Paypal is a well-known name in the world of the Internet. If you have bought or are selling something online, PayPal is one payment portal you might have seen on every website. But with time, we have witnessed its drawbacks; in many cases, it doesn’t integrate well.
As a result, today, we will discuss some of the best PayPal alternatives you can use for your business’s payment gateway. These alternatives will make it easier for your customers to pay for the products you sell without worrying about the security of their card details.
Top 10 Paypal Alternatives
1. Skrill
Starting our list with the best of the best, we have Skrill, one of the most popular gateways that enables businesses to serve their customers efficiently. Skrill developers know the needs of modern-day companies and understand how important it is to facilitate customers properly. Especially when it comes to money transactions and processing. Skrill is a direct competitor of Payal, and believe it or not, these two online payment portals have a long history of being the only competitors in their market. Skrill was founded in 2001, three years after PayPal was formed. The company Skrill has quickly become a trusted name when it comes to money processing and transfer services.
Features
- Skrill makes money payments easy for newcomers. Users can make transactions using cash, credit cards, or email.
- Users can sign up on the company’s web portal and access all its services from one dashboard.
- Multiple layers of encryption keep Passwords and critical information hidden to prevent misuse in any way possible.
- Skrills’s anti-fraud screening feature monitors each transaction.
- Skrill also allows users to withdraw cash from ATMs using their Skrill account.
- Users can use this application for free or pay a low price depending on the type of transaction.
On the other hand, if you have created an account on Skrill and are inactive for some reason, you must pay three euros each month as an inactive fee.
2. Stripe
Stripe could help you sort out your payment processing if you are an online business. It requires some developer experience, but with the inexpensive usage, one doesn’t have to worry about building their e-commerce environment with Stripe’s API. Online credit payments have the standard price. The most significant advantage of Stripe’s free API is its simplicity to work with. As a result, even a small company with a small development team can truly integrate Stripe’s functionality into its e-commerce website. For the same kind of service, Payal charges an extra monthly fee from users.
Features
- First, Stripe accepts all the major debit and credit cards and local payment methods.
- The business user will be able to make quick payments by using Stipe elements, which auto-fill the required information for the user.
- It comes with robust customer authentication.
- The API works well with Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other well-known payment request APIs.
- Likewise, the payment gateway uses Stipe Radar and 3D Secure to prevent and detect fraudulent payments.
- Moreover, the API allows developers to integrate the mobile customer interface to make payment gateways optimized.
In addition to all these features, companies making more than $80,000 monthly get a discount on the credit fee. Lastly, it has multi-currency payouts, so if you ship products internationally, your customer can pay in his currency, and the payment will be transferred to you in your currency.
We want to inform you that with each international payment, Stripe adds 1% of the extra fee to all the other costs you are already paying per transaction.
3. Payoneer
Payoneer was founded in 2005, and online payment transfer is its primary specialization. Right now, Payoneer has more than four million users spread across 200 countries. With Payoneer, a user can make cross-border money transfers in more than 150 countries, including India, Japan, the US, Canada, England, etc. Even Amazon, Airbnb, and Google use their payment gateway to receive online payments.
Payoneer strongly focuses on making it easier for users to process international payments. One thing we want you to steer clear of is that Payoneer doesn’t allow users to have a merchant account. Also, unlike Square and Stripe, Payoneer doesn’t work as a payment service provider (PSP). The core functionality resides in facilitating users’ transfer of funds from one party to the other.
Features
- As a user, you get a monthly fee structure and no extra fee for early termination.
- If your customer has a Payoneer account, the transaction is free of charge.
- Payoneer is said to do wonders for freelancers and international business owners.
- It allows users both single and mass payout options and an integrated payment system.
- Other features include escrow payments, partner networks, and multi-currency support.
Moreover, if you are using Payoneer, you must pay an annual subscription cost of $29.95. Also, in comparison to others, Payoneer has an expensive online credit card transaction fee from the average
4. Shopify Payments
For many users, there’s no difference between Stripe and Shopify payments. Shopify Payments is a separate project explicitly developed for Shopify merchants. It allows customers to quickly activate their choice of payment method when making a payment at the checkout. In simpler terms, Shopify payment is a native payment gateway for the website. You might be confused about the difference between this and Shopify Pay or Shop Pay. Well, Shopify payment is the merchant’s side of portal technicalities and plugins. While Shopify pay or Shop pay is the customer’s side “buy button” on the screen.
