Shopping has been moving online in recent years and this trend accelerated greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. If you want to be able to sell your products and services over the internet to customers from your own website, you need to choose an online payment gateway.
What is an online payment gateway?
An online payment gateway is the method by which customer debit and credit card payments are collected when the sale is made over the internet.
Online payment gateways are provided by merchant service providers, the companies responsible for collecting the money and paying it into your business bank account.
Your online payment gateway will normally operate in one of two ways once your customer has filled their shopping basket and pressed the purchase button.
They are:
- your website sends an encrypted online message to your merchant service provider containing the value of the order and the customer’s payment details or
- when the client presses the “buy” button, they are taken to a branded page on your merchant service provider’s website on which they fill in their payment details.
There’s a lot of competition in the market between online payment gateway providers to recruit new businesses coming online for the first time and to tempt established web-based shopping sites over to their services.
But which is the cheapest online payment gateway?
In this article, we’ll share with you:
- which online payment gateways providers are the most expensive and the cheapest using a real-world example,
- the standard services features you can expect with most online payment gateway providers,
- a summary of the features and benefits offered by the top 9 online payment gateway providers in the UK, and
- how to choose the online payment gateway provider which is right for your business.
At BusinessCostSaver, our reason for being is to lower our readers’ overheads and increase their profits.
We hope you find the information in our article helpful but, if you want more assistance, we’d really like to hear from you.
Just fill in the form at the top of the page and one of our advisory team will get back to you.
We’ll ask you about your business, what you sell, where your customers are based, and how you see your online business growing in the next 12-24 months.
We take all that information and we then come back to you with one or more recommendations on which online payment gateway provider would the most suitable for you.
And we’re completely impartial – we’re not tied to any provider so you can be assured that the advice we give you is free of any commercial bias.
Online payment gateway comparison – Britain’s top 9
Which is the best payment gateway? For many readers, the answer to that question will depend on the financial impact of payment gateway fees on their bottom line at the end of the year.
In the table below, we’ve looked at what the cost of using 9 leading UK online payment gateways would be if your company transacted:
- £37,500 of business online through credit card payments and
- £37,500 of business online through debit card payments.
We have used each gateway’s advertised rates where known.
Where a merchant service provider’s rates are hard to discern, we have gathered evidence of the rates existing clients report that they’re paying on online review sites.
This means that, although we’re confident the figures below can be broadly relied upon, they should be considered indicative rather than definite.
As you can see, there’s a substantial difference between the likely cheapest provider and the likely most expensive provider.
On £75,000 turnover, the lowest finishing provider costs more than double the cheapest, despite the fact that the cheapest competitor charges no set-up or annual fees.
| Merchant service provider | Set-up fees | Annual fees | Online CC | Online DC | Total | %ageT/O |
| Barclaycard | £150.00 | £180.00 | £468.75 | £468.75 | £1,267.50 | 1.69% |
| PayZone | £0.00 | £240.00 | £596.25 | £596.25 | £1,432.50 | 1.91% |
| Shopify | £0.00 | £265.68 | £620.00 | £620.00 | £1,505.68 | 2.01% |
| WorldPay | £0.00 | £228.00 | £1,031.25 | £281.25 | £1,540.50 | 2.05% |
| myPOS | £0.00 | £0.00 | £843.75 | £843.75 | £1,687.50 | 2.25% |
| SumUp | £0.00 | £0.00 | £937.50 | £937.50 | £1,875.00 | 2.50% |
| Square | £0.00 | £0.00 | £937.50 | £937.50 | £1,875.00 | 2.50% |
| izettle | £0.00 | £348.00 | £937.50 | £937.50 | £2,223.00 | 2.96% |
| Paypal | £0.00 | £0.00 | £1,305.00 | £1,305.00 | £2,610.00 | 3.48% |
Many of the companies in this list are open to negotiation so we would always advice you to get three or four quotes from different suppliers.
Use those quotes to force down the prices of other gateways bidding for your custom and, eventually, you’ll achieve the best possible rate for your business based upon its turnover and the types of products and services it sells.
Payment gateway UK – standard service features and charges
Set-up fee
Some merchant service providers charge you to open an account with them. These charges may or may not include the provision of physical PDQ machines whether you want them or not.
Just so that you’re aware, you do not need a physical PDQ machine to take online payments.
You should consider the set-up fee and the provision of PDQ machines as the most negotiable element of any offer made to you by a merchant services provider.
