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6 Online Payment Options for 2022

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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

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Patrick is a competitor-focused Product Marketing Manager at GoCardless and, as such, spends most of his time obsessing over how to best understand what are the alternative solutions to customers’ pains. The objective is to ensure that GoCardless can best satisfy SMEs' payment wants and needs using the GoCardless payment platform. Patrick works to accelerate the cycle from discovering a customer pain point to developing the solution to then delivering that solution to SMEs in the most effective way. ConnectSee full bio

Last editedJun 20232 min read

If you run an online business, you’ll need to find a way to take payments quickly and efficiently. In 2022, small businesses have more choices than ever, from Direct Debit to online card payments. Here’s a quick rundown of the best online payment processing choices on the market today.

1. Worldpay

This online payment system is fully integrable with your ecommerce website, and once it’s up and running, you’ll be able to take payments online within 24 hours. Worldpay also lets you send out secure payment links to your customers through emails, which makes it suitable for small businesses without a website. It’s also compatible with over 100 currencies to enable international payment processing. Although there aren’t any setup fees, Worldpay does take a percentage out of each transaction. In addition, there’s a fee to become PCI-compliant.

2. Stripe

If you’re looking for an all-in-one payment platform, Stripe offers a variety of features. It’s better suited to those who have some design experience, but along with this is plenty of room for customisation, as it's designed for developers and has a wide range of client and server libraries.

Stripe has global coverage, allowing businesses operating in many markets to take payments. While card-focused, it also allows you to take a wide range of payment types, including cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. A downside of Stripe's size is that it limits the support available to customers, which can cause frustrating experiences for merchants.

Stripe’s fees start at 1.45% plus 20p for each transaction.

3. PayPal

PayPal is one of the world’s most well-known online payment systems. As customers are very likely to be familiar with PayPal and its services, businesses can benefit from high conversion rates and a reliable checkout experience. These do come at a price - significant fees come with the big brand name, which can cut into your business' bottom line.

For small businesses, PayPal offers a service called Web Payments Standard with hosted payment pages that redirect back to your website. There’s also PayPal Checkout if you have your own shopping cart already set up. As an added bonus, because PayPal handles all of the payments you don’t have to worry about PCI compliance.

Fees for using PayPal start at 2.9% plus 30p per transaction.

4. Square

Do you need to take payments online from a client, but don’t really have any need to set up an online store? Square is a good solution. This payment service partners with website builders like GoDaddy, Wix, and Weebly, working together as an add-on.

You don’t have to commit to a long-term subscription contract, and it includes API integration and PCI compliance. For small businesses, it’s a very user-friendly option.

5. Adyen

Adyen is what is known as an "end-to-end" payments solution, covering data, financial management, and the payment processing itself. It offers a large range of payment options and operates globally.

That said, Adyen is a cards-first company. While Adyen does offer many payment methods, many of its products are not optimised for the alternative payment methods on offer. This means that where a business may benefit from taking bank payments such as direct debit or those powered by Open Banking, Adyen may not be so suitable. Adyen also has limited functionality when it comes to payment failures, while alternatives offer intelligence products to both increase success rates and reduce fraud (such as Verified Mandates from GoCardless).

6. GoCardless

GoCardless is different from the other players on the list in its focus on bank payments such as direct debit. Companies of all sizes most often pick GoCardless when they want to adopt alternative payment methods to cards, allowing them to improve success rates and reduces the amount spent on processing fees. Its online tool is ideal for clients who want to set up recurring payments, whether it’s for invoices, subscriptions, or payment instalments.

GoCardless makes it easy to accept Direct Debit. Automate payment collection. Reduce manual admin. Get paid on time, every time.

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It’s also compatible with solutions like Sage, so you can combine GoCardless as a bank payment specialist with your favourite card provider. Last but not least, GoCardless is consistently rated very highly for customer satisfaction - you can find out more about our customer-first approach here.

We can help

GoCardless helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of admin your team needs to deal with when chasing invoices. Find out how GoCardless can help you with ad hoc payments or recurring payments.