PayPal Alternatives: 17 Best Online Payment Services & Solutions
Even though PayPal has just recently crossed over 377 million users in 2021, there are a lot of issues that are driving users away from PayPal towards PayPal alternatives.
This is particularly true in the case of businesses as PayPal imposes a lot of restrictions on business accounts and is also quite expensive.
But what is most astonishing is that, even if you have been a loyal customer to PayPal for a decade, your business account might get shut without any explanation given, without any warning and all your funds might get blocked.
These and many more similar reasons have led people to look for PayPal alternatives and our guide here is here to help with just that.
We have put together a list of the 17 best PayPal alternatives in the market for different types of businesses and how you can choose one that is best suited to your requirements.
Let us begin.
Why PayPal Alternatives?
1. High fee per transaction
One of the major drawbacks of PayPal is that the per-transaction fees can be very high especially for small business owners.
Depending upon the type of payment, the cost per transaction is also different.
Furthermore, you will also be charged a different rate depending on whether you are processing a domestic or an international transaction.
There are also many optional services that most business owners may opt for like advanced fraud management, additional risk factors, chargeback protection, and others. PayPal charges a per-transaction fee for each of them.
2. Account freezing without warning
There are a lot of complaints all over the internet about PayPal suddenly freezing accounts for as long as 180 days. If your account gets frozen, you will not be able to access the funds during the same time.
There is a lot of confusion over why this happens.
Generally, if you start receiving a large amount of money in your PayPal account, PayPal flags your account as suspicious even though your transactions could be perfectly legitimate.
Several other factors can influence this like the number of chargebacks against your business, complaints received by PayPal about your business, and others. PayPal also tends to freeze accounts that it finds are in “high-risk” industries.
3. Poor customer service
PayPal’s customer service is very poor. Often, you will be talking to a bot rather than a real human being and therefore you will not get a genuine solution. It is also difficult to find a number for their customer care center.
They are also known to shut down disputes and tickets before providing a real solution to them.
4. Takes time to process funds
You can collect your payments in your PayPal wallet and initiate a transfer when you want. However, the funds will take 2-4 business days to arrive in your account while several other options let you access your funds instantly.
5. Long verification process
There are two ways in which you can verify your account with PayPal. One is by adding your debit or credit card information directly. This ensures instant verification of your account.
The other method is by providing bank details to PayPal where it will then make two small deposits into your account which can take up to 6 business days. For most businesses, this can be a very long wait especially if they need to access their funds immediately.
This process has to be repeated every time you add a new bank account.
Best PayPal Alternatives for Online Payment
1. Due
Best PayPal alternative for freelancers looking for an advanced invoicing tool.
Due is an invoicing service that makes it easy to accept payments online by sending invoices to clients. This tool can be of great help to freelancers who have to bill their clients regularly for their services.
Getting started with Due is very easy. You can create your account by adding just a few basic details. You will then be directed to a dashboard where you can access all your invoices. You will be able to see the status of every invoice and check if they have been paid for.
You can also keep track of your recurring invoices from the same dashboards. Due lets you customize your invoices with your brand logo, payment terms, invoice number, and other important details.
It also lets you receive payments in 100+ currencies and supports 11 languages in which you can send the invoices.
Once your customers pay you, the funds come and get collected on the Due platform from where you can transfer it to your bank. If your clients haven’t yet paid you, you can even send them reminders about due payment.
You can process the payments through PayPal or Stripe or even accept debit and credit cards directly. For different transactions, there are different transaction rates for processing them.
Along with advanced invoicing features, Due also offers project management tools and tools for expense management which you can customize as per your needs. However, these come at a cost and are not included in the free version.
The project management software lets you add information about your tasks, create projects, add workflows and other features while the expense management feature lets you keep track of all your business expenses.
So if you are a freelancer, a contractor, or a small business, Due can be a very easy-to-use invoicing software but it lacks some accounting features and does not integrate with shopping carts and other platforms where you receive payments from your customers.
Pricing
Due’s website does not have any pricing information about their invoicing services. You will have to talk to their support team to get a quote for your business. However, of what is known, there is a free plan for freelancers with less than 3 clients.
Also, the cost of processing transactions starts at 2.8% per transaction.
Why Choose Due Over PayPal?
- If you are looking for an advanced invoicing tool, Due is a great tool as it not only has advanced invoicing features but also offers project management, expense, and time management tools.
- The costs of processing each transaction are also lower than PayPal.
2. Stripe
Best PayPal alternative with great developer tools.
Stripe is not just an online payments processor and does so much more than that. It offers a wide feature set, many tools for developers that also allows the flexibility to customize the service as per your business needs.
What makes Stripe more attractive is that it is extremely easy to use, the setup is quick and you can start accepting payments within minutes. You can either choose Stripe’s pre-built solutions, choose low code features or integrate with APIs.
