.

PaySimple Features

If you want to send invoices to your customers and give them the option to pay you online, PaySimple has all the features you’ll need. The PaySimple online store builder can easily add invoicing and payment features to your website – without needing a developer to make it happen. At the same time, there are plenty of APIs available if you’d like to customize your site.

Here’s some of what else PaySimple offers:

• A virtual terminal
• Recurring billing
• ACH/eCheck payments
• Reporting
• Appointment booking and scheduling
• Email marketing integrations

PaySimple Pricing

• Online Transactions: Starts at 2.54%
• Monthly Fee: $29.95/month for Starter subscribers, $79.95/month for Standard subscribers
• Chargeback Fee: $25-30

PaySimple’s Starter Plan includes all the basic features you’ll need, while the Standard Package offers lower transaction processing rates. Unfortunately, the company uses a tiered pricing model, which we don’t like due to its lack of transparency and higher average costs. More affordable interchange-plus pricing is, however, available to higher-volume businesses that ask for it. Our full review of PaySimple has more details!

Why We Chose PaymentCloud For Accepting Credit Card Payments Online

PaymentCloud is a great credit card processing choice for eCommerce businesses. With no monthly minimum for low-risk businesses, a dedicated account manager for customer support, and very few public complaints, it’s a vetted option we can get behind.

However, what makes PaymentCloud truly stand out — and what prompted us to include the company on this list of top online credit card processors — is the quality of service the company provides high-risk businesses. The high-risk processing industry is fraught with shady operators, so the fact that high-risk businesses have a processing choice as honest and reputable as PaymentCloud is quite noteworthy indeed. In fact, some competitors will refer high-risk applicants to PaymentCloud, which speaks volumes about the company’s business practices.

PaymentCloud isn’t solely a high-risk merchant account provider — the company services low-risk businesses as well.

PaymentCloud Features

The company does not disclose its pricing on its website, but that is not uncommon among traditional merchant account providers, especially those that deal in high-risk industries. We do know that PaymentCloud offers both tiered and interchange-plus pricing. Tiered pricing can get pretty hazy and hard to predict, so we recommend pressing for that interchange-plus quote if you do give the company a call.

PaymentCloud primarily uses the popular Authorize.Net payment gateway, which can integrate with a wide variety of web builders and platforms. Authorize.Net has a healthy developer toolbox and an open API in the event you opt to customize. Additionally, PaymentCloud integrates with a large number of shopping carts, including Shopify, BigCommerce, and 3D Cart. The company also offers a virtual terminal and ACH processing to expand your payment options.

More information about PaymentCloud, including more details about pricing, features, customer service, and more, is in our full PaymentCloud review.

Why We Chose QuickBooks Payments For Accepting Credit Card Payments Online

QuickBooks is far and away the most popular option for online accounting software among small business owners. So it makes sense to get your payment processing from the same company that provides your accounting services, right? Well, maybe. For a small professional services business that doesn’t need a lot of the bells and whistles that a traditional brick-and-mortar retail business requires, QuickBooks Payments can be a great choice, which is why we included QuickBooks Payments in this list.

One misperception we’d like to clear up right away is that you don’t need to sign up for QuickBooks Payments just to get a payment service that integrates with QuickBooks’s accounting products. Nearly every processor on the market offers QuickBooks integration at this point, although some do a better job on the technical details than others. However, if the company’s simplified pricing structure and product lineup meet your needs, it’s certainly a good choice.

QuickBooks Payments Features

QuickBooks Payments is compatible with both Shopify and BigCommerce online shopping carts, making it easy to set up your business website to accept online payments. You’ll also get the following:

• ACH processing
• Currency conversion
• PCI compliance
• Recurring billing and subscriptions
• Invoicing
• Native POS integrations

QuickBooks Payments Pricing

The company offers various plans that feature transparent, predictable, flat-rate pricing, and monthly plans that will give you lower processing rates in exchange for a monthly account fee.

• Online Transactions: 2.9% + $0.25 to 3.5% + $0.30, depending on your QuickBooks subscription type
• Monthly Fee: $0-20, depending on your QuickBooks subscription type
• Chargeback Fee: $25

For more details on the company’s monthly payment plans and fees, read the full QuickBooks Payments review.

Why We Chose Shopify For Accepting Credit Card Payments Online

Shopify earns a spot on our list because the entire platform is built with the online seller in mind, and it does an excellent job. Combining payment processing with an easy online store builder (though you can use a different processor if you pay extra), Shopify is an easy-to-use option with numerous integrations, attractive templates, and advanced design tools that make it a very good value for the price.

eCommerce has always been Shopify’s bread and butter, so if you’re looking for a tool to power your online store with easy functionality, simple flat-rate pricing (always better for lower-volume merchants than higher-volume ones), and over 2,000 eCommerce integrations, Shopify is a no-brainer.

The only player in the same league here is Square, though Shopify offers better international eCommerce support, more advanced eCommerce features generally, more integrations, more shipping tools, and 24/7 phone support. Then again, you can sell with Square without paying a monthly fee (not possible with Shopify), and Square offers stronger support for CBD merchants. Square also offers superior POS support, though that’s outside the scope of this article. Check out our Square vs Shopify comparison piece for more.

Shopify Features

Shopify offers several types of payment buttons, including Shop Pay, Shopify’s accelerated checkout flow. It even supports PayPal buy buttons. If you never want to have a site at all, you can sync your Shopify inventory with numerous platforms, including Facebook Stores, Instagram Shoppable Posts, Amazon, eBay, and many others. If you’re just dipping your toe into eCommerce, check out Shopify Starter, which can power your social and platform selling and comes at a low monthly cost for you. As far as creating your online store, you’ll find everything on your dashboard. From setting up and syncing inventory, to creating your site to a massive library of integrations, you’ll likely find all you need.

Here’s some of what you’ll get:

• Currency conversion
• Shoppable social media posts
• Gift cards
• Marketing tools
• Hosted online store (but not with Shopify Starter)
• Reports
• Staff accounts
• Buy buttons
• Multi-platform integrations
• Shipping tools and discounts
• Free store templates
• Unlimited products

Shopify Pricing

Shopify’s processing fees depend on your subscription level — basically, if you want lower processing fees (and other benefits), you’ll have to pay a higher monthly fee.

• Online Transactions: 2.9% + $0.30 with Shopify Basic and Starter, 2.6% + $0.30 with Shopify (standard), and 2.4% + $0.30 with Shopify Advanced
• Monthly Fee: $5/month with Shopify Starter, $29/month with Shopify Basic, $79/month with Shopify, and $299/month with Shopify Advanced (these fees are for annual subscriptions; month-by-month subscriptions cost a bit more)
• Chargeback Fee: $15
• Additional Cost Per Transaction When You Use A Non-Shopify Processor: 0.5-2%

Keep in mind that the $5/month Shopify Starter plan (currently $1 for the first three months) does not give you an online store or many other features — instead, it lets you sell items via a Linkpop page you can put in your social media bio and via payment links you can send via text, email, or DM. If you want a full eCommerce website (and/or access to Shopify’s POS), you’ll need to pay at least $29/month for the Shopify Basic plan.

Shopify’s pricing isn’t a great fit for large businesses, but the highest-volume sellers may want to check out Shopify Plus, a solution for large/enterprise businesses. You’ll get extra features and lower processing rates, though pricing starts at $2,000/month. Our Shopify Plus review has more information.