Minimum monthly fee
Some merchant service account providers charge you a fee every month to maintain your account – they’re generally the providers which want you to hire or buy PDQ machines from them whether you want them or not.
Newer entrants into the market generally offer easy-come, easy-go contracts with no notice period required.
Minimum term
Longer established merchant service providers generally require you to sign up to their services for a minimum of 12-36 months.
If you attempt to leave the contract early, you will likely pay a termination fee.
No termination fees are charged by providers offering easy-come, easy-go contracts.
Standard credit card fee
Standard credit card fees normally refer to UK/EU-issued Visa and Mastercard personal and commercial credit cards.
They are charged at a percentage of the total value of the transaction. Sometimes, in addition to the transaction rate, an additional fee of up to 30p will be added.
Depending on your provider, you may be charged more for:
- UK-issued Visa and Mastercard commercial charge cards
- non-UK/EU Visa and Mastercard credit and commercial charge cards, and
- non-UK/EU credit and commercial charge cards issued by organisations other than Visa and Mastercard.
Standard debit card fee
Standard debit card fees normally refer to UK/EU-issued Visa and Mastercard personal and commercial debit cards.
Mostly, they are charged at a percentage of the total value of the transaction. Sometimes, in addition to the transaction rate, an additional fee of up to 30p will be added.
Alternatively but increasingly less common, a simple flat rate charged in pennies may be levied regardless of transaction value.
Depending on your provider, you may be charged more for non-UK/EU-issued Visa and Mastercard personal and commercial debit cards
Amex fees
Charges attached to accepting payment via American Express credit and charge cards are often higher than Visa and Mastercard issued credit and charge cards.
You will likely pay an even higher fee for non-UK/EU-issued American Express credit and charge cards.
You may also need to set up a separate Amex merchant account through your merchant services provider.
More often than not, there is no monthly charge for Amex merchant accounts but be prepared to be ask to pay one by some providers.
Standard invoice payments fee
Many online payment gateways allow you to text or email customers or others from whom you are due to receive payment.
Contained within the SMS message or email message is a secure link at which your customer or the person owing you money can pay you the money you’re expecting.
Some providers charge a higher transaction fee for this service.
Online stock management
Many online payment gateways offer you the opportunity to manage your company’s stock in real time so that staff in your retail store, shoppers on your website, and decision-makers within the company know what’s available at any given time.
Some online stock management platforms will alert you to potential stock shortages as well as advising you on how many new items of a particular line of stock to order in to match anticipated demand.
Website templates for your online store
In addition to online stock management, some online payment gateways allow you to build your own e-commerce site from which you can sell goods to customers.
Most will offer a selection of free and paid-for templates. You’ll be able to change the appearance and the functionality of these templates online using either a “drag and drop” editor or a “WYSIWIG” editor intended for use by clients with little or no design or website building experience.
Settlement terms
The “settlement” is when payments made to you by clients are paid into your bank account.
Settlement is normally expressed in days so a 2-day settlement would mean that payments taken on a Monday would be settled on a Wednesday – that is, two working days after these payments were made.
All payments from the Monday would then be paid in one transfer to your bank account on Wednesday.
Cash advances
Based upon the average value of credit and debit card payments you historically process a month, some merchant service account providers will lend you money based upon anticipated future monthly card-based turnover.
These cash advances – sometimes called merchant loans – attract a factor rate of 1.3 (meaning that you pay back £13,000 for every £10,000 you borrow) which you repay through deductions from your settlements until the outstanding debt is cleared.
Cards accepted
Not all merchant service providers allow you to accept every type of card from a client.
On the mini-reviews below, we list the types of card each provider can process for the customers of your business.
Payment method
Some merchant service providers charge differing fees based upon the method of payment.
For example, you may pay less for a card you process when you are face to face with a customer than you will for an online order.
Likewise, mail order, fax, and telephone (MOTO) payments taken on virtual terminals which require you to key in your customer’s order and card details may be charged at a much higher rate.
Current online payment gateway deals
Next, let’s look at the current offers available from 9 of the UK’s leading payment gateways:
- iZettle
- SumUp
- Square
- Paypal
- WorldPay
- Barclaycard
- Shopify
- myPOS
- PayZone
iZettle payment gateway
| Merchant service provider | izettle |
| Minimum monthly fee from | £29 |
| Set-up fee | No charge |
| Credit card | 2.50% (2% for PayPal transactions) |
| Debit card | 2.50% (2% for PayPal transactions) |
| Online credit card | 2.50% (2% for PayPal transactions) |
| Online debit card | 2.50% (2% for PayPal transactions) |
| Invoice payments | 2.50% |
| Online stock management | No charge |
| Cash advance | Yes |
| Cards accepted | Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB, Diners Club, Union Pay, Contactless, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, Discover |
iZettle have recently been bought by one of the world’s original online payment gateway providers, PayPal.