If yours is a global business, your business could benefit from Stripe as it supports a wide range of payment options. It accepts all major debit and credit cards from customers in every country. It also supports wallets, buy now pay later, bank redirects, different currencies, and many more.
If you have a mobile application, Stripe also allows you to accept payments from your mobile app with just a few lines of code and no backend changes.
With Stripe, you can customize the checkout process the way you want across all your devices. There is a pre-built checkout page that you can customize to match your brand and your customer’s location and preferences.
Irrespective of your business model, i.e, whether you accept one-off payments, you have many recurring payments, or most of your payments happen in-store, Stripe’s programmable APIs support all of them and let you accept payments globally.
You can even customize your in-store checkout experience and integrate it with your online sales with Stripe’s Stripe Terminal.
Since online payments are susceptible to online frauds, Stripe deploys a machine learning fraud system known as Stripe Radar that helps businesses identify and prevent frauds. It also lets you add an extra layer of authentication so that fraud payments can be stopped before they happen.
Another useful feature that Stripe offers is its Unified Financial Reporting Feature which eliminates the need to create separate reports.
There is a built-in reporting feature that lets you create common reports like monthly reports, transfer reports, and others and also lets you build your own reports.
Once transactions are settled, with Stripe’s APIs it is also very easy to get paid. You can choose between unified payouts, multi-currency payouts, cross-border payouts, and instant payouts.
All of the features, customer information, plans, balances, Stripe data, and all other information can be accessed through Stripe’s central dashboard.
You can also access your Stripe account on your mobile and keep track of your new customers, payments, refund requests, and more on the go.
One of the features that makes Stripe a very desirable app among businesses is that it supports a wide range of integrations.
There are hundreds of pre-built integrations that let you bring your important business functions to one place. Right from creating an online store, to sending invoices to your customers or clients if you are a freelancer, a lot can be done using Stripe.
Pricing
There is no subscription fee or sign-up fees when you start using Stripe. You will only have to pay per successful transaction. For each transaction, Stripe charges a very small percentage of the transaction amount.
The base fee per transaction is 2.9% of the transaction plus 30 cents.
Why Choose Stripe Over PayPal?
- Stripe has a wider feature-set than PayPal and offers many more third-party integrations.
- The number of payment options that Stripe offers is many more than PayPal.
- While PayPal is easy to use, Stripe was built mainly for developers and offers them a lot of flexibility and customizations.
- Even though PayPal and Stripe both have reporting features, custom reports are available only with Stripe.
3. Dwolla
Best PayPal alternative with very low per-transaction costs.
Dwolla makes it easy for businesses to accept payments online without having to worry about the technicalities of processing funds. It offers a safe, hassle-free platform where businesses can easily receive payments from their customers or clients.
As a business, you will be required to verify your Dwolla account along with your bank details before you can start using it to transfer funds. Once verified, you can collect and store funds in your Dwolla wallet, use it to make payments, or transfer it to a business or personal account.
Dwolla is an especially useful service if you send or receive funds through ACH payments.
To send or receive funds on Dwolla, customers, as well as merchants, are required to verify their accounts.
Since this might take time, Dwolla offers instant account verification so that transactions can be processed instantly or it would cause a lot of lost business for merchants.
One can even send or receive funds on Dwolla without verifying their accounts but there is a limit of five thousand dollars per week.
If your business needs to make payments to multiple bank accounts at a time, Dwolla’s mass payment feature lets you transfer funds to up to five thousand bank accounts at once. You can also specify if you want all the transactions to be processed at once or at different times.
Similarly, if you need to collect recurring payments like rent from your customers, with Dwolla you can also collect recurring payments. If you are collecting payments for utilities, it even lets you collect different amounts in a recurring manner.
Suppose your business needs to send funds to its customers or process a refund, with Dwolla you will not have to wait for the bank to process the payment the next working day. It offers instant payouts to debit cards where the amount gets processed in less than 30 minutes.
In case you are doubtful about how Dwolla will work with your application, there is even a Sandbox feature where you can test your application with Dwolla.
For those looking for extensions that allow you to use Dwolla for more than just making payments, there are four integrations that it offers currently, i.e., QuickBooks, Sift, Slack, and Plaid.
Pricing
There are four different pricing plans that Dwolla offers depending on whether you want to pay per transaction, pay a monthly fee, or pay a one-time yearly fee. You should choose a plan based on the volume of transactions you predict you will process.
Why Choose Dwolla Over PayPal?
With Dwolla, you will be paying a very low per-transaction fee when compared to 2.9% if you choose PayPal. Even if you choose to pay per transaction, you will pay only 0.5% of each transaction with Dwolla.
4. Apple Pay
Best PayPal alternative for merchants that target Apple users.
While Apple Pay is a great payment processing service, it is useful only if your customers are Apple users. If you would like to target Android users as well, you will have to pair Apple Pay with another service that supports payments from other users as well.
