Which online payment gateway to use?

Selecting a payment gateway for your website transactions can be a very confusing process. There are so many different factors to compare and let’s face it,  the required information is not aways easily accessible to compare the pro’s and con’s of each gateway. Scouring through the webpages for each payment gateway can be a very time consuming process. Then there is other points to consider like does the payment gateway integrate well with your website CMS or does it have an easy to use UX for your customers and does the payment gateway require an SSL certificate?

Which payment gateway should you be using?

For Australian WordPress users, the most popular payment gateway are Stripe, Paypal and eWay due to the ease of integration and the availability of plugins.  There is both premium and free plugins available for most of the popular e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce or WP eCommerce. Here are the pro’s, con’s and processing fees for each gateway.

Stripe

Stripe is fast becoming one of the most popular payment gateway due to it’s ease of use and integration with all major e-commerce/membership plugins, and accepts all major credit cards.

Pricing:

• 1.75% + 30¢ for domestic cards
• 2.9% + 30¢ for International cards

• Ease of use
• No set up cost or monthly fee
• Supports subscriptions
• Low transaction fee

Con’s

• Funds hit you bank account 7 days after the customer transaction is processed
• Unless you are using a cloud accounting system that integrates well with Stripe, your bookkeeper will not like the confusing internal transaction tracking system they use.
• Overseas online support system, no direct phone line to contact

SSL Certificate required?

Yes

Plugin to use with WooCommerce:

Stripe by WooCommerce

Paypal

Paypal is one of the older payment gateways around and it in itself is commonly trusted brand. That said I have found people either love Paypal or absolutely hate it.

Pricing:

Up to $2,500

2.6% + $0.30 for Australian customers, and 3.6% + fixed fee for International customers or cards

$2,500.01 – $5,000

2.2% + $0.30 for Australian customers, and 3.2% + fixed fee for International customers or cards

$5,000.01 – $15,000

2.0% + $0.30 for Australian customers, and 3.0% + fixed fee for International customers or cards

Pro’s

• Highly trusted by customers
• You can set the currency of the transaction. ie you can trade in US dollars
• Default payment gateway for WooCommerce, no plugin required
• Supports subscriptions

Con’s

• Higher fees
• Transaction balances have to be manually transferred to your bank account
• Overseas online support system, no direct phone line to contact

SSL Certificate required?

No

eWay

eWay is an Australian based online payment gateway that was recently purchased by New York State based Global Payments.

Pricing:

• 2.6% for domestic & International cards

• Ease of use
• Same day settlement
• Supports subscriptions
• Australian based phone support

Con’s

• A bit of paper work required to setup, if you don’t have a merchant account
• Daggy interface and email design

SSL Certificate ?

Yes

Recommended plugin to use with WooCommerce:

eWAY by Webaware

Lastly, other payment gateway to take note of are PIN Payments & Braintree.