Features
- There is no need to log in to another account; a single account and website are enough to manage everything.
- The gateway is designed for and by the platform, so its integration makes customers’ and merchants’ lives much more accessible.
- There is no extra fee for using this payment gateway for your online business.
- Besides, customers get multiple payment options, including Google Pay and even EMI options, to complete the transaction.
- Using Shopify payment, a business owner can localize the pricing of their products for overseas buyers.
- Lastly, a centralized dashboard lets users track their money in real-time.
Shopify partnered with Stripe in 2013 and developed an integrated payment solution for the website. Thus, third-party integration is eliminated. On the other hand, customers who are on Shopify prefer Shopify Pay as their leading payment gateway. As a result, its merchant-side implementation is becoming necessary.
5. TransferWise/ Wise
TransferWise is known for its global reach and competitive pricing. Its name was changed in March 2021, and now it is called “Wise” only and is related to the company. We duly authorized and regulated the company’s extensive research and found that Wise manages $70 billion in funds transfers across 10 million customers worldwide. Also, it comes with a two-step verification to ensure that it’s the actual user, not the impersonator.
Features
- Opening an account, contacting customer support, and funding transfers are all easily accessible and can all be done in just a few minutes.
- There are no complicated phrases or money transfer jargon that can confuse the user.
- All the exchange rates and the fee breakdowns are mentioned in the table.
- Moreover, the transfer fees are meager, making it easier for users to transfer smaller amounts overseas.
- The account can manage multiple currencies simultaneously and provides services to individuals and businesses.
- Its customers and businesses wholeheartedly love it.
Wise provides many benefits and features but comes with a few disadvantages. Users can only pay by bank transfer, debit card, and credit card. There’s no way to pay via cheque or cash. It supports many currencies, but quite a few are missing from the list.
6. Square
Square is known for being the best mobile credit card processing company, but it also offers other brick-and-mortar services and a payment system for online businesses. The website has a complete point-of-sale (POS) feature and augmented add-on services that can be customized depending on the company’s needs. This makes it easier for a business owner to scale up the work as the business grows. Moreover, the application developed by Square can be installed on both iOS and Android devices.
Features
- First, Square’s pricing model is pretty simple. It includes all flare rates and no monthly fees.
- There is an agreement form that the user needs to fill out before making an account on the application. As a result, there is no contract to sign up and pay the penalty when you are not using the service.
- Also, the user only needs to pay the processing cost.
- It is easy to sign up quickly as no credit checks and no submission of documents are required.
- A business can set up discounts and taxes and even issue refunds straight from the Square.
- It comes with an integrated feature for creating sales data and reports.
On the other hand, if you want a custom rate, your business needs to be processing more than $250,000 annually. In addition to this condition, the average ticket sales need to be more than $15. This condition disadvantages Square from other PayPal alternatives on the list.
7. Bitcoin Payment
There’s no hiding the fact that people now want to make payments in crypto, and the most famous digital currency is Bitcoin. Yes, it still hasn’t hit the mainstream. However, accepting Bitcoin as a payment method can open your business to a new, untouched market, waiting for businesses like yours to accept the digital currency.
Features
- Bitcoin doesn’t allow users to make a payment reversal or chargeback. A customer gets to pay you the money from their wallet. The payments are one-way transactions, so there’s no way a chargeback is available.
- As a merchant, you can decide how much the transaction fee is. If you need money instantly, you need better network speed, and you need to ask for a higher transaction fee. But still, it is much less than some other payment methods.
- Security is a significant feature of Bitcoin, as it uses blockchain technology to transfer money. Your money is completely secure, and the transaction information stays with you and the customer.
The only issue with Bitcoin is its volatile nature. It can dip to thousands of dollars in a single day, so this seems like a considerable risk for many individuals, as you might get less than the desired amount on your product’s price tag.