Apple uses their NFC capability along with face recognition and fingerprint scanner to make online payments using Apple Pay possible,
Merchants can accept payments from customers using Apple Pay along with other payment methods but with Apple Pay, you do not have to handle your customer’s credit or debit card and bank details, therefore you do not have to deal with any sensitive information.
Choosing Apple Pay for receiving funds also indicates that your transactions are coming from verified sources due to the high levels of security that Apple has in place like face scanning and fingerprint scanner.
Customers can also simply make payments with one click through their Apple watches.
If your website provides Apple Pay, your customers can directly go to the payments page from the products page.
There are different ways in which you can integrate Apple Pay on your website, store, or application.
You can also accept payments using Apple Pay on the best eCommerce platforms like Miva, Shopify, Squarespace, Volusion, WooCommerce, and a few others which already have Apple Pay integrated with their platforms.
There are also several payment gateways, merchant acquirers, and other solution providers that integrate Apple Pay in apps and on the web. You can use an Apple Pay SDK or JavaScript API from a payment provider to include Apple Pay on your store or website.
Pricing
Apple does not charge customers or merchants for using Apple Pay to make or receive payments.
Why Choose Apple Pay Over PayPal?
- With Apple Pay, you do not have to pay any transaction fee like PayPal.
- For Apple users, Apple Pay makes it very easy to pay for goods and services if the merchants support Apple Pay.
5. Payoneer
Best PayPal alternative for receiving international payments quickly.
Payoneer provides a convenient platform for freelancers and global businesses to accept payments from international clients. Your Payoneer account acts as a wallet where your payments come and get collected.
You can then transfer the amount to your local bank account. If the amount is in a different currency, you can also get it converted to your local currency. Payoneer is present in 200+ countries and supports 150 currencies.
It is an ideal platform for freelancers because freelancers and agencies work with clients globally and need to accept payments from international clients.
Payoneer has also integrated with renowned marketplaces like Upwork, Fiverr, Amazon, Airbnb, and others. All of these platforms offer the option of getting paid through Payoneer.
Once your clients or customers pay you, the money comes to your Payoneer account and you can send it to your bank account or even withdraw it from an ATM. You can also make payments to other Payoneer accounts free of charge.
Payoneer also lets you process ACH transfers but they will charge an additional fee.
An attractive feature about Payoneer is that every account holder gets a Master Debit Card which they can use to make payments and even use in ATMs. This makes it easy to use the funds that you receive.
There is also a provision in Payoneer for recurring payments.
So if you need to charge your customers periodically for some service you provide, you will only require them to consent to the recurring charge and then Payoneer will automatically deduct the amount if the required balance is present in the customer’s account.
Often, as a business, you will have to raise invoices to request payments from your customers which can be a time-consuming process. With Payoneer, you can simply add the details needed by the client to pay you and Payoneer will send them a payment request.
Once the client makes the payment, the funds will be available to you instantly.
There are also several integrations that Payoneer offers like AdYogi, Invoicera, Lucria Consult, and others which enable users to do more than just receive payments using their PNR account.
Payoneer is also good if you are an eCommerce business owner who sells across different marketplaces and channels. You can link all your marketplaces and storefronts to Payoneer and collect all payments in one place.
Pricing
Payoneer does not have set pricing plans. If you receive funds from other Payoneer customers, there are no fees. There are different charges applicable depending upon the type of transaction.
There are also different charges applicable when you want to withdraw funds. These charges can range between 1.5-2% depending upon the currency that you choose.
Why Choose Payoneer Over PayPal?
- Even though Payoneer may charge you for currency conversions, the overall fee, in the end, will be much less than PayPal’s high transaction fees.
- Payoneer’s processes are much faster and smoother than PayPal’s. While PayPal takes 2-4 days to process payments, with Payoneer it gets done in 24 hours or less.
6. 2checkout
Best PayPal Alternative for eCommerce businesses.
2checkout is a good tool for eCommerce businesses and other businesses that will receive international payments from the sales of their goods and services. It also ranks very high on security and protects businesses from fraudulent transactions.
It covers 200+ countries, supports 45+ payment methods, is available in 30+ languages thereby making it a great option for global businesses. Your customers can pay using debit cards, credit cards, wallets, and pay in different currencies.
This reduces the rate of cart abandonment to a great extent due to this feature.
2checkout can be integrated with 120+ shopping carts like Shopify, Magento, Drupal BigCommerce, and others and choose between a hosted cart or an inline cart. It also deploys Geo-IP detection to provide customers relevant experiences depending on their locations.
It includes different tools like promotions, coupons, and discounts, cross-selling and upselling, upgrades and downgrades, bundling, and others that can help your eCommerce businesses generate more revenue due to higher conversions.
2checkout supports mobile payments and has a mobile-optimized checkout process but it is a very simple one and cannot be combined with a physical point-of-sales system.
There is also a subscription tool that can be used by businesses to collect recurring revenue on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis.
