When it comes to online store user experience, simply maintaining the website’s performance is not enough. There are several factors regarding shopping experience that you need to consider.
One of the most important aspects to focus on is your customers’ payment process. When their checkout process is easy and satisfying, it will affect their shopping experience. This improves their trust and grows loyalty to your online store and brand in general.
However, choosing an online payment solution can be quite difficult considering that there are many choices available in the market.
Keep in mind, that without a solid foundation for your eCommerce store, whichever option you choose won’t help much. That’s why you should invest in quality hosting like WordPress hosting Hostinger, an SSL and CDN, like what’s provided by Cloudflare, and other tools.
But in this article, we will take a look at the eight best payment gateways and plugins for your WordPress online store and see which one suits your needs and preferences best.
1. Stripe
Stripe is one of the best payment gateways for WordPress. It is widely used by millions of companies to support their eCommerce activities. WooCommerce, the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress, also comes with built-in support for Stripe as your payment gateway option.
Stripe is available in more than 40 countries and more than 135 currencies; it can also process payments from all major credit and debit cards. Other payment methods, including Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Alipay are also supported, giving more flexibility for your customers.
Using Stripe will give your customer a better check-out experience by keeping them on your website during the process. An additional feature called Radar will also help companies to beat fraud using machine learning, which allows fraud identification without blocking legitimate payments.
Stripe doesn’t require monthly payments; however, it will charge 2.9% plus 30¢ for each transaction.
2. PayPal Standard
PayPal is arguably the most popular payment gateway available in the market. PayPal’s built-in support is also available for WooCommerce, which makes using it for your online store easier.
Most eCommerce platforms allow you to use PayPal as the payment gateway. What you need to consider are your consumers’ locations and their currencies.
As of now, PayPal can handle payments from 200 countries and 25 currencies. However, some countries have several restrictions, so it would be good to review them beforehand.
To use the PayPal standard extension for WooCommerce, you will need to own a PayPal business account. Unlike Stripe, PayPal standard does not offer onsite check-out services. Instead, PayPal will redirect your customers to their website to complete the transaction.
Pricing for PayPal is based on several factors, including received currency, transaction type, and account type. For example, charges for commercial transactions on a PayPal business account start from 1.90% + fixed fee for the respective currency.
Make sure that you understand this pricing model before using PayPal to avoid getting unexpected charges for your transactions.
3. WooCommerce PayPal Pro
PayPal Payments Pro is a paid extension developed by WooCommerce to be used on their eCommerce platform. Unlike PayPal standard, PayPal Pro allows onsite check-out. It means that there is no redirection needed, and your customers can complete their purchase on your website.
WooCommerce PayPal Pro is available in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. If you are from either the US, UK, or Canada, you will need a PayPal Pro merchant account to use this extension. On the other hand, users from Australia can use their PayPal Pro Payflow account.
However, if your website offers a subscription service, PayPal Pro might not be a good option for you since it doesn’t support recurring billings.
To use the WooCommerce PayPal Pro extension, you will need to pay a fee of $79/year in addition to the regular PayPal Pro and fee and transaction charges.
4. WPPayForm
WPPayForm is a WordPress payment plugin that will help make your website’s payment process easier. This plugin provides a simple user interface and gives you the ability to create forms ranging from single or multiple payment items as well as custom amounts.
The free version of WPPayForm has Stripe integration available, while the pro version allows you to integrate with PayPal as well. WPPayForm also uses a simple and standard payment form, where your customers can complete their transactions quickly and easily without having to visit another page.
WPPayForm Pro starts from $47/year for the first year and $59/year for the following years. This plan includes one domain license, support, plugin updates, and features such as monthly/annual subscription billing, customized notification emails, and data export/import.
5. WP Simple Pay Pro
WP Simple Pay Pro makes the payment system for your eCommerce website simpler and more user-friendly. Using this WordPress plugin, your online store can receive various payment methods using Stripe without using an additional shopping cart plugin.
WP Simple Pay Pro has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop form builder making it easy for you to create customized payment forms to get data from customers. Other features, including coupon code utilization and subscription integration, will help you give your customers the best checkout experience.
This plugin also supports non-card payment options such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, giving more payment flexibility to your online store. WP Simple Pay Pro offers some pricing plans, starting from $99/year, including most of the features and a license for one website.
6. Square
Square is another payment gateway to consider when building your online store, whether it is based on WooCommerce, Wix, or other eCommerce platforms. Square has a wide variety of devices and tools to help you run your business.
Square is available in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and Japan. This payment gateway can also help you handle orders and fulfillments, including in-house delivery, shipping label printing, and real-time shipping, depending on your selected plan.
Square also gives you access to an online store builder to help you create and publish your website quickly and easily.
The processing rate of using Square is 2.9% plus 30¢ per transaction, and the pro subscription starts from $144/year. However, if you just start your business and want to try its service, Square also has a free subscription plan with some limitations.
7. Authorize.net
Authorize is a payment gateway used by more than 440 thousand merchants in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.
Authorize gives your customers a better checkout experience with various features such as onsite checkout, multiple supported payment types, and a simple user interface. Authorize also has an advanced fraud detection feature to ensure transaction security.
Authorize also supports recurring payments that enable your website to have a subscription service. The feature lets you set a flexible billing schedule, a free trial period for customers, and multiple payment methods, enhancing your website functionality.
There are two different plans to choose from when you decide to use Authorize. You can either choose all-in-one or payment gateway only, depending on whether you have a merchant account or not. Both plans require a gateway fee of $25/month with different transaction fees for each plan.
8. MemberPress
MemberPress is a WordPress payment plugin specializing in handling membership billing that will help you instantly charge your users.
This plugin enables your website to carry out multiple essential functions for a membership website. The feature includes tracking subscriptions and managing users’ access based on their membership type on your website.
To use MemberPress on your WordPress website, all you need to do is install the plugin, enter your payment gateway details, and set up some products. MemberPress also has robust control over the accounts where you can restrict or grant access to pages, child pages, posts, custom post types, categories, tags, and almost any other files in your WordPress installation.
MemberPress’s pricing plans start from $179/year for one website. Unlike other payment solutions, you don’t have to pay additional transaction fees when using MemberPress.
Conclusion
To make sure that your customers enjoy shopping on your eCommerce site, you need to pay attention to your payment solution of choice. When your customers find it easy to complete their payment process, it will improve their overall shopping experience.
In this article, we have learned about the best payment solution to consider for your WordPress online store, including:
- Stripe
- PayPal Standard
- WooCommerce PayPal Pro
- WPPayForm
- WP Simple Pay Pro
- Square
- Authorize.net
- MemberPress
Each of these payment solution has its own unique features and pricing plans that cater to different needs and preferences. Choose one that suits you the most and start building your WordPress online store.