Compare Payment Gateways for Domestic and International Online Sellers

Stripe Payments introduction

Stripe is a payment gateway solution built for developers to integrate into the online seller solutions. Stripe Payments solutions and services were created by a fast-growing Irish company with the same name. Stripe Payment pricing is one of the most competitive in the industry. This can be nothing but good for online sellers as competition with payment gateways can help drive down prices for everyone. 

For non-developers it is easy to integrate Stripe into hosted seller solutions like Shopify and self-hosted online seller solutions with WordPress. Stripe fees, recurring payments solution, payout currencies and WordPress integration is discussed in the following sections

Stripe Payments fees

Stripe Payments fees table explained

Payment gateway fees can be confusing at the best of times. Stripe is one of the online payment companies that have quite a straightforward pricing structure. However, sometimes the fees still need to be explained.

Registration country

This is the country that you have your online seller company registered and where you have registered with Stripe for a payments account.

Domestic card fees

Domestic cards are credit or debit cards that are issued within the same country that your Stripe account and business are registered. For example, a Stripe Payments UK account considers domestic cards issued within the UK. For example, you are a UK business selling to UK debit or credit card holder. This is the variable fee you pay per transaction when a domestic card is used.

International card fees

An international card is considered to be the opposite of a domestic card. A foreign debit or credit card is considered ‘international’. For example, Stripe UK registered businesses would be charged the variable international card fee on every transaction paid for with a card issued outside of the UK. 

Fixed fee

A fixed fee is simply the fee that is charged per transaction through Stripe online payments.

Currency conversion fees

This is for international online sellers or online sellers pricing their product or service in foreign currencies. If you are pricing your product in your home (also known as base) currency, then the payer is charged for the currency conversion from the debit or credit card issuer. If your product's pricing is not in your base currency, Stripe will charge you a currency conversion fee to repatriate your funds from the foreign currency to your home currency on payout. 

Billing and recurring revenue

Subscription or recurring billing is available with Stripe and accessible through some of their integration partners (more on that in the following sections). To avail of subscription billing, Stripe charges an additional per transaction variable fee. That is the percentage fee that is shown in the Stripe payment fees table above.

Instant payout fees

Some Stripe registration countries allow instant payouts of your revenue balance held in Stripe. Balances can be transferred directly to a supported debit card. This feature comes with an additional variable fee.

Stripe allows instant payouts for customers registered in the USA, Canada and Singapore for an additional fee. Otherwise, payouts are usually weekly or monthly.

There are some exceptions with the Stripe registration countries shown here. Australia allows for a 2-day rolling payout, weekly or monthly. New Zealand allows for a 4-day rolling payout, weekly or monthly. Hong Kong payouts are 7 days rolling, weekly or monthly. Hong Kong registered Stripe accounts can also payout in USD with an additional charge of 1%.

Chargeback fees

Chargeback fees are also known as ‘dispute fees’. This is where a customer disputes a transaction and may request a refund. Chargebacks to customers come with a fixed fee. USA Stripe payments registered businesses have a service called ‘Chargeback Protection’. This shields the business from chargeback fees. Stripe handles the rest. The Chargeback Protection service is available in the USA for 0.4% per transaction.

Stripe Payout Currencies

Stripe can provide different payout currencies depending on where your business is registered. This means that you can provide products and services pricing in different currencies. Stripe payments in multiple currencies are then stored in different balances that can be seen in your Stripe dashboard. If you only have one bank account registered with your Stripe account, foreign currencies are converted automatically with an additional fee of 1 - 2%. If you have multiple currency accounts configured with your Stripe account, the matching currencies balances are transferred to the appropriate bank account.

Unfortunately, to be paid out to a USD account in the USA, you need to have a business registered entity in the USA. This effectively blocks the use of multiple currency accounts such as WorldFirst World Account, Airwallex and the Wise Borderless Account. Exceptions to this rule are Singapore and Canada. Businesses can have USD accounts within their home country and receive USD payouts to their local USD bank account.

Stripe Payments Supported Payout Currencies

Stripe recurring payments and subscriptions

Stripe recurring payments and billing services are available for services that may be built on a subscription model. The Stripe recurring payments service does not just manage subscription payments. It also offers automatic invoice reconciliation and smart recovery tools to reduce customer churn. Each business will need to assess if the additional 0.5% per transaction charge incurred is worth the price for the reduced admin and customer churn.