8. Quickbooks
Quickbooks is said to be quite powerful software in the business software market. It saves business owners money and time. Many businesses are already familiar with Quickbooks’s workings, so when looking for a payment method, Quickbooks always gets the first preference.
Features
- Convenience is the first thing that attracts users to join Quickbooks. As we know, Quickbooks is the most widely used business accounting system. When a user starts accepting payment from Quickbooks, the complete payment and accounting process becomes streamlined.
- The software automatically matches the payment from the customers to the invoices.
- With the use of Quickbooks, there will be no more need to use multiple software to manage accounting and payments.
- Humans are creatures of habit, and many businesses are already familiar with its workings. Thus, it is straightforward for them to adopt its payment gateway.
- Users can generate their financial reports whenever they want. The information comprises year-over-year income, expenditures, trends, and forecasting documents.
- The developers have designed the software to make navigating from one page to the other easy.
- Everything is neatly aligned, and the user can quickly access the necessary information. The company also offers virtual orientation practices to familiarize newcomers with the product.
- Most of the functionalities can be initialized by using a single mouse click.
One issue in Quickbooks is the high processing fee, which could go up to 3.4% if the customer pays via keyed credit cards. Thus, a business has only two options: ask customers to pay the processing fee or pay it themselves. This processing fee requirement can significantly impact your profits.
9. 2Checkout
We are at the end of our PayPal alternatives list but still have some great alternatives to explore. The 2Checkout is a payment portal designed for WooCommerce websites that allow merchants and business owners to accept credit card payments via their portal. There are no hidden fees that the company doesn’t inform you about on its homepage, and you can find all the different fee structures the company provides to its users.
Features
- The implementation process takes little time, as the API works on Python, JAVA, Ruby, PHP, .NET, and cURL. Even open-source carts not developed on Woocommerce can use it for their payment gateway.
- Websites developed on Magento and WordPress had no problem running the 2Checkout plugin.
- The pricing of the payment process depends on the home country of the business owner’s home country for each successful transaction without extra cost or fees.
- The company has costs of more than 300 fraud rules on its payment gateway, which covers all the basic security features the user seeks.
- 2Checkout is PCI 1 certified, the top-of-the-line certification for any online software provider.
- The mobile-optimized checkout process is also there, so website owners don’t have to worry about finding another gateway for their mobile users.
- There are a total of 87 currencies, 15 languages, and 211 countries are supported by the software.
As you can see, 2Checkout has several benefits, and in many cases, it becomes a great first choice for companies that deal with money transfers of just a few thousand dollars each month. Lastly, the software is newcomer-friendly and will help new businesses accept online payment without asking for too much as a transaction fee.
10. Google Wallet/ Google Pay
Google Wallet is the last on our list. It acts as a virtual wallet for both customers and business owners. The user’s information is safe in Google’s system rather than the user’s device. As a result, all the transactions on this platform occur from Google’s server. Google Wallet is becoming increasingly popular daily, and many online businesses use it as a payment gateway method.
Features
- It comes with a 4-digit PIN, which keeps the authorization secure to the Google account holder. Multiple layers of passwords work with the application to ensure that each transaction is entirely end-to-end and safe.
- If you lose your mobile phone, you can quickly turn off the Google Wallet remotely. The card you provided in the Google Wallet will still work just fine.
- Google’s secure server keeps the information of added credit cards and debit cards safe.
- The customer’s card is kept hidden from the other party. As a result, when the card does come on the user’s screen, it does not have the full credentials written on it.
Google Wallet is excellent software that provides a QR code that your customers can scan to make the payment. It is a robust payment gateway, but its operation is pretty simple. The implementation takes less than 5 minutes, and the payment portal or link becomes live.
Conclusion
These are some of the best alternatives for PayPal. You can find which one suits your requirements the most and use it as your payment gateway. You must go through all the fees, documents, and structures before making your final decision, as some of them come with a contract, and breaking it would cost you a penalty. As a result, we advise you to take your time and use their basic free version first to see if the user experience and the payment transactions have been up to the mark.
If we have to choose from the options in the above Paypal alternative list, we will go with Skrill as our first choice due to its accessibility and functionality. It has repeatedly replaced PayPal in several businesses, and it still offers all the features of PayPal in a much more cost-effective way.