Their current intention is to keep both brands running but, as you can see from the above table, customers paying via PayPal benefit from lower rates so there is a degree of integration already underway between both brands.
iZettle was originally targeting the face-to-face payments market through a card reader which piggybacked onto their user’s mobile phones via an app to transact debit and credit card sales.
Under PayPal’s ownership, there is now a concerted effort by the brand to make iZettle as “pay any way and any how” brand and market take-up of their package has been positive and swift.
The service is very much aimed towards helping very small traders (sub £50,000 per annum) do business easier.
The additional features they offer are far from comprehensive and they would be likely unsuitable for most larger firms.
However, given the amount of data created by very small businesses, it’s debatable how many of the more advanced features would be of actual use to iZettle’s target database.
The system has built-in stock management, discount code tools, shipping tools, refund options, and marketing plug-ins including abandoned cart recovery, a blog creation tool, and email broadcasts to customers and prospects.
As with Wix, users can launch their own e-commerce website as part of the iZettle service. There are plenty of templates to choose from and users report that the process of designing and building websites from scratch or from templates is quick and intuitive.
Reporting is minimal and primarily focused on differentiating the number and value of sales made offline compared to offline.
Across various different software platform and user review sites, the service scores well and it’s easy for us to recommend this platform to Britain’s smallest businesses.
SumUp payment gateway
| Merchant service provider | SumUp |
| Minimum monthly fee from | No charge |
| Set-up fee | No charge |
| Credit card | 1.69% |
| Debit card | 1.69% |
| Online credit card | 2.50% |
| Online debit card | 2.50% |
| Invoice payments | 2.50% |
| Online stock management | No |
| Cash advance | No |
| Cards accepted | Visa, Vpay, Mastercard, Maestro, American Express, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Contactless, Diners club, Discover, Union pay |
It’s not going to win any programming or creativity awards but the SumUp Online Store Starter service does exactly what is advertised, albeit at a very basic level.
Unlike iZettle, there is no monthly fee for the design and hosting of your online site. Fees for debit and credit card payments online are identical to iZettle except they’re higher when a customer is using PayPal to pay for their order.
SumUp’s face-to-face transaction rates of 1.69% are particularly competitive if you want this service but you will have purchase a SumUp card machine (currently priced from £29 to £129) to take advantage.
Sign-up is incredibly easy as is the process to build your online store.
You can edit both the products you offer and the tax rates charged in your store. Additional functionality includes:
- the ability to add a profile image and a shop name,
- seamless linking to your social media platforms,
- allowing customers to organise click-and-collect purchases as well as standard courier delivery,
- the provision of boilerplate terms and conditions covering all aspects of online trading, and
- email notifications of successfully placed orders sent to clients.
Users have reported multiple flaws in the ordering system as well as an inability to check to see if you can legally send follow-up sales email newsletters to clients – the system surprisingly doesn’t let you know which of your clients and visitors have ticked the GDPR-compliance box.
One major oversight has been that, on the confirmation emails and invoices, it does not state whether the customer has asked for a standard delivery or a click and collect type service.
We could see the iZettle function working reasonably well for “click to buy” buttons within social media posts and email marketing campaigns even with these flaws.
In its current iteration though, it’s hard to recommend SumUp to any newer and/more ambitious business owners as a platform of choice even considering the fact there is no fee to set up or run an online store on their platform.
Square payment gateway
| Merchant service provider | Square |
| Minimum monthly fee from | No charge |
| Set-up fee | No charge |
| Credit card | 1.75% |
| Debit card | 1.75% |
| Online credit card | 2.50% |
| Online debit card | 2.50% |
| Invoice payments | 2.50% |
| Online stock management | Yes |
| Cash advance | Yes (on equipment purchases only) |
| Cards accepted | Visa, American Express, Visa, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Contactless |
As with SumUp, Square offers a completely free online store creation service whose only fees are the transaction charges linked to sales made through your platform.
And, again as with SumUp, their online transaction fees are 2.5% with a significantly lower rate for face-to-face transactions (for which you’ll need a card reader starting at just £19).
The Square online proposition for clients however is far better than SumUp’s because of the much smoother and easier integration of face-to-face, click-to-collect, and standard delivery service sales.