Stripe payment gateway integrations

Stripe has been created for developers to integrate their online service with a payments gateway securely and easily. Such services include SaaS and marketplaces. Some of the more famous SaaS solutions that have integrated Stripe Payments are Xero, Shopify, Docusign and Squarespace. 

The largest customer base for Stripe Payments is probably WordPress site owners. Small to medium businesses using WordPress for their online presence. With the Covid pandemic in 2020, more and more businesses created an online presence to keep their businesses alive.

Stripe Payments for WordPress

The most popular e-commerce solution for WordPress is WooCommerce. WooCommerce has a marketplace which hosts many popular payment gateway extensions. Some have a free tier and a premium tier which unlocks premium features such as Stripe recurring payments for WordPress sites.

Stripe recurring payments for WordPress

Recurring payments or subscription billing is a vital feature for many businesses with an online presence or recurring booking system hosted on WooCommerce for WordPress. Examples are online courses, physical presence services like gym memberships.

One of the best-rated premium WooCommerce extensions that is compatible with the WooCommerce Stripe subscription payments plugin is WebToffee’s Stripe Payment Gateway Plugin.

The upshot

Stripe is an outstanding platform. The Stripe management team are focused on extending the additional platform to make it easier for developers and no developers alike align payments to complex and unique business and customer processes. Stripe's basic payment gateway pricing is very low and very competitive. If you can take advantage of multi-currency accounts to bypass their currency conversion fees, Stripe would have the lowest costs for international online sellers. Even with Stripe being just a little pricier than some in-country competitors, the fact that Stripe has so many more services and solutions available, Stripe is the best solution for growing businesses that can take advantage of the Stripe platform of solutions without having to change payment gateways. Thereby avoiding the cost and risk of migration and cost of changing internal processes. Stripe is iCompareFX's choice for international and domestic online sellers.

##sources-start##

Stripe Payment fees the USA - https://stripe.com/pricing

Stripe Payment fees the UK - https://stripe.com/en-gb/pricing

Stripe Payment fees Ireland - https://stripe.com/en-ie/pricing

Stripe Payment fees Canada - https://stripe.com/en-ca/pricing

Stripe Payment fees Australia - https://stripe.com/en-au/pricing

Stripe Payment fees New Zealand - https://stripe.com/en-nz/pricing

Stripe Payment fees Hong Kong - https://stripe.com/en-nz/pricing

Stripe Payment fees Singapore - https://stripe.com/en-sg/pricing

Stripe recurring payments - https://stripe.com/billing/pricing

Stripe chargeback / disputes fees - https://stripe.com/docs/disputes#fees

Stripe payout currencies supported - https://stripe.com/docs/payouts

Shopify transaction fees - https://www.shopify.com/pricing

##sources-end##

Pin Payments introduction

Pin Payments is a solution created by CheckOut.com. Pin Payments is only available in Australia. They have plans opening their solution to the UK and New Zealand, but this is not available just yet. They are suitable for small and medium sized businesses. Pin Payments can integrate with SaaS services, popular e-commerce carts, accept secure recurring payments, and provide straightforward invoicing to your customers.

What we like about PIN Payments is:

1. Simple, straightforward service offering.
2. Low fees
3. Open development platform to customize integrations
4. No merchant account is required

Pin Payments fees

Unlike other payment gateways, Pin Payments charges are simple to understand. Their fees include all features available and no lock in contracts. Payouts are processed three days after processing payments. 

If the primary business market is outside of Australia, choosing the multi-currency account. Pin Payments pricing with their multi-currency settlement and payouts is the best in the market in Australia. This account means that a business can present a foreign currency price for the product or service and payout to a business' multi-currency account in the same currency. Receiving payouts into specialized multi-currency accounts such as Airwallex, WorldFirst or OFX can result in significant savings on currency exchange and payment of foreign suppliers.

By default the multi-currency settlement option with automatically convert back to the base currency (AUD). Simply by contacting Pin Payments, a business can request settlement of transactions in foreign currencies. 

If you are in a lucky position where your business has sales large volumes, you can contact Pin Payment sales to discuss volume discounts on the fees shown above.

