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Additional considerations when choosing an online payments solution

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The GoCardless content team comprises a group of subject-matter experts in multiple fields from across GoCardless. The authors and reviewers work in the sales, marketing, legal, and finance departments. All have in-depth knowledge and experience in various aspects of payment scheme technology and the operating rules applicable to each. The team holds expertise in the well-established payment schemes such as UK Direct Debit, the European SEPA scheme, and the US ACH scheme, as well as in schemes operating in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. See full bio

Last editedApr 20232 min read

The Eight Payment Dimensions are a great foundation to base your choice of online payments solution on. However, don't forget these three additional considerations.

While the Eight Payment Dimensions cover the core of what you need to consider when choosing an online payment method, it can be valuable to undertake a few additional considerations.

1) Push vs. pull payment methods

This distinction between push payment methods and pull payment methods is useful to understand. Push payment methods require the customer to take action in order to pay you. These include:

Cash
Check
One-time card, mobile, or digital wallet payments
Bank transfers

Pull payment methods, however, enable you to take money from the customer without needing approval for each and every transaction. These include:

Automated card payments
ACH debit (AKA bank debit or Direct Debit)
Automated payments from digital wallets (like PayPal)

For recurring payments or subscription payments, pull methods are strongly preferable for you as a business, since they require no ongoing customer action (and as such score higher in the preference, cash flow, success, and churn payment dimensions).

2) Specialist vs. generalist payment service providers (PSPs)

You can find PSPs that specialize in one particular payment method, as well as those that have a more generalist offering spread across many methods. As such, businesses may choose to handle all their payments through one generalist provider, or engage the services of various specialist providers, to offer the same payment methods to their customers.

Specialist providers tend to:

Offer the best-in-class solution for their area of speciality
Provide better service and support for their area of speciality
Charge lower fees for their particular service

Generalist providers tend to:

Offer a broader spectrum solution for businesses
Simplify the experience for businesses (i.e. businesses only have to sign up to one provider to have access to multiple payment methods)

There’s no right or wrong answer as to which option is best for your business. You should consider the above benefits and shop around the market - looking at costs, terms and conditions, and reviews and references for each provider.

3) Security and regulatory requirements

It's not the most exciting aspect of online payments but it is essential. A breach of security may leave you or your customers out of pocket, destroy your reputation, shut down your business, and even leave you facing legal action.

By handling your payment processing in-house, as opposed to going through a payment service provider, you’ll need to ensure you meet all the relevant security and regulatory requirements. And as the regulatory landscape is ever-changing, you’ll need to spend an ongoing resource cost to ensure you are always up to date.

If you don't want to shoulder this cost and responsibility, you can use a compliant payment service provider instead. Be sure they can demonstrate proof of full regulatory compliance, and check they have a good reputation.