You can also use their advanced tools to prevent users from canceling their subscriptions, encourage them to renew expiring ones, and also let them pause their subscriptions, unlike most other service providers.
This provides users with better control and makes them stick around longer.
With 2checkout you also get analytics and reporting features that let you analyze the sales of your business. There are pre-configured and customizable reports to choose from.
While it helps you with your sales taxes and VAT, it also takes care of all the complications involved with receiving global payments.
2checkout is also quite renowned for its fraud management tools that deploy artificial intelligence as well as manual efforts to detect frauds before they happen. It also ensures that you do not lose business due to false alerts about frauds.
2checkout combines all of their offerings by bundling them in the form of three different products which serve different needs.
The 2Sell is for accepting online and mobile payments, 2Subscribe is for subscription-based businesses and 2Monetize is for businesses selling digital goods. You can also choose from add-ons if you want features that are not included in the products.
Pricing
2checkout sells its services in the form of three products, 2Sell, 2Subscribe, and 2Monetize. You can sign up for any of these for free and there are no monthly or yearly fees associated. But, there is a per-transaction fee which is different for each of the products.
Compared to other service providers, 2checkout’s per-transaction fees are quite costly.
Why Choose 2checkout Over PayPal?
- 2checkout supports many more payment methods and even accepts PayPal as one of those methods.
- You can easily integrate with 120+ shopping carts with very little or no coding knowledge.
- 2checkout’s fraud prevention mechanism is much more advanced than that of PayPal.
7. Amazon Pay
Adding an Amazon Pay option to your checkout page can increase the conversion rates on your website and reduce cart abandonment rates. By adding the Amazon Pay option to your page you can easily accept payments from Amazon customers.
Amazon customers can then use any of the payment methods saved in their Amazon accounts.
This is an especially beneficial feature considering that Amazon has over 300 million active customers.
To use Amazon Pay for your business, you will need to open an Amazon Seller’s account even if you do not intend to sell your products on Amazon.
Once you start selling, to receive the funds that will arrive in your Amazon Pay account, you will be required to set up your ACH checking account in Seller Central and add a valid credit card number.
Amazon Pay integrates with many shopping carts like Shopify, Magento, Zuora, BigCommerce, and others and lets you add an Amazon Pay button to your shopping cart easily.
You also do not have to worry about the checkout experience as it gets integrated with Amazon’s checkout process.
Amazon Pay supports recurring payments and lets you collect payments on a subscription basis and one-time payments with a subscription.
With Amazon Pay, you will also have access to Amazon’s Sellers’ dashboard where you will be able to manage orders, process refunds, and view sales reports. It also lets you process refunds using the funds that you have received from other orders.
When you choose Amazon Pay, you get a lot of the features that Amazon deploys on their platform, like fraud prevention technology. It also offers merchants a Payment Protection Policy which protects merchants from extra charges due to fraudulent transactions.
If you would like to accept voice-enabled payments through Amazon’s Alexa, you can also do so by choosing the plan that supports Alexa.
Pricing
Amazon Pay charges per-transaction fees where there is a domestic processing fee and an authorization fee.
While the authorization fee remains the same, i.e. $0.30, the processing fee changes depending on whether you choose voice-enabled payments, have international payments coming in or choose the web and mobile solution.
Why Choose Amazon Pay Over PayPal?
- Unlike PayPal, Amazon Pay does not take your customers to a different website to complete the payment.
- The checkout process is very streamlined with Amazon Pay.
8. Square
Best PayPal alternative with unique all-in-one solutions for all kinds of businesses.
Irrespective of the industry you are in or the type of your business operations, Square has different solutions for every business.
Whether you want to send invoices to your clients, collect payments for your restaurant orders, or set up an online store and sell your services, Square can help.
Square is an all-in-one, feature-rich solution that can help businesses in different stages of the business cycle.
Whether you have your online store or you are planning to set one up, Square helps you right from setting up your online store with their responsive website builder to setting up your delivery channels and also helps you set up your payments processing system.
It also syncs with your inventory, inventory control processes, your social media channels, and others. With Square, you can even start selling on Facebook and Instagram and can add a payments button to your web page if you have one.
You can also integrate it with your existing software using Square’s API and add Square’s payment processor to your application.
With Square, you can set up a retail store, an appointment booking website, an online restaurant website, and more and accept payments for all of them online.
If yours is a brick-and-mortar store, Square’s POS systems will help you effortlessly manage all your bookings, orders, deliveries, payments from one software. You can also integrate it with your online POS system so that all your transactions are in one place.
Depending on your industry and business type, there are different types of POS system software that you can choose from.
Square is also helpful if you want to collect payments for something but do not have a website. It will let you send a link, a QR code, or a buy button which you can send to anyone to collect payments, no website is needed.
Unlike most other service providers, your customers will not have to make an account with Stripe to make the payments.
Once you receive payments from your customers, they get deposited in your Square account.