As Pin Payments charges are very low for domestic and even lower for international payments and currency conversions, Pin Payments is the ideal payments solution to partner with if Australian online sellers are expanding to sell online internationally.

Pin Payments integrations

The payments platform has open (but secure) APIs for developers. Because of this, Pin Payments list of available integrations is impressive. This includes popular shopping carts and platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce. They also boost easy integration with Xero to allow you customers to easily pay invoices issued through Xero through Pin Payments.

And the great thing is, if the available integrations don't suit. Their open APIs can allow you to securely develop, create and integrate them into your online service, app or e-commerce store.

The upshot

Pin Payments is perfect for Australian and New Zealand internation sellers that need quick start with low international selling fees. The out of the box service offering can be limited for businesses with low budgets or development knowledge. As the business grows, custom development or ‘No Code’ automated workflow integration such as Zapier would be required to extend the solution. 

##sources-start##

WooCommerce integration - https://pinpayments.com/integrations/woocommerce

Pin Payment Fees - https://pinpayments.com/pricing

Pin Payments UK- https://pinpayments.com/gb

Pin Payments NZ - https://pinpayments.com/nz

##sources-end##

2Checkout payments introduction

2Checkout is an ‘all-in-one’ e-commerce platform that combines solutions for global payments, subscription billing, invoice management, analytics, taxes, compliance and risk management. 2Checkout has three solutions that come with its pricing structure. 2Sell, 2Subscribe, 2Monetize. Each solution is an upgrade to the basic 2Sell global payments solution.

2Sell

This is 2Checkout’s entry-level payment solution. It also comes with the least additional features and the lowest cost. 2Sell offers recurring payments/billing but does not include additional features such as subscription management, churn reduction, and subscription analytics. This solution is perfect for online sellers who need access to basic payment gateway services.

2Subscribe

The 2Subscribe plan targets businesses that need subscription management, customer churn reduction and a subscription analytical tool. Their subscription management has a ‘subscription pause’ feature. This is a great tool to reduce customer churn.

2Monetize

This is the premium plan and it comes with a hefty price tag. The 2Checkout 2Monetize plan targets the selling of digital goods. It includes all the features available with the 2Sell and 2Subscribe plan. Additionally, 2Monetize can handle customer trial signups, customer plan upgrades and downgrades, discount and coupon management, invoicing and tax compliance and collection services. This is a gold standard plan. However, the variable cost of this plan may be too hefty for some businesses. Invoice, coupons and analytics could be handled by other platforms for less cost. Integration could be handled with such solutions as Zapier.

2Checkout Fees

2Checkout fees can be broken down into variable and fixed costs. 2Checkout maintains a list of countries that are exempt from what they describe as cross-border fees. These are non-domestic cards being used to purchase goods and services. There is a per-transaction fixed fee changes depending on the plan in use. There is also a currency conversion fee if the presentment currency differs from the payout currency. USD, EUR and GBP are possible payout currencies. You can only select one of the three currencies. 

2Checkout 2Sell plan fees

2Checkout 2Subscribe fees

2Checkout 2Monetize fees

One important thing to note with 2Checkout 2Monetize variable fees is that cross border fees do not apply to the 2Monetize plan. This means that you can scale your business globally while maintaining the same cost structure. 

2Checkout supported multi-currency settlement currencies

EUR, USD and GBP are possible payout currencies. You can only select one currency at a time. But you can change the payout currency configuration at any time. This can be taken advantage of in some scenarios for online sellers. There is a possibility that the currency conversion charge of 4% can be avoided. 

Can an international online seller avoid the 2Checkout currency conversion fee?

In some scenarios, yes. If a seller’s primary international market is in the UK, USA or Europe and the presentment currency (what you display as the price) is in that market's currency, you can configure the payout currency to be the same. This means that the transactions processed by 2Checkout are not subject to currency conversion. 

There is of course a catch. 2Checkout forces the bank account configured for the payout currency to be located within the same country as your business is registered. This rules out using specialist multi-currency accounts provided by the best international money transfer companies.

But all is not lost as creating a USD, EUR or GBP bank account is fairly straightforward for most major banks to provide your business.

Once the sales revenue has been paid out to the GBP, USD or EUR account, an international money transfer company can convert the currency into the businesses home currency at much better exchange rates than the banks. At this point, the best option is to not use an online-only money transfer company, but one that provides account management services to help you automate this process. 