The better online experience for both business owners and their clients can be explained thanks to its partnership with professional DIY web design company, Weebly.
There are paid for plans you can choose – the Professional plan costs £108 a year and the Performance plan £228 a year however the 2.5% online transaction fee isn’t reduced for subscribers to these tariffs.
In fact, the only way for subscribers to reduce their transaction processing fee is to sign up for the Premium Plan at £648 a year – a significant hike on the fees commanded by the Performance Plan. This puts its pricing into Shopify territory and our team is not sure that Square is the better option.
With the Square platform, you can add as many products as you want (together with product variants), you have access to a well-stocked library of royalty-free images, social media platform integration, a slick shopping cart, and easy-to-customise postage and packing rates.
Thanks to Weebly, you can add those tempting if slightly annoying pop-ups to your site if someone looks like they’re in danger of browsing away from your site. SEO (search engine optimisation) features large in the Square proposition too – that’s important because there’s little to no point in building a website if no-one is ever going to see it.
Square also offers the “pay now” buttonss feature mentioned earlier in this article which you can embed on 3rd party websites or you can link to on social media or in email newsletters you send to customers.
Although it’s hard to turn down something free, we’d recommend that, if Square is your choice of online payment gateway, you choose the Performance plan because you can do a lot more on it to generate sales than the Free or Professional Plans.
Paypal payment gateway
| Merchant service provider | Paypal |
| Minimum monthly fee from | No charge |
| Set-up fee | No charge |
| Credit card | 2.75%/3.40% + £0.30 |
| Debit card | 2.75%/3.40% + £0.30 |
| Online credit card | 2.75%/3.40% + £0.30 |
| Online debit card | 2.75%/3.40% + £0.30 |
| Invoice payments | 2.75%/3.40% + £0.30 |
| Online stock management | No |
| Cash advance | Yes |
| Cards accepted | Contactless, Mastercard, Maestro, Visa, American express, Apple Pay, Android pay |
Unlike the first three online payment gateway accounts we’ve reviewed, PayPal doesn’t actually offer an online shop building platform to its customers.
Instead it has a wide range of slightly different products for customers to choose from.
It’s slightly confusing (as are the charging scales) and, because of this, PayPal seems to be losing the fight for market share as an online payment gateway so perhaps its purchase of iZettle was wise and future-focused.
In PayPal’s defence, each of their services doesn’t tie their customers down in a contract and there are no set-up fees. Against them is the fact that their fees are expensive in comparison to their competitors.
The basic face-to-face PayPal Here service operates on a sliding charge scale based on monthly volume:
| Monthly volume | Transaction fee |
| Up to £1,500 | 2.75% |
| £1,500-£6,000 | 1.75% |
| £6,000-£15,000 | 1.5% |
| £15,000 and above | 1% |
PayPal’s online payment services don’t however offer the same incentives to clients to increase their sales volumes however.
Their four services are:
- Me – creation of a link to be sent to a client to make payment on securely
- PayPal Virtual Terminal – accept debit and credit cards over the phone when the customer is not present via a web interface (ideal for mail order, fax, and phone orders)
- Web Payments Pro – a PayPal Checkout button you can add to your website or mobile app to securely accept debit, credit and PayPal payments designed for clients who are not comfortable with programming
- PayPal Checkout – allows your customers to be taken from your product page or the shopping cart direct to PayPal’s payment page (requires some programming and this service relies on PayPal’s internal database of its customers’ address and payment details).
Subscription to the Virtual Terminal service and the Web Payments Pro costs £20 separately (or you can get two for the price of one).
For domestic payment cards, the fee is 2.9% plus £0.30 per transaction. You add an extra 0.5-2% for cross-border cards and 2.5% on currency conversions. Cheaper fees are available on some transactions with their Blended Pricing Fee Structure and Interchange Plus Fee Structure but it’s complicated to know which offers the best value.
There are even higher fees on Amex cards as they are for swiped and keyed-in transactions.
The PayPal Business App has limited functionality including sales insight reports, the ability to send money, invoice, view ready-to-send orders, and QR codes which potential customers can scan to pay for your products and services with their PayPal Account.
There are much simpler and elegant solutions available than PayPal although, given its ubiquity, there is a decent commercial case in arguing that it’s worth giving your customers the choice of paying via what is generally considered to be a widely trusted payment provider.
