Which is the Best WooCommerce Payment Gateway for Your Business?

Learn what you should look for in a WooCommerce payment gateway to grow your cross-border sales and make the most of global ecommerce.

Choosing the right WooCommerce payment gateway is fundamental in achieving more growth by making the online payment process as smooth as possible for both the merchant and the customer. While there are many different gateways available, you should choose the best gateway for you and your customers by balancing functionality,  business objectives and target markets. 

What to Look for in a WooCommerce Payment Gateway

When it comes to finding the best payment gateway for WooCommerce, there are a number of factors to take into account. As part of your selection process, make sure you consider the following:

Cost

Managing costs is essential when you’re choosing which payment gateway to select. You need to look at the overall picture and the corresponding features as different payment gateways have different rates and fees. Consider whether there are any start-up fees or if will there be any additional fees to purchase later. There will also be other potential fees, including:

• General transactions
• Cross-border transactions
• Foreign exchange
• Chargebacks
• Monthly account fees
• Refund fees

Your initial set-up comes with free Core Payment Options. However, depending on which provider you use you may have to pay additional fees to payment gateways. WooCommerce’s own solution, WooCommerce Payments is free to use but only available in select countries. Choosing a payment gateway extension means you’ll pay a subscription to WooCommerce as well as transaction fees to the payment gateway. 

There’s something else you need to consider in terms of credit card processing costs, and that’s the difference between flat-rate billing and interchange plus. Flat rate pricing means transaction processing fees are the same small percentage of the transaction price, so there are no surprises for processing fees. Interchange plus pricing is different because the interchange fee (charged by the card-issuing bank when credit card transactions are processed) will differ based on a number of variables. Some payment processors charge merchants the actual interchange fee along with a fixed margin fee.

With so much to consider, it’s important to find a solution that ticks all of your boxes, for example, flat-rate pricing, transparent foreign exchange fees at or near the market rate, and fraud monitoring included at no extra cost. 

Which is the Best WooCommerce Payment Gateway for Your Business?

Locations

You should also consider where your business is based and where your potential customers and target audience are located. Be sure to ask what locations does the payment solution provider serve, and can it support the currencies you and your customers use. By allowing you to accept a wide range of payments from around the world, the right WooCommerce payment gateway or processor can give you a better chance of building a larger customer base worldwide.  

Support for WooCommerce Subscriptions

If you offer subscription-based products and use WooCommerce Subscriptions to support sales, it’s important to check that the WooCommerce payment gateway can support recurring payments.

Direct or redirect checkout

If you use a direct payment gateway, your customers will remain on your website throughout the checkout and payment process, while a redirect takes them off-site to the payment gateway’s site to pay, before they’re redirected back again. Redirect means you won’t require an SSL certificate (as part of PCI compliance), but it could impact the customer experience. It’s something to carefully weigh before you make your final gateway decision.

Which WooCommerce Payment Solution Should I Choose?

There are a variety of payment providers available for WooCommerce, including simple and easy Core Payment Options. However, if you’re looking for a payments option with more features, there’s a wide choice of plugins to choose from:

Rapyd

Rapyd works with WooCommerce merchants in over 50 countries, and offers comprehensive coverage throughout Europe, the Americas, and Asia. With multiple currencies, countries, and payment methods, including local and alternative payment methods, payment methods are automatically populated in your checkout based on your customer’s home country. It also offers stringent security features that include AI-based fraud protection. Transaction fees for businesses in Europe are 1.2 percent + €0.30 per transaction, with no set-up fees or monthly costs.

PayPal Pro

PayPal Standard is included in your WooCommerce installation but choosing to upgrade to PayPal Pro offers an advantage as a direct payment gateway, allowing customers to stay on your website throughout the checkout process. However, you’ll need to be based in either the US or Canada and have a PayPal merchant account, limiting this option to a smaller group of merchants. Transaction fees are 2.9 percent + $0.30 per transaction, and there are other monthly and annual fees involved in using PayPal Pro. It doesn’t support WooCommerce Subscriptions.

Braintree

Braintree (also from PayPal) has benefits that include advanced fraud protection and supporting multiple currencies and countries. Unlike PayPal Pro, Braintree supports WooCommerce Subscriptions. Transaction fees are 1.9 percent + €0.30 per transaction, and there are no monthly fees.

Stripe

Stripe offers a direct checkout, so customers remain on your site throughout the process. It also offers a variety of different payment methods. Transaction fees vary by country, and for example are 1.4 percent + €0.25 per transaction in Germany, with custom package options that include features like different rates depending on countries, and volume discounts. However, Stripe lacks support for many European countries, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe.

Grow Your Cross-Border Sales with the Right Payment Gateway

Ultimately, the best WooCommerce payment gateway integration for you will depend on your business’s unique needs. The right solution should simplify the payment process as much as possible for you and your customers, leaving you to concentrate on making the most of global ecommerce opportunities.

Add Secure Card and Local Payment Method Acceptance to Your WooCommerce Store with the Rapyd Payment Plugin for WooCommerce

Photo by Alexander Suhorucov for Pexels.