In the UK and Europe, the best option would be Currencies Direct. In Australia and New Zealand, the best option is WorldFirst and in the USA and Canada, the best option is OFX.

2Checkout native integrations

2Checkout ecosystem provides over 120 integrations across platforms, shopping carts, forms and accounting systems. This makes it much easier for website owners to integrate 2Checkout payments into their solution. Many of the integrations are simple plugins that get you up and running in minutes. 

2Checkout can be easily integrated with Shopify and Woocommerce which would be to of the better known e-commerce solutions.

2Checkout API

2Checkout makes a comprehensive API also available should you wish to integrate 2Checkout directly into a custom online application or mobile app.

2Checkout integration with Zapier

Zapier does not have native 2Checkout triggers and actions. That doesn’t stop you from leveraging automated workflows using Zapier. Webhooks by Zapier app will provide access to 2Checkout’s webhooks. For more comprehensive triggers and actions, Code by Zapier would provide access to 2Checkout’s API.

The upshot

2Checkout has impressive service offering and pricing for sellers of subscription and digital goods. Their payments platform is geared to improving customer conversion and reducing churn. 2Checkout analytics can be a great addition to any management team. 2CheckOut 2Sell entry plan has the best pricing for the UK and European registered businesses. This can quickly change as the 2Checkout plan changes as the variable costs increase. Therefore a business needs to ensure that the feature benefits of the plan upgrades are worth the cost. Are these additional features such as trial plan, subscription pause absolutely required for the business model? Are there alternatives? For example, if an e-commerce business leverages Woocommerce, there are potentially Woocommerce extensions that could handle the additional functionality required and 2Checkout 2Sell can be used simply to process payments are a lower cost to the competition. 

##sources-start##

2Checkout Plans pricing - https://www.2checkout.com/pricing/

2Checkout supported payout currencies by 2Checkout Product and payout method - https://knowledgecenter.2checkout.com/Onboarding/Payouts

2Checkout available webhooks for Zapier integration - https://knowledgecenter.2checkout.com/API-Integration/Webhooks/04Webhooks_overview

2Checkout cross-border (non-domestic card) countries exempt from cross-border fees - https://knowledgecenter.2checkout.com/Documentation/01Product-catalog/05Pricing_and_charge_scenarios/Cross-border_fee_charges

2Checkout shopping cart integration - https://www.2checkout.com/online-shopping-carts/

##sources-end##

Authorize.net introduction

Authorize.net is a payment gateway solution provided by Visa. The online-only solution has quite simple service offerings and pricing. Autorize.net offers a simple checkout process, invoicing, recurring payments and advanced fraud protection. 

Authorize.net support registration countries

Canada and the USA are fully supported by Authorize.net. A business can use an existing merchant bank account or choose to request Authorize.net provide an all-in-one solution combining payment gateway and merchant services. Authorize.net arranges the creation of a merchant account with a third-party Merchant Services Provider.

While Australian’s can take up Authorize.net services, Australian businesses must provide their own merchant account services. Australian’s can use NAB, ANZ, Westpac or FirstData issued merchant accounts with Authorise.net. 

Authorize.net fees and pricing

A monthly charge for use of Authorize.net features comes in at $25/month. This is probably an additional cost that new e-commerce merchants could avoid by choosing another payment gateway provider with no monthly fees and similar if not the same variable and fixed fees. Check the interactive payment gateway comparison table for suitable alternatives.

For international online sellers, Authorize.net does not charge additional currency conversion fees. The additional 1.5% fee for non-domestic card usage includes currency conversion.

Chargeback costs are managed by the third party merchant service provider. 

Authorize.net payouts

Multi-currency account payouts are not supported. The registration country currency is by default considered the base currency. Payouts only in the base currency is supported. This is not prohibitive as the combined non-domestic card and currency conversion fees are reasonable at 1.5%.

Authorize.net Integrations

Should a business choose this payment gateway, there are native integrations available for popular e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and Woocommerce.

API’s are available to build a payments solution directly into a mobile app or custom web app solution. Webhooks are also available. This means that automated workflow solutions like Zapier can be used to integrate payment / new customer notifications into other SaaS solutions such as Xero accounting, email marketing and third party invoicing solutions.

