Almost anything is on the World Wide Web. A big chunk of our daily lives are carried out online, whether we accept it or not. Given such broad scope and range, it is of utmost importance that we, as netizens, understand and know which of these internet services are to be trusted and which ones should be disregarded. Especially when it comes to our finances.
On this article, we list and gauge what we think are the best online payment systems today. With literally tens of available options, with some free and some paid, we try our best to highlight what we believe are going to benefit you the most.
PayPal
Arguably the king of the hill when it comes to today’s online payment systems, PayPal is the world’s go-to payment acquirer, processing over $4 billion payments every year. Established in 1998, it is now an international e-commerce partner performing payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, personal usage, safe and secure deposits at Royal Vegas. It has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay for 12 years now.
PayPal takes 4.4% + $0.30 per transaction and asks for zero setup or monthly fees.
Amazon Payments
A subsidiary of Amazon, Amazon Payments provides a similar and competing alternative to PayPal. Complementing the vast user base of Amazon.com, the payment facility gives users the same checkout facility available on its mother website, which is great news especially for budding entrepreneurs who wish to sell internationally. Available for consumers, businesses and even developers, Amazon Payments provides a multitude of offerings for all sorts of applications.
To compete with PayPal, Amazon charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction over $10 but for under that amount, users are charged 5.0% + $0.05.
2Checkout
Another PayPal alternative, 2Checkout combines both merchant and payment gateways into a unified platform, with additional features such as shopping cart integration and recurring billing features.
2Checkout charges a 5.5% + $0.45 transaction rate, a tad more expensive than competitor PayPal but with more features and options especially for merchants.
Honourable Mention
Square
Square has the grand potential of one-upping PayPal by integrating credit card payments, point of sale systems and e-commerce into one central and rather cheap platform. Using its revolutionary card reader for mobile devices, the company enables merchants, big or small, to accept credit card transactions and integrate everything into their inventory and financial accounting.
Square has no signup, activation or monthly fees, but rather, users are charged 2.75% per swipe or online sale and 3.5% + $0.15 per manual transaction.