WorldPay payment gateway
| Merchant service provider | WorldPay |
| Minimum monthly fee from | £19.95 |
| Set-up fee | No charge |
| Credit card | 2.75% |
| Debit card | 2.75% |
| Online credit card | 0.75% |
| Online debit card | 0.75% |
| Invoice payments | As other rates |
| Online stock management | No |
| Cash advance | No |
| Cards accepted | All major debit and credit cards are accepted including Visa, Mastercard, China Union Pay, Diners Club International and Discover. American Express can be added on request. |
WorldPay, although a relatively new name for the company, is in fact decades old.
Its existence far predates the widespread adoption of the internet and, while its credentials as an online payment gateway are well-established, it’s still probably better known for providing PDQ terminals than processing web orders.
WorldPay is the first of the online payment gateways we’ve reviewed in this article with a contract requiring meaningful commitment from its customers.
You’ve got to sign up for the service for at least 18 months paying a fee for each of those months regardless of how much or how little business you’ve transacted in that time.
Like PayPal, it doesn’t offer an online store creation and hosting service but its back end systems are fully compatible with major e-commerce software packages.
A programmer will not find it difficult to integrate the two but, if you’re not a programmer, this means that you’ll have to pay someone to tie the online payment gateway together to the e-commerce platform and to maintain that tie.
Fees are relatively high given the monthly subscription fee at 2.75% of transaction value for credit cards but a much more competitive 0.75% for debit cards.
Transfers of funds to your bank account happen twice a week (slower than most online payment gateways) and Worldpay offers a well-established recurring payment service for companies making monthly or weekly charges for their products and services.
Other services include:
- My Business Dashboard – online transactions and finances management
- Future Pay – for use when taking recurring payments
- Online payments gateway – let customer pay online
- Pay by link – take payments and send invoices via an email link
- Risk management – sophisticated fraud checking service
- Virtual terminal – take payments for mail order, phone, and fax orders
WorldPay is expensive but trusted – its range of services will be very attractive to growing and larger companies however its appeal will be limited to very small online traders.
Barclaycard payment gateway
| Merchant service provider | Barclaycard |
| Minimum monthly fee from | £15.00 |
| Set-up fee | £150.00 |
| Credit card | 1.25% |
| Debit card | 1.25% |
| Online credit card | 1.25% |
| Online debit card | 1.25% |
| Invoice payments | As other rates |
| Online stock management | No |
| Cash advance | No |
| Cards accepted | Accept all major credit and debit cards including Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club International, Discover and American Express. To accept American Express you need a valid Amex merchant agreement. |
Of all the online payment gateways examined in this article, the details of Barclaycard’s standard type of offer to clients is the most difficult to come by.
Like other legacy firms in existence for decades, they work on a basis on providing clients with individual quotes based upon that client’s expected sales volumes and the quality of their negotiation skills.
Although we’ve quoted a fee of 1.25% in the table above, evidence gleaned from client reviews on various different websites suggest a range of fees between 0.75% and 1.5% based upon value and transaction type. As with nearly all merchant service providers, you’ll pay more for keyed-in transactions.
You’ll pay additional charges for their online payment gateway and virtual terminals on top of any fee you’ll pay for actual PDQ machines.
Barclays will expect you to sign up for a period of between 12 and 36 months and charge you an early termination fee if you opt to leave the contract earlier.
Barclays is however a popular choice for businesses with £100,000 a year turnover with customers numbering in the tens of thousands. Online feedback from these customers is good and you should certainly ask them to quote you if yours is a larger company.
Shopify payment gateway
| Merchant service provider | Shopify |
| Minimum monthly fee from | $29 |
| Set-up fee | No charge |
| Credit card | 1.50% |
| Debit card | 1.50% |
| Online credit card | 1.60% + £0.20 |
| Online debit card | 1.60% + £0.20 |
| Invoice payments | As other rates |
| Online stock management | Yes |
| Cash advance | No |
| Cards accepted | Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Apple Pay, Android Pay |
Shopify is one of the world’s leading suppliers of both DIY e-commerce platform services and merchant services.
Although the company is best known for its online services, it has made significant strides in recent years to increase its presence in the retail sector.
For web-only businesses, their cheapest tariff is $29 a month and, for that, you actually get a wide range of different options and features. Their tariffs go up to $299 a month but these tariffs are more targeted at companies with an online presence and multiple retail establishments.
Shopify wants two things from your business – it wants you to use their web design & hosting services and it wants you to use its online payment gateway.
While you can choose whichever online payment gateway you want to process orders from your website (or retail stores), there is a significant penalty for doing so.