The upshot

Authorize.net’s basic service offering may be enough for new e-commerce merchants. The variable and fixed fees are similar to large competitors such as Stripe. However, in this example, Stripe does not charge a monthly fee for service usage. And Stripe offers much more growth potential with its broad range of services. Together with this and native integrations with automated workflow solutions like Zapier, Authorize.net needs to lower prices or up their service offering to compete.

##sources-start##

Authorize.net fees - https://www.authorize.net/sign-up/pricing.html

Authorize.net Australia - https://www.authorize.net/en-anz/resources/how-payments-work.html

Authorize.net webhooks - https://developer.authorize.net/api/reference/features/webhooks.html

Woocommerce Authorize.net shopping cart integration - https://woocommerce.com/products/authorize-net/

##sources-end##

PayPal Payment Gateway Introduction

PayPal offers both consumer and merchant solutions. The consumer solution is great to add as a single source of truth for your payment information. This becomes a single place to update the information rather than many locations and ensures a level of security also. PayPal customers can then use their PayPal credentials to pay for goods and services with e-commerce stores that offer PayPal as their payment gateway. 

PayPal digital wallet customers can also use their PayPal balances or connected payment methods to send money internationally. (Be warned, this is one of the most expensive ways to transfer money internationally - if you are sending money internationally - compare the best international money transfer companies.)

Security tip: PayPal customers should implement PayPal’s 2-factor authentication to protect their payment information!)

With PayPal offering an attractive consumer solution, they can now offer simple payments for online merchants with their PayPal payment gateway solutions. 

Different types of merchant solutions are available for PayPal merchants. PayPal’s merchant solutions include PayPal Standard, PayPal Payments Pro, and PayPal Express. PayPal’s invoice creation for business is free and available to PayPal Business customers.

PayPal Standard

PayPal Standard merchant service allows e-commerce merchants to redirect payment of their goods or service to the PayPal site for payment processing. This means that the online store customer is redirected to PayPal and away from your site to complete the payment. After payment is completed (or cancelled) the customer is returned to the online store. This can be beneficial as it delivers trust to the customer that their payment is secure. The downside is that the online store is fully dependent on PayPal sending back success or failure notifications to the online merchant using Instant Payment Notification (IPN). There are merchant reports that this can be somewhat unreliable at times, thereby increasing the admin process and headaches for online merchants.

PayPal Standard does not attract a monthly fee for the merchant. Given that PayPal Standard is available in over 190 countries this may be a good solution for first-time e-commerce merchants.

PayPal Payments Pro

PayPal Payments Pro provides all the benefits of PayPal Standard but allows payment integration directly to the e-commerce store checkout. PayPal Payments Pro integrates with most major shopping carts out of the box. This means that merchants can customize their user payment experience to match the branding of their website look and feel.

PayPal Payments Pro has a monthly fee of $30 to provide access to the additional integrations above the PayPal Standard service. 

PayPal Payments Express

PayPal Express is very similar to the PayPal Standard solution. However, only the payment is conducted on the PayPal site. The remainder of the checkout process pre and post-payment are conducted on the merchant's checkout page. 

PayPal Express also offers additional payment options for the consumer such as Venmo and PayPal Credit. 

PayPal Express offers a more streamlined experience for the shopper as the profile details such as name and shipping address are provided by PayPal and therefore the e-commerce store does not need to ask for this information. This information is then seamlessly provided by PayPal to the site owner to facilitate the product purchase fulfillment process. 

PayPal Payments Fees Breakdown

PayPal is global and has vastly different costs across regions. Their fee structure is complex and very difficult to nail down as you must go deep within legal terms and conditions to extract the information you are looking for. You can easily see how complex their fees can be to calculate easily just by the number of notes needed in the PayPal country fees table below. 

* EU pricing varies across EU countries. In some countries, the variable fee is also banded pricing. Meaning that the higher the total value of payments processed over a year will reduce your variable fee for domestic and non-domestic card payments. The interactive payment gateway comparison tool uses pricing for Ireland merchants.

** Non-domestic cards within the EU and UK also attract an additional fee. Within the EU this can be as low as 0.5% additional charge. This can then increase to an additional 2% for the USA, Canada and the rest of the world.

