Perhaps not many people realise it, but choosing a payment gateway for an online store is extremely important! The inspiration for this article was my online shopping today. I got kicked out of the payment gateway 4 times, until at some point I simply lost the desire to shop. So how can you avoid this? How can you avoid losing customers? We have to guarantee them various payment options, but above all they must be reliable.
I’ve prepared for you a comparison of online payment gateways, namely: Tpay (formerly Transferuj.pl), PayU, PayPal, Przelewy24, Dotpay and Stripe. Which of these payment gateways will be best for you? It may be hard to say so definitively, it all depends on your needs. The multitude of criteria and the complexity of the offers available on the market mean that the choice is not easy. I hope, however, that after reading this article you’ll find a good solution for yourself.
Facing the choice of a payment gateway
A lot depends on your needs and requirements, but more importantly, on the needs of Your Customers! You yourselves – I deeply believe this – will make the best choice for yourselves. However, I have no intention of leaving you on your own. This article won’t give a ready-made answer, but will only suggest or… go as far as suggesting which payment gateway to choose.
What are online payment gateways?
Online payment gateways offer a service that processes all the online payments that take place in your store. The payment gateway tells you whether the payment has been approved or not – if not, the purchase will be cancelled. Ultimately, the payment amount is deducted from the customer’s account and deposited into your store’s account. Clear? Of course it is.
So the role of a payment gateway is to accept or reject a transaction before the amount is paid into your bank account. Technically speaking, you need to have both a bank account and a payment gateway in order to accept and process online payments.
How does a payment gateway work?
When a customer makes a payment through a WooCommerce store, the payment gateway performs several important operations. First it passes the payment through the store’s server, then it transfers the payment from the payment portal to the issuing bank and asks for confirmation. Based on the bank’s response, the payment authorisation request can be accepted or rejected, the response returns to the payment gateway via the merchant’s server, and the server’s response allows the customer to continue shopping. This process takes about a few seconds. – if everything is configured correctly.
Coming back to my situation from today.. In that store it wasn’t configured well, because the payment wouldn’t go through on the phone, but from the computer it worked. Shocking? That’s why it’s worth handing the payment gateway configuration over to someone who knows what they’re doing.
Choosing a payment gateway for WooCommerce is one of the most important issues when building an online store. There are several great options that integrate well with WooCommerce and provide a great experience for you and your customers.
PayU payment gateway
In the case of PayU, the activation fee is 199 zł. It’s worth catching their temporary promotions, though, which they run quite often.
PayU supports card payments with MasterCard and Visa, bank transfers, PayPal, GooglePay, ApplePay, BLIK, SMS, but also recurring payments.
As for PayU, transaction fees are set individually and depend on the company’s turnover and the given industry. Generally it is 2.3 % + a fixed fee of 30 – 35 groszy per transaction.
Another benefit is the fact that PayU does not charge for the chargeback service and for refunds to the customer’s account. It also enables instant and unlimited free withdrawals from the account and simple login to the panel.
If you’re decided, click HERE or the button below. Fill in a short form and accept the agreements online. It’s just a few clicks. Transfer the activation fee, and until it is verified you can accept payments up to a limit of 2 500 zł. After verification the limit will be lifted.
Przelewy24
Przelewy24 is another well-known payment gateway. When it comes to them, to register you need to fill in a form and make a verification transfer of 1.50 zł. Przelewy24 supports the same forms of payment as PayU, but in addition they also have: SkyCash, Premium SMS or mPay. What’s more, they accept PBK and, American Expers cards. A big advantage is also the fact of payments by QR code, integration with PayPal, GooglePay and ApplePay.
The transaction fee ranges from 1.9 – 3.2 %, depending on the chosen payment method. They allow refunds to the customer’s account and chargebacks completely free of charge (if you make the refund manually). For me a very important aspect is that Przelewy24 offer the possibility of accepting transactions in foreign currencies.
If you’re interested, click Here or the button below and register.
Dotpay
At this time Dotpay is no longer accepting new registrations (following the merger with Przelewy24). We encourage you to check the offers of the other operators.
Tpay
As for me and my Clients, we use tpay and are satisfied. There have never been any technical problems. Tpay provides very useful and extensive features. Basic ones, such as access to many payment methods or a responsive transaction panel, but not only. They also have the One Click Widget, which helps increase cart values, and you’ll find BLIK payments here too.
I’d venture to say that Tpay inspires the industry and also suggests how to make the most of working with a payment operator.
Activating a Tpay account costs 10 zł. With Tpay we can pay by payment card, transfers or via PayPal, GooglePay, IKO, mPay, Premium SMS and BLIK. The transaction fee is 1.59 % or, in the case of card, PayPal and GooglePay payments, is set individually. The chargeback service costs 20 zł each time, and a refund to the customer’s account costs 0.90 zł. Funds from the transit account can be withdrawn at any time, but only 4 withdrawals a month are free. Each subsequent one costs 2 zł.
In addition to payment services, Tpay also offers the “Benefits Package”, which includes e.g.: an invoicing programme (fakturownia.pl), e-marketing (EmailLabs), competitor monitoring (Brand24), store software, tools supporting sales growth in the store and many others.
If you’re interested, click Here or the button below and register.
PayPal payment gateway
PayPal is one of the most popular and oldest payment systems in the world. It is gaining more and more popularity in Poland, so it’s worth considering implementing PayPal mainly because of the ease of making payments and global availability (available in about 200 countries and accepts 25 different currencies).
PayPal offers full protection to buyers and sellers, enabling them to go through specific and well-defined dispute resolution processes.
PayPal has no installation fees, monthly fees or any hidden costs. You pay a commission only when you earn, fair, right? The money appears in your PayPal account within a few minutes of the purchase. You can also manage it freely, e.g. transfer it to your bank account or spend it on purchases, paying directly from your PayPal balance.
Tpay has a PayPal integration, which makes it possible to guarantee your customers all possible payment methods and maximise the chance of a sale.
For every payment accepted via PayPal, a commission of 2.9% + 0.80 PLN per domestic transaction is charged if the monthly amount has not exceeded 5000 zł
If more than 5 000 zł has been paid into your account, you can apply for the merchant rate.
If you’re interested, click Here or the button below and register.
Payments via Stripe
Stripe is an online service for accepting credit card payments in your WooCommerce store. Stripe works on a white-label basis, which has a huge advantage – it keeps customers on the store’s website and doesn’t send them to an external payment page. To make the purchasing process as smooth as possible, and thus to minimise cart abandonment and cancelled transactions, this type of solution is extremely useful.
Stripe does not charge fixed usage fees, everything is based on a commission, as with PayPal – 2.9%. Refunds, however, are processed without charging any fees.
Importantly, Customers can pay in various currencies (140 currencies), because Stripe also handles currency conversion from euros, dollars or pounds. The transaction itself takes place instantly, in less than 10 minutes, as they claim. Payments are accepted automatically by the provider’s system and transferred to the seller’s account. If a transaction is rejected, the seller incurs no fees; no commission is charged then.
Registration and account setup are intuitive and take really little time. If you’re interested, click Here or the button below and register.
Payment gateways in a nutshell
To sum up, we selected a dozen or so criteria that we found useful. They included elements important for sellers and their customers. It should be mentioned that in the comparison I included regular offers, not promotional offers.
I was in contact with all the companies, and everything went very smoothly – there was no need to wait long for replies..
It’s therefore worth – and I strongly encourage this – getting an individual offer after contacting them directly. It pays to negotiate rates, because payment intermediaries are very often flexible in this respect.
I also recommend asking for information about additional services that you did not find in the comparison but that may turn out to be useful.