When it comes to starting your first eCommerce website, there’s a few essentials you’re going to need to be successful. A reliable hosting package where you can actually base your site is one, a powerful, low cost payment gateway for accepting and processing payments from your customers is another.
In this day and age, most good hosting packages support a number of leading payment gateways, but that’s not to say that they’re all alike. Below, we present our guide to the top five payment gateways to use when starting your online store with a cheap web hosting package.
PayPal
There’s no doubt at all that you’ve heard of PayPal. Chances are you even have an account that you’ve used in the past for shopping on eBay, but did you know that it provides an awesome solution for accepting payments through your website.
Best of all, even if you don’t have a PayPal account, you can still use its eCommerce payment gateway simply by logging on with your email address.
Using the service, you can accept credit cards, debit cards, PayPal transfers and several other payment methods. It comes already integrated into some online shopping platforms such as WordPress WooCommerce, Shopify and other eCommerce website builders.
There’s no monthly fees to pay, with the costs coming in the form of slightly higher transaction fees, making it an ideal solution for smaller businesses, though if there’s one thing we like best, it’s that all of the technical payment processing stuff is done away from your site, meaning there’s nothing complicated to set up.
Authorize.net
One of the most widely used eCommerce payment gateways on the net, Authorize is an awesome solution for creating fully customisable payment forms, a great plus point if you’re fed up with having to go deep into the heart of your back-end code to change your sales forms.
As with PayPal, all major -and some not so major- payment methods are accepted, and this is also one of the best solutions we’ve come across for accepting payments via mobile devices.
Recurring billing is also supported, making Authorize a popular choice for subscription-based business models, whilst the monthly fee is one of the most competitive around.
Stripe
Though it hasn’t been around half as long as some of its long-tenured competitors, Stripe is quickly making waves as one of the best new payment gateways around, recommended by both online businesses and web experts alike.
Seamless integration into websites on top hosting packages (Such as those found here – http://www.cheapwebhostingnow.co.uk), coupled with low transaction rates and no monthly fee make this a popular choice.
2CheckOut
Launched just before the turn of the century, 2CheckOut is one of the best payment gateway options for international sales, as its one of the few tools on this list that is compatible with websites in well over 200 countries.
That’s not the only reason why we like this one though. Specialist services for downloadable products and subscription based businesses, as well as mobile payment processing and the relative simplicity of set up and integration make this a firm favourite, despite the fact that, at 5.5% per transaction outside of the US, it does come with some of the most expensive transaction fees of any payment gateway.
SecurePay
Another top choice used by countless leading eCommerce sites on the net, SecurePay have been helping businesses of all shapes and sizes to securely process online payments for well over a decade now.
Though it’s one of the more expensive options around, it’s worth the investment for heavy duty online selling and higher levels of online security.