You have given a lot of thought to your business, but did you put a lot of thought into choosing the best WooCommerce payment gateways? You should.
Bringing in sales is the most important part of any business, but it’s just as important to choose the right method for accepting payments. After all, if it’s too difficult for your customers to pay, they’re going to abandon their cart and you’re going to lose sales.
A payment gateway is a web-based program designed to accept and process payments such as credit and debit cards. If you’re planning to sell products or services on your site, chances are you need a payment gateway.
The only reasons why you wouldn’t need one are if you don’t plan on accepting payments or you only want to accept payments in your brick and mortar store.
Like most businesses, you’re likely already accepting payments in WordPress and WooCommerce or you’re planning on it. So, here’s the best WooCommerce payment gateway plugins for WordPress. I’ll also cover tips for choosing the right one for your site.
And remember, your ultimate goal is to increase your store’s revenue. So be sure to download our free ebook, 10 Ways to Boost Your WooCommerce Product Page Conversions.
Deciding on a Payment Gateway
Knowing more about payment gateway integration in WordPress is key in order to decide between them all. First up, is knowing that there are two main types of gateways: Redirect and direct.
A redirection gateway is one where a customer needs to leave your site in order to pay. They get sent to an external page in order to process a payment. In most cases, a customer is redirected to the company’s site that manages the gateway.
On the other hand, a direct gateway handles payments on your site only and a customer doesn’t need to leave your site in order to process a payment.
Redirection is the best payment gateways option if you don’t want to be responsible for beefing up your site’s security since getting hacked could mean all your clients’ credit card and personal information gets stolen.
Although, it’s not as professional as direct gateways since customers need to leave your site in order to pay. This could leave them feeling uneasy if they aren’t familiar with the type of payment gateway you’re using. This is why the best payment gateways for most businesses are direct.
It helps build the trust of your customers, but you do need to make sure your site’s security is up-to-date.
For more details on how to amp up your security, you can check out a couple of our other posts:
Besides considering cost, it’s also important to choose payment gateways that accept business from your country and your customers’ country of origin. Otherwise, you’re likely to see a drop in sales and an increase in customer complaints.
That’s why mixing and matching your gateways may be the best solution if one of the gateways you choose doesn’t cover a country where you get a lot of your customers.
You could also choose one gateway that covers most people, then offer an alternate form of payment for customers who contact you. This could be the best option if you expect most of your customers to be covered by one gateway.
In either case, tracking your site’s analytics is a great way to see where your customers live so you can better plan what the best payment gateways are for your business.
Best WooCommerce Payment Gateways for WordPress
These are the best WooCommerce payment gateways because they serve the most countries and they’re among the most trusted companies that offer payment processing. They’re also direct gateways to help your business look professional.
These options are available for credit card payment gateway integration in WordPress. You can also use them with WooCommerce.
You can integrate these gateways for free or as a premium upgrade with most WordPress eCommerce payment gateway plugins. They’re also all available as premium gateways for WooCommerce. Although, some of the options are free and others have a fee associated with them.
Keep in mind that each of these solutions requires you to have an SSL certificate installed in order to use them. They also require you to sign up for an account.
1. PayPal Pro
PayPal is one of the most trusted companies when it comes to processing payments. They have many gateway solutions, but some of them are basic and use the redirection method for payments.
PayPal Pro uses the direct method and can handle regular product sales, but can’t process recurring payments such as subscriptions. It also costs $35 per month and there’s a PayPal transaction fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents.
The WooCommerce extension for PayPal Pro rings in at $79 for a single site subscription.
2. Braintree
If you like the idea of using PayPal, but want to be able to offer subscriptions or you’re looking for a free option, Braintree may be the solution for you. It’s a PayPal company so it’s also a solution you can trust.
There are no monthly fees, and you can accept payments from all major credit cards, plus wallets such as Apple Pay and Android Pay. There’s a transaction fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents, although, your first $50,000 is free.
Your customers also have the option to save their payment details for an easier shopping experience. There’s a WooCommerce extension for Braintree and it’s free which is also a bonus.
3. Stripe
Stripe is a fast-growing payment gateway that’s able to handle recurring payments and can process refunds automatically. The most popular WordPress eCommerce plugins support it and there also a free Stripe WooCommerce extension available.
Stripe processes all major credit cards and debit cards. Plus, it also accepts Apple pay and customers can save their payment details. There’s no monthly fee, but there is a transaction fee of 2.9% and 30 cents. They also have a fraud prevention product called Radar. For more, you can read How to Prevent and Reduce Credit Card Fraud by 98% Using Stripe Radar.
There’s no monthly fee, but there is a transaction fee of 2.9% and 30 cents. Unlike PayPal, if a customer disputes a charge, it sets you back $15, but if you win, you get this fee refunded.
4. Authorize.net CIM
Authorize.net CIM is a popular choice for many businesses because it boasts a lot of features. It accepts all major credit cards and debit cards, and also handles refunds, subscriptions and pre-orders. Customers also have the option to save their payment details for their next purchase.
