Best way to accept online payments as self employed

[aaron91]

I am setting up an online application which will need to accept online payments. Does anybody have any recommendations on the best services for accepting payments online through a website?

 

[Mr D]

PayPal is pretty common.

 

[aaron91]

PayPal is pretty common.

Thanks, I know that but I mean for processing card payments natively from within the website...

 

[Alan]

Stripe is pretty common.

 

[aaron91]

Thanks I'll take a look

 

[TomJ83]

Thanks, I know that but I mean for processing card payments natively from within the website...

I think Paypal has a solution where you can process card payments from within the website. Apart from Stripe, which has been suggested by @Alan, you could also look at Worldpay.

There are some people active on the forum that work with payment solutions, so I think they can help you out.

@TotalWebSolutions

@Nochexman

 

[Bainzee]

Yes Paypal and Stripe are very common and easy to setup and maybe an ideal solution for a new starter business or a business which has high profit margins. Merchants need to take into consideration that Paypals rates can start at a very high 3.4% + 20p per transaction and Stripe at 2.9% + 10/20p. settlement times for your customers money into your account is normally about 1 week, which is not ideal for many businesses as they rely on cash flow and cannot wait this long to receive their money.
A merchant account maybe an alternative for you as you can get rates as low as 0.25%, which is a considerable difference. From a scalability point of view, a merchant account can be much more flexible for your business as Paypal and Stripe does have its down points

 

[HostOX]

Stripe if you ask me, PayPal is massive but they are the biggest joke in the world and I would highly recommend you avoid them at all costs.

Stripe after using this for years is to the point and very competent with 7 day payouts.

 

[Gary10]

Hi,

For what it's worth we are being forced to jump through hoops with Paypal to become PCI compliant, even to the point of having to change hosting servers. The industry is on a money spinning campaign and forcing companies that take card payment to comply or be cut off. It won't be that easy to just take credit card payment on you own web site for much longer.

Gareth

 

[HostOX]

Hi,

For what it's worth we are being forced to jump through hoops with Paypal to become PCI compliant, even to the point of having to change hosting servers. The industry is on a money spinning campaign and forcing companies that take card payment to comply or be cut off. It won't be that easy to just take credit card payment on you own web site for much longer.

Gareth

The best part of stripe is it is already PCI compliant and cards are stored on their servers rather than your own and only offer remote charging.

 

[Mr D]

And paypal can start as low as 5% plus 5p per transaction.
Depends what you want.

 

[Nochexman]

For what it's worth we are being forced to jump through hoops with Paypal to become PCI compliant, even to the point of having to change hosting servers. The industry is on a money spinning campaign and forcing companies that take card payment to comply or be cut off. It won't be that easy to just take credit card payment on you own web site for much longer.

Its probably worth taking on board that if you want to take payments on your website then it won't just be paypal making you jump through hoops it will be most card payment processors. Being PCI compliant is a cost of doing business these days and you need to decide whether it is a worthwhile cost for your business.

 

[Xtm_Mike]

The best part of stripe is it is already PCI compliant and cards are stored on their servers rather than your own and only offer remote charging.

While that is technically accurate, it does not mean the business using Stripe can forget about it. The business still has a responsibility to demonstrate PCI compliance, especially as some methods of interacting with Stripe have bigger requirements.

It's always worth double checking regardless of the payment processor being used.

(I'm sure you already knew this, not insulting intelligence just thought it was worth adding)

 

[TLT Property Management]

worldpay, you can invoice by email or through payment gateway. I always charge 2.5% for payments to the customer or offer 15 days credit and payment by bacs.

 

[KateCB]

You, the owner of the website have to be PCI compliant as Mike says, but the cost is around £12.00 a year as long as you are NOT taking over the phone or face to face payments. WE use Sagepay for processing - costs us £30 a month for up to 500 transactions (I think its 500.....) and this is then passed to Glbalpayments who are the merchant account linked t our HSBC accoun t- they charge 1.9% for credit cxard, 30p for debit cards etc - to be honest I don't have the figures but it varies with each account/turnover anyway, but it can be used as a guide. They have a PCI Compliance partner, which works well for small online only businesses, links directly with Globalpayments (who, like other payment providers will charge you £50+ per MONTH if you cannot provide them with a compliance certificate!) so its easy. Hope that helps!