How to Accept Payments Online | Top Payment Options for Your Business
Published Date: 03 Jan, 2023 | Updated Date: 05 Nov, 2024
Wondering how to accept payments online for your business?
Let’s look at some simple ways for you to collect payment through your website.
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Sometimes you don’t need full eCommerce functionality such as product catalogs, shopping carts and dedicated checkouts. WooCommerce and more robust payment solutions don’t make sense for those situations. If you DO need comprehensive eCommerce functionality then checkout our article How to Choose the Best eCommerce Platform for Your Business.
Here are some examples in which a lightweight payment solution is ideal:
- You have 5 or less products/services for sale
- You receive donations
- You charge custom consultation or coaching plans
- You only take deposits
- Receiving client payments from contract milestones
There are many different options to choose from and we always recommend you the best option for your business when you design a website with us. The following are popular options that will work for most businesses.
#1 WP Simple Pay with Stripe | How to Accept Payments Online
WP Simple Pay connects with Stripe to create payment forms on your website. You can collect one-time payments as well as subscriptions.
Your forms can include name your price, single fixed amount, multiple amount options and recurring payments. You can insert additional form fields to collect information about your clients.
Stripe has low processing fees while WP Simple Pay has an annual subscription fee. The forms are easy to create, simple and can be inserted directly into your web pages for a convenient client checkout flow.
#2 GravityForms with Stripe or Paypal |Â How to Accept Payments Online
GravityForms is a battle tested WordPress form plugin that is robust and flexible. With some of their add-ons you can integrate your forms with Stripe, Paypal and other payment gateways.
This can be used for name your price, fixed amount and recurring payments. Since GravityForms’ primary function is to create forms, you can add as many or as little fields into your checkout form.
Since we already use GravityForms on our client websites, it doesn’t add much to the complexity of the website’s technology stack to add the payment functionality. This means your website will load quickly. Learn more about why website speed is important to maximize your sales in our article How to Speed Up a Website.
Changing the look and feel of your GravityForms is more advanced as it needs to be done with the CSS coding language. We take care of this when building client websites or when requests as part of a managed service plan.
#3 PayPal | How to Accept Payments Online
I have to admit I’m not a fan of PayPal but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good service in certain situations.
Some markets expect businesses to offer PayPal. If that’s your industry then you probably want to make this available. If you are using WooCommerce then the option to pay with PayPal can be added to your other payment options. But this isn’t what I’m referring to right now.
You can create PayPal payment buttons which can easily be inserted into your web pages. All you have to do is create a free PayPal account, go to PayPal payment buttons in your settings, provide a name, a price and finally copy and paste the code into your webpage.
Another option is to generate a PayPal Me link. Your clients can use this link which allows them to type a custom amount to send you. This works well if you have an ongoing relationship with a customer, such as a coaching or consulting arrangement, or if you need to collect a one-off one-time payment.
These 3 simple payment methods will enable you to easily take payments on your website while providing a great user experience.
There are many more options to choose from. When picking your online payment system you’ll want to consider the growth trajectory of your business.
- Will you sell online courses?
- Are you planning on adding a subscription or membership?
- Will you ship physical products?
- Do you want to offer 1-click upsells as part of the checkout process (this can easily add 10% to your revenue)
- Do you have plans for an affiliate program?
- Will you offer coupons?
We’ll be happy to discuss your online payment needs in a complimentary consultation.
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