Square has recently started offering a Mastercard debit card which makes it possible to access your funds directly or else it takes 1-2 days to transfer it to your bank account with the standard transfer.
You can also avail of the instant transfer feature if you need the funds urgently.
Apart from those mentioned above, Square’s offerings are vast.
It provides small business loans to business owners. It also helps in marketing your business by providing inbuilt email marketing tools and also lets you see the efforts of your marketing campaigns using the analytics feature on the dashboard.
There are also several team management tools that you get with Square, like full-service payroll, automated tax filings, and employee benefits all in one place.
While you can integrate Square with other software, you can also integrate with apps from the marketplace like MailChimp, GoDaddy, Wix, WooCommerce, and others.
Pricing
Your total cost while Square will depend mainly on the software and hardware that you choose. After that, you will be charged on a per-transaction basis where the charge will depend on the mode of payment chosen to make the payment along with a processing fee.
Why Choose Square Over PayPal?
- Square has a robust POS software including better inventory management and back-office features.
- With Square, you can create your own website from scratch but with PayPal, you need to have an existing website to be able to use it.
- Square offers many more integrations than PayPal.
9. Wise
Best PayPal alternative with the best exchange rates for international transfers.
Previously known as TransferWise, Wise is quite popular in the United States and also in different parts of the world for international money transfers. However, it is not just for money transfers. There is so much more you can do with Wise.
As a business, you can pay due invoices online by just using your recipient’s email address and bank account number. Your recipients do not have to be users of Wise, unlike many service providers.
You can also send invoices to your clients and let them send you the money in their local currency. You can also link your Wise account to online storefronts in the currency that you want to sell in and receive funds in that currency.
These days businesses are mostly global and due to the pandemic, almost all businesses have been functioning online. Wise helps businesses by letting them pay all their employees locally and internationally with just one click.
Instead of sending payments to each employee individually, you can upload a spreadsheet with bank details of up to a thousand employees and make the payments instantly. It also lets team members work together on these payments so that the work can be shared.
Wise makes it possible to bank in other countries irrespective of where you reside. However, you need to check the supported currencies to see if you can send and receive the funds.
While Wise facilitates bank transfers, it also supports different payment methods like credit cards, Apple Pay and Android Pay.
If you have to use the funds you receive by fulfilling orders for your business, Wise provides debit cards that can be used for business expenses. You can even get cards for your team members so that they do not have to use their personal cards for business transactions.
Your office might have branches or you might have to pay rent, EMIs, and transfer funds to other businesses. But processing these payments through banks can take a lot of time. Instead Wise lets you transfer the funds directly between accounts without involving banks.
To start using Wise, you will be needed to create a Wise account which you can do for free. You will then receive an IBAN code, a sort code, and other details that you need to bank abroad. You can then start receiving funds and make payments using your Wise account.
Wise has a mobile application from where you can keep track of all your transactions and see the activity of your team members who have been given access. You will also receive a notification every time you receive a business payment.
The best feature about Wise is that you get to see the real-time exchange rates and can exchange your currencies with transparency.
Pricing
You can create an account for free with Wise but there are currency conversion fees that you will have to pay for each transaction depending on the currency. You will also be charged a small fee if you hold more than €70k.
You will also be charged a one-time fee of 16 GBP if you need bank account details to receive funds.
As your sales volume increases the fee that you pay decreases.
Why Choose Wise Over PayPal?
- Wise lets you transfer funds internationally with very little transfer fees, unlike PayPal’s high charges.
- Also, Wise does not make money off the exchange rates and you can directly see the real-time exchange rates when you make the transfer.
10. Stax by Fattmerchant
Best PayPal alternative for businesses growing rapidly.
While Stax may be a great option if your business is growing and you start receiving larger traffic of transactions, the signup process needs some time as you will have to fill up some applications. So you will not be able to accept payments instantly.
Stax accepts different modes of payments, like credit and debit cards, ACH payments, contactless payments, mobile payments, and others. Once your funds arrive, you can access them within 24 hours.
It also offers cloud-based terminals and other in-person payments which could be great for businesses that have physical stores where they operate from.
You can raise invoices with Stax and send them to your customers via text or mail and also save their information for future use so that you do not have to re-enter their details in the future. It also lets you send reminders when your payments are due.
With Stax, you can store customer information in an organized manner in their CRM and it even lets you integrate with third-party CRM software.
When you sign up with Stax, you also get access to their unified dashboard where you can access all your transactions and orders and also use the powerful analytics tools that it has to gain insights.
This dashboard gives you insights into your sales trends and helps in identifying areas of growth.
Stax is a great tool if you are an eCommerce business owner as it lets you integrate with your existing shopping cart and also lets you create a shopping cart and integrate with Stax. There are even built-in templates to do that instead of hiring developers.
It also offers integrations with several third-party tools and applications but to access them you will need to pay a monthly subscription.
Pricing
Stax charges a monthly fee depending upon the stage of growth your business is in. However, irrespective of the package you choose, you will get an all-in-one solution designed for each business stage.