Shopify’s contract is easy-come, easy-go – you can leave whenever you want and there are no termination fees to pay.
Shopify’s website templates and website editing tools are excellent and the system is very easy to use.
We like the way you can set up a number of different sales channel including social media, Amazon, and even instant buy buttons on your website or on messages you send via Facebook Messenger of Instagram.
Shopify, unlike most of its direct competitors combining online payment and e-commerce store creation, does not use a drag and drop WYSIWYG editor. However, we think that’s a positive thing because design is genuinely difficult to get right so it’s better to amend something that’s already stylish instead of trying to create something yourself from scratch.
One niggle with the system is that you have to crop the images you upload to a common set of sizes – apparently, this is on Shopify’s snagging list and it will be improved shortly.
You can upload unlimited products and you can have up to 100 variations on each product you offer so that clients clearly see what you have available for sale and the customisation options you offer.
We particularly like the way the service handles the sometimes complex element of postage and packing costs which you can program based upon a general flat rate or making it variable by price and/or weight.
Also of great use is their abandoned shopping cart facility allowing you to send emails to those who have loaded their basket but not followed through with an order either individually, as a whole, or in groups you define.
Shopify is a superb platform and one we’d strongly recommend that you investigate for all businesses with a turnover of up to half a million pounds.
myPOS payment gateway
| Merchant service provider | myPOS |
| Minimum monthly fee from | No charge |
| Set-up fee | No charge |
| Credit card | 1.45% |
| Debit card | 1.45% |
| Online credit card | 2.25% |
| Online debit card | 2.25% |
| Invoice payments | 2.25% |
| Online stock management | No |
| Cash advance | No |
| Cards accepted | Accept payments with major debit and credit cards, contactless cards and mobile wallets. |
Launching with a portable range of card readers, myPOS have added an online payment gateway to their range of services. However, as you can see from above, the online transaction fees for consumer debit and credit cards are much higher than the face-to-face cardholder present fees.
Fees go even higher for MOTO payments, Amex payments, and commercial cards.
There are no monthly fees with myPOS and, uniquely among the nine providers we’re reviewing on this page, they promise instant transfer of funds upon authorisation to your merchant account.
myPOS offers a PayButton service for smaller online businesses and a standard online payment gateway service for larger concerns.
They have configured their online platform for easy integration with major shopping cart platforms however, in common with other suppliers doing the same, you will need to pay a programmer to perform those integrations if you can’t yourself.
MOTO transactions are straight forward with their virtual terminal service and you can request payment by email and SMS.
myPOS is a good basic service but there are better and cheaper options out there.
PayZone payment gateway
| Merchant service provider | PayZone |
| Minimum monthly fee from | £20.00 |
| Set-up fee | No charge |
| Credit card | 1.55% + £0.15 |
| Debit card | 1.55% + £0.15 |
| Online credit card | 1.55% + £0.15 |
| Online debit card | 1.55% + £0.15 |
| Invoice payments | As other rates |
| Online stock management | No |
| Cash advance | No |
| Cards accepted | Our countertop card machine allows you to accept all major credit and debit cards such as Mastercard, Visa and American Express. Contactless and Apple pay enabled, you’ll also be able to offer your customers faster payments on any sales under £30. |
For over 30 years, PayZone has been one of the leading merchant services account providers to British retailers. Two decades ago as the transition to the internet started, they launched their first online payment gateway service.
It’s difficult to get a complete indication of their contract and pricing terms because they negotiate individual deals for each separate customer.
However, it’s fair to say that their rates are probably among the most competitive in Britain because of the company’s popularity among many of Britain’s businesses operating on the lowest profit margins – the convenience store and corner shop sector.
Unlike the other companies in our list, PayZone is an aggregator and they attract lower rates for their clients by pitching client’s combined turnover en masse to Tier 1 providers like Barclaycard.
Payment gateway UK – making your choice
We’ve shared with you in-depth details of 9 of the UK’s leading online payment gateway providers’ tariffs.
We’ve also shown you a real-world example of how much each provider would charge on £75,000 worth of debit and credit card turnover from your site.
The good news is that the number of new entrants to this market is likely to continue the downward pressure on prices so, in the coming years, accepting credit and debit cards online is likely to become even cheaper.
But, while price is important, so is service and so is the knowledge that the provider you’re working with is able to provide you with easy-to-use features to help increase your sales further as your online business grows.
If you want help, please get in touch with us and deal with one of our online payment gateway provider advisors.
Our service is completely free and there’s no obligation on you to accept any of the offers we find for you.