*** Non-domestic cards from the USA will be charged at 3.7% for Canadian businesses.

**** Fixed fees for EU businesses using PayPal merchant solutions also vary depending on the customer's card location. For simplicity, this table has shown EUR0.35c. However, this varies widely as can be seen with the PayPal fixed fees for currency received.

***** PayPal’s chargeback fees change depending on the currency received. I.e. it charges depending on if it is a domestic or international transaction. For simplicity, this table shows the domestic chargeback fees.

PayPal Payout Currencies

PayPal can payout in almost any currency. The caveat is that you must pay their currency conversion fees to receive it in your ‘base’ or local currency. PayPal fees for international currency conversion are very high as can be seen in the fees breakdown table above. 

PayPal is now also acting to actively block attaching multi-currency accounts such as Wise Borderless account, WorldFirst World Account, OFX Global Currency account and the Airwallex multi-currency account solution. This means that a non-resident foreign multi-currency account can attract the same fees for payouts as using their own currency conversion fees. They do this by insisting that proof of business registration in the foreign country is provided. 

For example, if an Australian company selling in the USA and earning USD uses Airwallex’s local USD account, the Australian business must show that the bank account is associated with the USA registered business. Otherwise, they charge 3% payout of the USD to the local Airwallex USD banking details.

PayPal integrations

PayPal, third party developers and online seller platforms/marketplaces have made it very easy to integrate the PayPal payment gateway to their solution. This means that should you choose a platform or independent e-commerce store, it is quite straightforward to integrate PayPal payments with your shopping cart.

Shopify

Shopify e-commerce platform allows easy integration with PayPal payment platform. In fact, it is their default payment gateway configured on sign up to Shopify. A PayPal Express is automatically configured for your store. Unfortunately, Shopify charges you additional transaction fees if you don’t also activate Shopify Payments.

Woocommerce

PayPal Payments Pro, Express and Standard services have free integrations available with Woocommerce. There are also paid-for PayPal Woocommerce extensions that include additional features that may be of benefit to your online business and customer retention strategy.

Subscription payments are also supported with the ‘Woocommerce Subscriptions’ extension. Subscriptions extension comes with an additional cost from Woocommerce.

Easy Digital Downloads

Easy digital downloads (EDD) is a competitor to Woocommerce in the WordPress e-commerce shopping cart space. EDD tends to be more suited to digital products and subscription-based selling, while WooCommerce can be more suited to physical goods. Although WooCommerce is improving it’s product for the digital space rapidly. EDD provides a distraction-free customer checkout experience which can improve customer conversion rates. 

EDD provides PayPal ‘out of the box’ support for many of the PayPal merchant solutions. PayPal Plus is not supported at this time. Subscription or recurring payments are also supported by EDD.

The upshot

PayPal is a very well established payment gateway. PayPal has large supported for registration and transaction countries. PayPal's consumer digital wallet can improve customer conversions as their brand implies trust. This all comes at a hefty cost to the business and especially new or small e-commerce merchants who cannot negotiate fees. Some businesses may be forced to use PayPal due to lack of registration country support by competitor payment gateway. There is another option that can reduce costs for e-commerce merchants and that is to offer two payment gateway methods from their shopping carts. PayPal and a competitor. This can mean improving conversion of customers who trust the PayPal brand and used to using their consumer PayPal digital wallet. The alternative payment gateway method availability can capture customers without a PayPal digital wallet and reduce the cost of transactions and payouts for these transactions.

##sources-start##

PayPal merchant service supported countries - https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide

Shopify support for PayPal - https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/paypal

PayPal Checkout product page - https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-checkout

PayPal Canada merchant account fees - https://www.paypal.com/ca/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees

PayPal USA merchant account fees - https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees

PayPal Australia merchant account fees - https://www.paypal.com/au/webapps/mpp/paypal-seller-fees

PayPal New Zealand merchant account fees - https://www.paypal.com/nz/webapps/mpp/paypal-fees

PayPal Hong Kong merchant account fees - https://www.paypal.com/hk/webapps/mpp/paypal-seller-fees

PayPal Singapore merchant account fees - https://www.paypal.com/sg/webapps/mpp/paypal-seller-fees

PayPal UK merchant account fees - https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees

PayPal Germany merchant account fees - https://www.paypal.com/de/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees

PayPal Ireland merchant account fees - https://www.paypal.com/ie/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees

PayPal USA subscription payments support - https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/subscription-payments

##sources-end##

BrainTree Payments introduction

BrainTree is a PayPal company that provides payment gateway and merchant account services to businesses domiciled in the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR China, Malaysia, and New Zealand.