There may also be a per-transaction fee depending on the plan you choose.
Why Choose Stax by Fattmerchant Over PayPal?
Stax by Fattmerchant has features that are specifically targeted at helping businesses get information about their sales performance and assist growing businesses rather than just acting as a payment processor.
11. Skrill
Best PayPal alternative for businesses operating in high-risk industries.
Skrill was initially called Moneybookers and was used for transferring and storing gambling wins, which is why people are often skeptical when it comes to Skrill. However, it has evolved now and provides a variety of payment processing services for businesses.
Reviews state that if your business belongs to a high-risk industry, you will have a relatively easier time processing your transactions with Skrill than other service providers. Skrill’s fees are also on the higher side for the same reason.
Now let us talk about how you can integrate Skrill with your operations. It is very simple to integrate Skrill into your eCommerce store. It has integrations with many shopping carts and eCommerce websites like WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and others.
It supports over 100 local payment methods, and 40+ currencies so you can provide your customers the flexibility to choose their desired mode of payment.
Customers do not have to be a user of Skrill in order to make payments if your website offers Skrill payments. Instead, they can save their payment details with Skrill and opt for a 1-Tap payment and proceed to a quick checkout.
You can offer hosted payments to your customers or wallet payments. You can also collect recurring payments using Skrill. However, it might not be very advanced when compared to some other service providers.
With Skrill, merchants can also process a large number of payments at once instead of paying each recipient individually.
It is fully PCI-compliant so you do not have to worry about the security of the information your customers submit.
Pricing
Skrill offers different fees for different transactions. For example, if you do an international transfer by credit card, you will be charged 2.99% while the exchange rate mark-up could be up to 4.99%.
If you are sending money to another Skrill user, it will however be free of cost.
Now, if you are a “True Skriller” you will be able to save on a lot of fees because of the exclusive benefits that are offered to True Skiller. All you have to do is download the app, verify your identity, and make an eligible deposit.
Why Choose Skrill Over PayPal?
- Skrill is much cheaper than PayPal.
- If you are in a risky industry, your account may soon be closed by PayPal whereas Skrill supports high-risk industries.
- Skrill also supports more currencies than PayPal.
12. Venmo
Best PayPal alternative for small businesses.
Venmo is a very popular peer-to-peer payment processing mobile application with a wide user base which gives business users a solid reason why they must sign up for Venmo so that customers can pay them using Venmo.
Your customers can pay your business the same way they use Venmo to make payments to their friends. However, Venmo is only available on mobile phones and supports payments only on mobile applications.
To start accepting payments through Venmo, all you have to do is create a Venmo business profile and set it up with your profile picture. Until you link a bank account to Venmo, all the funds you receive will get collected in your Venmo account.
Once you link your bank account, you can get the funds in your bank account in 1-2 business days. For instant transfers, you will be charged 1% of the transfer amount.
There is also a Venmo card that you can use to access your Venmo balance through ATMs or other stores.
If you already have a personal account, you can create a business account with the same email but you can keep your personal and business transactions separate. You can also switch between the accounts with just a tap.
Once you set up your account, your customers can pay you directly through the app, in-store, or by simply scanning a QR code unique to your business. You can place a QR code at the POS in your store and provide a no-contact payment option to your customers.
You can also send targeted promotions and cashbacks or other rewards to your customers once they make payments to you.
Now, if you are wondering that customers can only pay you by looking you up on the Venmo app, then there is good news.
You can also integrate the Venmo payment option on your website or your mobile application store so that customers can link their Venmo wallets and use the wallet balance or saved card details in Venmo to make payments.
However, one major drawback is that even though it is extremely convenient and ideal for small business owners, Venmo serves only in the US. Also, even though the comparison here is between PayPal and Venmo, Venmo is owned by PayPal.
Pricing
Signing up with Venmo is free of cost and for the first month, there will be no transaction fee charged to the seller after which the cost of each transaction is 1.9% plus $0.10.
On the other hand, when customers use their credit cards to make payments on Venmo, they are charged 3% of the transaction cost.
Why Choose Venmo Over PayPal?
- Venmo is much easier to operate than PayPal and the cost of processing transactions is also lesser.
- It is also a much more convenient option for small business owners in the US as compared to PayPal.
13. Google Pay
Best PayPal alternative for getting customer payments quickly and easily.
Previously known as Google Wallet, Google Pay is all about making the customer checkout process seamless and helping businesses grow by accepting a wide variety of payment methods.
Since Google has a wide user base and there is a lot of card information saved on the accounts, with Google Pay, customers can simply pay through one of their cards saved in the accounts.
The best thing about Google Pay is that it is absolutely free to the customer as well as the business. There are no transaction fees associated with any transaction. It is also extremely easy to get started with Google Pay by simply integrating with the API.
Also, once the customer transfers the funds, they will get credited to your associated bank account immediately without any delay.
