Searching for the best WooCommerce payment gateway to accept online payments at your store? WooCommerce doesn’t offer its own payment processing service like Shopify, though it did recently launch a WooCommerce Payments tool powered by Stripe. Instead, you’ll typically rely on third-party payment gateways, which is nice because it gives you full flexibility over which tool you should use.
To help you pick the right service for your store, we’re going to dig into the five best payment gateways for WooCommerce, as well as some important considerations for choosing a payment gateway.
Three Important Considerations for Choosing a WooCommerce Payment Gateway
When you choose the payment gateway for your store, you’ll need to balance a few considerations (beyond security, of course, which is a given).
1. Cost
There are a few costs associated with a payment gateway.
The most obvious cost is the processing fee. This is what you’ll pay for every single transaction that you process.
The standard fee for credit card payments in the USA is 2.9% + a flat $0.30 per transaction, and most of the WooCommerce payment gateways follow this exactly.
Typically, there’s an extra ~1% fee for international payments, though this varies depending on the payment gateway.
Second, some providers charge a flat monthly fee no matter what, while other providers charge no monthly fee.
Finally, you might need to pay for a premium plugin to integrate the gateway with WooCommerce. Popular payment processors like Stripe and PayPal have free extensions, while others might require a premium integration plugin.
2. Integration
Some payment gateways integrate with your store in different ways.
Some are integrated directly into your checkout process. That is, shoppers will enter their credit card details on your store’s checkout page just the same as they enter their shipping information.
Typically, these services will still host the checkout-related fields, but let you embed and style them to match your theme. For example, Stripe Elements lets you customize the Stripe input fields to perfectly match your WooCommerce theme.
However, some gateways utilize different approaches, with two other approaches being:
- Shoppers might be taken to a separate interface to enter payment information. You’ve probably experienced this with stores that accept PayPal – you get redirected to PayPal to enter your payment information and then PayPal takes you back to the store to view your order confirmation.
- You can embed the external payment form using an iframe. This lets you keep things onsite, but it might not feel as “native” as something like Stripe Elements.
3. Features
It might sound odd to think about “features” for a payment gateway, but it’s an important consideration.
For example, what if you want to accept recurring subscription payments using WooCommerce Subscriptions? Not all payment gateways support recurring payments. And even for payment gateways that do support it, not all of them support all of the WooCommerce features.
Some payment gateways require you to manually cancel subscriptions, while others will automatically cancel a subscription when a user cancels their subscription via your front-end WooCommerce dashboard.
Another important consideration is refund processing – some payment gateways let you automatically process refunds without leaving your WooCommerce dashboard, while others are more complicated and might require you to work from the payment gateway’s interface.
Other features that you might care about include:
- International currency support if you have a lot of international orders
- Other payment options. For example, some payment gateways support Apple Pay, Android Pay, or even cryptocurrencies.
Five Best Payment Gateways for WooCommerce
1. Stripe (Incl. WooCommerce Payments)
Stripe is one of the most well-known WooCommerce payment gateways, and for good reason.
It has low fees, full support for important features like subscriptions and refunds, and a free plugin for WooCommerce.
It’s also integrated into the WooCommerce setup process – you can even have WooCommerce create an account for you when you set up your store.
Beyond that, the recently launched WooCommerce Payments service is also powered by Stripe Express.
Notable Features
- Super easy to implement with the new WooCommerce Payments service (or you can still use Stripe separately)
- Full support for WooCommerce subscriptions
- Secure integration with an iframe and Stripe Elements for PCI-DSS compliance
- Supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, Alipay, and some other local services (such as Bancontact in Belgium or Przelewy24 in Poland)
- Excellent fraud protection tools with Stripe Radar and 3D Secure
- Easy refund processing without leaving your WooCommerce dashboard
- Support for 135+ different currencies
- Supports SCA (Strong Customer Authentication)
Standard Fees
There are no monthly fees to use Stripe. Additionally, the WooCommerce Stripe integration plugin is available for free.
You’ll only pay the processing fee to Stripe, which is competitive with other gateways.
- Credit and debit cards – 2.9% + $0.30 per charge
- International payments – +1% for international credit cards
- Currency conversion – if charging international cards in a different currency, another 1% fee applies
How to Get Started
There are two ways to get started with Stripe on WooCommerce.
First, you can install the “native” Stripe gateway by:
You can also follow our WooCommerce Stripe setup tutorial.
In May 2020, WooCommerce also launched its own WooCommerce Payments service that simplifies the setup process and keeps everything inside your dashboard.
While it’s branded as “WooCommerce Payments”, Stripe is the service behind-the-scenes that handles all of the processing, which is why I didn’t give WooCommerce Payments its own section.
As of July 2020, WooCommerce Payments is only available to US-based merchants, though. So if you’re outside the USA, you’ll want to sign up with Stripe directly.