Like the other solutions listed here, there’s a fee of 2.9% and 30 cents per transaction. There’s also a $49 setup fee and a subscription fee of $25 per month.
There’s a WooCommerce extension for Authorize.net CIM and if you decide to use it, it’s going to set you back $79 for a single site.
5. Adyen
Adyen is one of the largest payment providers worldwide. This is partly due to the wide range of local payment methods. In addition, Adyen pays a lot of attention to realizing a seamless checkout experience. This is also the case with this WooCommerce plugin.
Adyen integrates with all international credit cards and local payment methods. For example, iDEAL in the Netherlands, Boleto in Brazil, BLIK in Poland, but also Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Alipay are supported.
The Adyen WooCommerce plugin is seamlessly integrated into the WooCommerce checkout, to keep the conversion to purchase rate as high as possible. This payment provider plugin will arrange everything for you, making the checkout experience as seamless as possible.
Give the Adyen WooCommerce plugin a try and let us know what you think of it in the comments below.
Which Payment Gateway is Best?
The best WooCommerce plugins for payment gateways are the ones that work for you and your business. I’ve covered the overall best gateways around, but it’s ultimately up to you to decide which one is best.
For more details on how to set up an online store with WooCommerce, check out our guide How to Setup WooCommerce on Your Website – A Complete Tutorial and How to Sell Subscriptions with WooCommerce Subscriptions.
For other WordPress eCommerce plugin options, check out Sell with WordPress: 6 Free E-Commerce Plugins.
Have you used any of these WooCommerce payment gateways? What’s your experience with them? Which WooCommerce and WP payment gateway plugin or extension do you use? Which ones do you think are the best WooCommerce payment gateways? Feel free to share your experience in the comments below.
Jenni is a longtime digital marketer, copywriter, and WordPress developer who has worked with web design and development since she was 10 years old. (and her family had a computer that didn't run on DOS) She also heads up her copywriting company, WP Pros(e).
I am disappointed that nobody lists gateways which offer local payment methods – credit card and PayPal have low penetration in EU and Asia and local payment methods work much better. Maybe a bit expensive (3.40%-3.60%) but chargeback free and work great across the world. I personally work with Alternative Payments and their WooCommerce plugin rocks! I sell with Sofort, iDEAL and AliPay much more than with CC.
I am using Cardinity payment service provider for my WooCommerce-based e-shop. A free WooCommerce module is available on their website for their clients and the process of integration with their system is very smooth. They work only with EU merchants, but buyers/customers can be from any country of the world.
Sorry, not very helpful. I was hoping for some in-depth reasons and explanations to use one portal over the other. A comparison chart would be nice. But moreso, a real-world flowchart with costs and times for each option.
Thanks for the comment Chaz! This post is in the queue for an update and we’ll make sure to include explanations on why you might choose one payment gateway over another, along with prices, etc.
How does Woocommerce ensure that your first $50,000 in transactions is free with Paypal by Braintree? I just have never seen it mentioned outside of one article by Woocommerce about 3 years ago. Thanks
None of these are available in Pakistan. Can you list the gateways available in Pakistan.
I currently use Stripe but am unhappy with their customer service options. I recently needed to contact them because of a login failure, unfortunately they permit chat and phone calls only with current customers, so if you can’t login you are unable to use those services even though you are a customer. The only alternative is email, which for login problems, requires you fill out a form and then wait for 3 days before getting a “possible” solution.
Will probably end up switching to either .NET or PayPal. I also agree with the person who expected a more detailed article. I also was hoping for more information and not just a superficial list of common services.
Hey Karlton!
We’ll add some more information to this post, but we do have many other articles about Stripe already.
https://kinsta.com/blog/stripe-vs-paypal/
https://kinsta.com/blog/credit-card-fraud-stripe/
We have used Stripe since day one here at Kinsta and it works really well for us.
I’m a believer in offering multiple payment options (for example, Stripe, PayPal, and Amazon Pay). WooCommerce has extensions for all three, but the result is a slew of buttons that don’t really look good and aren’t always in the same place. I’d like to clean it up and make it more user friendly. Is there a plugin/method to displaying them in a consistent and visually appealing way other than a lot of hand-coding?
You mention about Braintree: There’s a transaction fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents, although, your first $50,000 is free.
I don’t see any info on their pricing that suggests that your first $50,000 is free. Can you please provide a link?
Hi George, here you can read more details https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/ignition-first-50k-on-us/
That article about the 50k is from 2014 and very outdated.
Hi Gareth, we’ll make sure to review it and update the post reflecting any changes. Thanks for letting us know!
Would be interesting to read, how Woocommerce Payments (Native solution from Woo) now fits in all these equation and what are pros and cons.
Would be interested in learning about the best on-credit card gateways, such as wire transfer, purchase order, etc. Valid for businesses with high ticket price items.