With BrainTree Payments, single payment and multi-currency payment setups are available for some registration countries. Few registration countries can use their existing merchant account versus using BrainTree as their merchant account. 

BrainTree custom merchant account support

Some registration countries can continue to use their existing merchant account instead of using BrainTree as the merchant account. Not using BrainTree as the merchant account can incur some additional fees. This is shown in the BrainTree pricing section below.

BrainTree single payment setup

A single payment setup is where your home currency and the ‘presentment’ currency are the same. This also means that the business settlement currency is the same. If a foreign card is used to purchase from your store, the customer is paying your home currency and therefore the card issuers bank is performing the currency conversion. 

BrainTree multi-currency payment setup

If your global business or e-commerce store primarily operates in foreign markets, it could make commercial sense to present pricing and payments in their foreign currency. This would reduce the additional currency conversion charges for the foreign customer and remove that barrier for customer conversion. Multi-currency account set-ups are not available to all supported countries. 

BrainTree settlement currencies and multi-currency account support

BrainTree can transact from 48 to 130 currencies depending on your business registration country. For countries where multi-currency accounts are supported the business can present pricing for transactions in more than one currency. 

Multi-currency account setups are not available for all BrainTree registration countries. BrainTree settlement currencies supported by default are shown in the table below. Where only a single currency is shown, the business will need to contact BrainTree to understand what multi-currency options are available.

*Braintree Canadian customers can only transact in Canada and the USA. There are no cross border FX fees. USA transactions need to be deposited in a USD denominated account. CAD transactions need to be settled in a CAD denominated account

If your BrainTree account can settle in your international customer presentment currency, your settlement bank may need to create an account for each currency. Otherwise, BrainTree will convert the presentment currency back into your base or home currency account. 

BrainTree charges an additional percentage variable fee to use the multi-currency account setup. This is shown in the pricing table below.

BrainTree Payments pricing

BrainTree does not charge subscription fees to use their payment service if you use their merchant account services.

Unlike most payment gateways, BrainTree does not always charge for non-domestic cards to be used. In a single currency account setup, the charge is passed on to the customer via their bank’s fees for transacting in a foreign currency. If multi-currency payment account setup is the best option for your business, another fee is charged for presenting and taking payments in foreign presentment currencies. These differences are shown in the table below.

Recurring or subscription billing does not have an additional charge. 

* This fee includes digital wallet transactions such as PayPal or Venmo.

** BrainTree payments clearly state that currencies are converted at the ‘best available market rates’. However, it may be that there is a hidden fee within the rate offered versus the market rate available.

*** This charge is for cards issued outside of the UK and EU.

**** This multi-currency settlement charge does not apply to merchants located in Ireland.

***** BrainTree does not explicitly say what the currency conversion rate is. However, with NZD accounts, BrainTree states that currencies are converted back to the home/base currencies at the best ‘best available market rates’. This is used in the assumption for 0%.

****** This charge is applied to multi-currency account configurations. If a single currency account is used. The foreign card issuing bank applies fees including currency conversion.

Do I need to use BrainTree’s merchant account?

BrainTree is explicit in their support and lack of support for custom merchant accounts for some registration countries. If non-BrainTree merchant accounts are supported, this will come with additional fees. For other countries, the answer to this question is not explicit. Therefore BrainTree support should be contacted. The upshot is that you do not need to use a different merchant account as BrainTree can perform both payment gateway and merchant account services.

BrainTree invoicing and receipts

BrainTree can generate receipts for transactions. However, this may not be sufficient for all businesses BrainTree may not be the single source of truth for customer transactions. Businesses may wish to use another platform to house their master data. This can greatly help with reducing admin and reconciliation costs. For this, third-party integrations should be considered. 

BrainTree Payments third-party integrations

BrainTree natively integrates with shopping cart solutions such as 3dcart, Woocommerce and BigCommerce. For larger or enterprise business, BrainTree has native integrations for SAP, Oracle E-Business, and Demandware among others. 

To automate subscription payments, there are native BrainTree integrations with Recurly and Zuora.