2. PayPal
PayPal really needs no introduction. If you’ve shopped online, you’ve probably encountered a store that uses the traditional PayPal checkout.
A shopper will add items to their cart. Then, when they go to finish their order, they’ll see an option to “Pay with PayPal” or something similar.
From there, they’ll be taken to the PayPal website where they can either:
- Log into their existing PayPal account and choose one of their payment methods
- Check out anonymously
If they’ve enabled PayPal OneTouch, they’ll be able to just click a button rather than going through the whole login process, which has much less friction.
There’s also an “in-context” feature that lets people check out in a popup, rather than forcing them to leave your website.
Notable Features
- Smart Payment Buttons (USA only) let shoppers pay with the Venmo payment app and some other options
- In-Context popup checkout so that people don’t need to leave your site to check out
- PayPal Credit (USA only) so that shoppers can pay using credit from PayPal
- Shoppers can pay with credit cards or debit cards
- Wide international support
- Full support for WooCommerce Subscriptions
Standard Fees
There’s no monthly fee to use PayPal and the PayPal plugin for WooCommerce is free.
PayPal’s merchant fees are competitive for USD payments, but a bit expensive for international payments compared to Stripe and other gateways.
How to Get Started
To begin, you’ll need to:
3. Braintree (Also From PayPal)
Braintree is another popular payment gateway acquired by PayPal in 2013.
It lets you use both the PayPal checkout option, as well as an integrated solution with hosted fields for credit card collection in the WooCommerce checkout.
If you want to accept credit card payments directly from your checkout process while also offering the “traditional” PayPal payment process, this is a good option that handles both at once.
Notable Features
- Supports PayPal checkout button (like the previous method)
- Hosted credit card fields for secure payment detail collection (like Stripe) and PCI-DSS compliance
- Supports SCA
- Full support for WooCommerce Subscriptions
- Process refunds without leaving your WooCommerce dashboard
- Supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay
- Accept 130+ currencies
Standard Fees
There are no monthly fees to use Braintree. Additionally, the WooCommerce Braintree integration plugin is available for free.
- Credit and debit cards – 2.9% + $0.30 per charge
- International payments – +1% for international credit cards
- Currency conversion – none listed
How to Get Started
To start, you’ll need to:
4. Authorize.net
Authorize.net is another popular payment gateway with tight integration into the WooCommerce checkout. That is, customers won’t need to ever leave your site to check out.
It’s owned by Visa, which is about as big of a name as you’ll get when it comes to payment processing.
However, there are a few extra fees associated with using Authorize.net, which is something to consider for smaller stores.
Notable Features
- Full support for WooCommerce Subscriptions
- PCI compliance
- Customers can save payment methods to reduce friction for subsequent purchases
- Process refunds directly from your WooCommerce dashboard
- Supports eCheck payments via Authorize.net eChecks
Standard Fees
In addition to processing fees, Authorize.net charges a $25 per month gateway fee. You’ll also need to purchase the premium integration plugin for $79.
- Credit and debit cards – 2.9% + $0.30 per charge
- International payments – +1.5% for international credit cards
- Currency conversion – not listed
How to Get Started
5. Square
Square’s claim to fame was its easy offline payment reader that you could plug into your phone. Square still works well for offline payments, but you can also use it for online payments.
However, I don’t think Square is as strong for online payments as other solutions, so I think it’s a better option for stores that sell both online and in-person.
Notable Features
- PCI compliance
- Supports WooCommerce Subscriptions
- Supports USA, Canada, Australia, UK, and Japan
Standard Fees
The Square extension for WooCommerce is free and there are no monthly fees to use Square.
- Credit and debit cards (online) – 2.9% + $0.30 per charge
- International payments – depends on location – limited acceptance
- Currency conversion – none listed
How to Get Started
What About International Payment Gateways?
I know that this post is heavily slanted towards the USA, as well as the EU and other large markets.
It’s important to understand that there are also lots of smaller WooCommerce payment gateways that might work better for your specific market.
To find more options, the official WooCommerce extension directory includes integration plugins for 60+ different gateways around the world.
Which Is the Best WooCommerce Payment Gateway?
The best WooCommerce payment gateway will depend on your specific business use cases.
However, if you’re not sure where to begin, I think that Stripe is a great starting point because:
- The integration plugin is free and the setup process is easy
- Stripe’s fees are very competitive with everyone else
- Stripe supports useful features such as WooCommerce Subscriptions and in-dashboard refund processing
- It supports 135+ countries, as well as methods such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay
- It also supports some local payment methods in specific regions
Adding PayPal as a secondary method is also a good decision just because of its ubiquity. You can use multiple payment gateways – you don’t have to choose just one!
For some other ways to improve your store, check out our collection of the best WooCommerce plugins.
Do you have any questions about WooCommerce payment gateways or how to use them? Ask away in the comments section!