Not only does it make the shopping experience of customers better, but Google Pay also allows customers to sign up and sign in across all their devices.
This way your customers can save their coupons, tickets, loyalty program vouchers and access them whenever they want.
Surveys have shown that this feature has been helpful in increasing the conversion rates significantly.
Once your customers save your loyalty cards on Google Pay, you can even send them personalized coupons and rewards to help retain the customers.
If yours is a business that needs your customers to have tickets, you can even streamline your ticketing through Google Pay. Your customers do not have to look through their texts and emails to find a ticket.
Google Pay also allows its customers to make payments or their saved coupons and gift cards by simply holding their phones to NFC point-of-sale terminals.
Now, unlike many other service providers, setting up Google Pay for your business is extremely easy and is a 4-step process. You can first review the developer documentation, get access to the APIs, integrate with your platform, test, and go live.
If you would like to see how Google Pay fits into your business, you can check their resources page which has a lot of useful information and case studies on how other businesses benefited from Google Pay.
Pricing
You do not have to pay any fee to use Google Pay’s services.
Why Choose Google Pay Over PayPal?
- Unlike PayPal’s high per-transaction fees, Google Pay does not levy any charges for the transactions.
- While PayPal needs 2-4 business days to process funds, Google Pay lets you access your funds immediately in your bank account.
14. WePay
Best PayPal alternative for online marketplaces.
WePay is targeted at platform owners instead of merchants as WePay ties up with platforms and then provides branded services through them. It allows brands to white-label WePay’s payment processing services as their own payment solution.
So if you are an eCommerce platform, named XYZ, you can partner with WePay and have your own XYZ payment processor which will be powered by WePay.
When merchants sign up on your platform, they will be able to receive payments from their customers using your white-labeled solution.
Unlike other service providers, you will be able to use WePay only if you are using one of their Partner Platforms and will not be able to sign up just for WePay as you can with PayPal, Stripe, and others.
Thus, platform owners get their own payment processing software without having to worry about the backend work.
Platform owners can integrate with WePay’s APIs and then customize their payment processor according to their brand image.
WePay’s website can be quite difficult to understand and they do not clearly mention their pricing. But it is known that while WePay charges its Partner Platforms a fee per transaction, the platform can then charge an additional fee according to their wish.
So even though it looks like the platform you have signed up with is processing the payment, it is actually WePay doing the processing work. It supports ACH transfers and credit card payments.
WePay offers different solutions for its partner platforms so that they can help merchants accept payments through different methods. If the platform has a POS system, it also integrates with the system and lets the platform customize it.
So merchants on the platform can let their customers pay through different POS solutions.
It also offers several fraud-protection and risk management tools so that all the merchants signing up on partner platforms know that they are covered from different payment-related security risks.
Overall, WePay may seem like a very complicated platform at first but it is actually a great platform as platforms do not have to worry about the intricacies of accepting financial payments and they can provide merchants with many options to receive payments from their customers.
Pricing
Signing up with WePay is free of cost but they do charge a per-transaction fee to platforms for processing transactions. The platforms then have the freedom to add an additional fee and charge the merchants.
There is no minimum subscription period. Platforms will have to talk to the sales team to get a better idea of the payments as there is no clear information on the site.
Why Choose WePay Over PayPal?
If you are an online marketplace looking to have your own payment processor but do not want to worry about setting up the backend work, WePay will help you do that while PayPal will just let you accept payments from customers.
15. QuickBooks Payments
Best PayPal alternative for freelancers and small businesses.
When you look at QuickBooks Payments’ feature set, it looks like an ideal tool for freelancers to manage their payments and get paid by their clients. But, it is also a great tool for small business owners.
Right from raising invoices, to making payments to others, with QuickBooks Payments you can do them all. You can also use QuickBooks GoPayments mobile application to make and receive payments from your mobile phone on the go.
With QuickBooks Payments, not only can you raise invoices and send them to your customers, but you can also set reminders so that they get notified when the payment is due. Your customers can then make the payments through debit or credit cards and even bank transfer.
Once your customers make the payments, the funds will get credited to your bank account the next business day. If you want your funds immediately, you can pay an extra 1% on the transfer amount and get the funds transferred to your Payments account if eligible.
Simultaneously, QuickBooks Payments will also update your records to say that you received the payment.
When you sign up with QuickBooks Payments you get a card reader which you can use to collect payments from your customers. So when you have to collect payments from your customers, you can either type in their bank details or ask them to swipe or tap their cards on the reader.
QuickBooks Payments lets your customers pay you using different methods apart from debit and credit cards like ACH payments and eChecks.
If you have to collect regular payments from your clients, you can even schedule them as recurring charges and automatically collect payments on the set dates.
For eCommerce store owners, QuickBooks Payments also integrates with online stores like Shopify, WooCommerce, and others so that you can collect payments from your customers through QuickBooks Payments.