What if you need to integrate verified transacting customers with other SaaS products? Well, this is where BrainTree’s integration with Zapier comes in. 

BrainTree and Zapier integration

Through Zapier, BrainTree can provide access to over 2000 online applications. Once your BrainTree account is authenticated within Zapier, you can detect new customers or transactions and perform actions based on those triggers. For example, a new transaction and customer added to online accounting systems such as Quickbooks and Xero. The accounting platform can be the source of new sales receipts or invoices. This can save the business many administrative hours by maintaining the online accounting system as the single source of truth for transactions. There are many other examples of BrainTree and Zapier integrations that can help automate business processes.

The upshot

BrainTree has competitive pricing for Hong Kong and Singapore registered businesses. However, the price competitiveness is eroded in other registration countries with competing payment gateway solutions coming in slightly cheaper. Potential Braintree customers should consider what their business model needs from a payment gateway platform as other features and solutions offered can help reduce soft costs elsewhere in the business to offset gateway costs.

##sources-start##

BrainTree Single Payment setup - https://articles.braintreepayments.com/get-started/currencies#single-currency-setups

BrainTree USA pricing - https://www.braintreepayments.com/faq#pricing

BrainTree UK pricing - https://www.braintreepayments.com/gb/faq?locale=gb

BrianTree Ireland pricing - https://www.braintreepayments.com/ie/faq?locale=ie

BrainTree New Zealand pricing - https://www.braintreepayments.com/nz/braintree-pricing?locale=nz

BrainTree Canada pricing - https://www.braintreepayments.com/ca/faq?locale=ca

BrainTree Australia pricing - https://www.braintreepayments.com/au/faq?locale=au

BrainTree Hong Kong pricing - https://www.braintreepayments.com/hk/braintree-pricing?locale=hk

BrainTree Singapore pricing - https://www.braintreepayments.com/sg/braintree-pricing?locale=sg

BrainTree third-party integrations - https://www.braintreepayments.com/ca/features/third-party-integrations

BrainTree Zapier integration - https://zapier.com/apps/braintree/integrations

##sources-end##

eWAY Payments introduction

eWAY Payments is a payment gateway and merchant account provider in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. eWAYs pricing is highly competitive in Australia and the vast range of integrations built and available. 

eWAY pricing

* Customer incurs currency conversion costs if applicable. Shopping cart prices are displayed in the base currency the eWAY account is opened in. More on this in the multi-currency section below.

** eWAY New Zealand charges subscription fees

What are eWAY New Zealand account subscription fees?

eWAY New Zealand charges monthly fees to use their services. The higher the monthly fee, the lower the variable fee applied transaction processing. This means that higher transaction volumes eWAY customers can reduce their net fees by paying the higher monthly eWAY fees.

eWAY multi-currency support

Multi-currencies are accepted through eWAY. There is a catch however, the supported currencies are dependent on the merchant bank supporting that currencies receiving account. There’s another catch, unique eWAY accounts are needed to support each currency.

Can a business use an existing merchant account?

Yes, eWAY also provides payment gateway services for customers with existing merchant account facilities. If a business does not have an existing merchant facility, eWAY can provide one with their all-in-one plan.

eWAY integrations

eWAY stands out with the impressive list of platform integrations currently available. From Xero to Woocommerce, over 250 existing shopping cart solutions and software integrations are supported. 

##sources-start##

eWAY multi-currency options - https://go.eway.io/s/article/Multi-currency

eWAY Australia fees - https://www.eway.com.au/plans-pricing/

eWAY New Zealand fees - https://eway.io/nz/plans-pricing/

eWAY Singapore fees - https://eway.io/sg/plans-pricing/

eWAY Hong Kong fees - https://eway.io/hk/plans-pricing/

eWAY supported integrations - https://www.eway.com.au/app/

##sources-end##

Disclaimer: All the information gathered to create this payment gateway comparison tool is has been gathered from the payment providers website pricing pages and are referenced in the sources. Best effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information. Where a payment gateway provider offers different variable fees in conjunction with monthly fees, the lowest fee available was used in the comparison tool and detailed in the overview content of the provider. Visualping.io is used to monitor these sources for changes to the pricing detailed on this page. Businesses need to consider all factors before making a decision on which payment gateway provider is the best fit for their business in the short and long term.