Pricing
There are no signup fees, monthly fees, or termination fees while using QuickBooks Payments, but there are different charges per transaction depending on the type of payment made by customers.
For ACH payments, a 1% fee is charged. Along with the per-transaction fees, a small fee of ¢25 will be levied.
Why Choose QuickBooks Over PayPal?
QuickBooks Payments has an advanced invoicing system when compared to PayPal where business owners can not only raise invoices but also set reminders until payments are received and then update books accordingly when they are received.
16.
Best PayPal alternative for merchants looking for a payment gateway.
Authorize.net provides a wide range of features that helps merchants offer many payment options to their customers and collect payments from global customers easily. But it is primarily a payment gateway.
With Authorize.net customers can make payments from anywhere and merchants can receive their payments online, at retail locations, and through mobile devices. Customers can pay using debit cards, credit cards, e-checks, and as well as digital payments.
When merchants choose Authorize.net they can also support PayPal, Apple Pay, and Visa Click to Pay. It lets you convert your PC into a virtual POS system by just connecting it with a compatible card reader.
It lets you simplify your customers’ checkout experience by letting them store their payment information securely. You do not have to worry about security as Authorize.net stores the data on their secure servers.
Authorize.net is also PCI compliant so you can be assured about the safety of your customer data. Their Advanced Fraud Detection Suite ensures that any fraud transaction is detected before it even happens and prevents them.
You can also connect your phone or your tablet and convert it into a mobile POS. You can then view all transactions, change settings, and process refunds by downloading the free mPOS app.
For businesses that receive orders through mail or phone, there is a virtual terminal where the details of the transactions can be entered manually.
If you need to bill your customers periodically, Authorize.net has a subscription billing feature that takes care of the monthly, weekly, or yearly payments. All their information is stored in the Customer Information Manager (CIM).
Sometimes you may lose sales if your customer’s payment becomes outdated. With Authorize.net’s account updater you do not have to worry about manually updating the information as it gets automatically updated in the CIM.
Like many other PayPal alternatives, Authorize.net also offers an invoicing feature where it lets you raise invoices and also keep track of them. You can customize each invoice and even offer your customers discounts or partial payment options through the invoices.
Pricing
To ensure you get paid, you will need a merchant account. If you already have a merchant account and just want to use Authorize.net’s payment gateway, you can opt for the gateway-only plan.
There is also an all-in-one option that sets you up with a merchant account and along with the payment gateway. For both, the monthly gateway costs $25 while the per-transaction fee differs slightly.
Why Choose Authorize.net Over PayPal?
Authorize.net’s feature set is much wider than PayPal and many of its features are quite advanced.
17. Braintree
Best PayPal alternative for eCommerce platforms.
Braintree is a merchant account provider but it also offers payment gateways to merchants who have merchant accounts with other providers. However, opting only for the payment gateway might turn out to be much more expensive than the industry average.
Braintree saw exponential growth after being founded in 2007 and was later acquired by PayPal in 2013, and since then is known as Braintree – A PayPal Service.
The merchant accounts provided by Braintree are underwritten by Fiserv and can be a great assurance for merchant account holders. It is a great choice for eCommerce businesses but not so much for retail-only businesses.
There are four different products that Braintree offers, i.e., Braintree Direct, Braintree Extend, Braintree Marketplace, and Braintree Auth.
If you want to sell your products online and also receive payments for them online, the Braintree Direct option is ideal for you. It lets merchants accept a wide variety of payment options like debit cards, credit cards, digital wallets, PayPal, and others.
With it also comes the recurring billing feature which allows you to automatically charge customers who make purchases from you on a subscription basis. It also takes care of updating customer details with the Account updater.
You can also design the checkout experience that you want your customers to have and save their information for enabling faster checkout. Braintree is PCI compliant so you do not have to worry about customer data security.
With Braintree Extend you can share payment data with partners, other merchants, or service providers so you can extend eCommerce experiences along with partner content that customers trust.
Now, the Braintree Auth is ideal for you if you provide invoicing services, analytics, or recurring billing to merchants who use Braintree. Such merchant service providers can partner with the Braintree merchants and take authorized action on their behalf.
This way you can offer value-added services without really worrying about the backend processes. All you have to do is authorize a merchant service provider that provides those services.
If you are a marketplace business, you can find several tools for your business with Braintree Marketplace to make the customer experience seamless and also to streamline your operations.
Braintree also has several fraud protection tools to offer that can significantly reduce chargebacks, false positives, and fraud transactions. With its reporting feature, you can get a clear picture of every transaction through several different reports that Braintree offers.
Pricing
There are no monthly fees, compliance fees, early termination fees, or signup fees. There is a standard fee of 2.9% + $0.30 that you will be charged per transaction.
There are some additional fees you may be charged for certain types of transactions like for payments in non-USD currency and others.
Why Choose Braintree Over PayPal?
- Braintree offers high customization which makes it a better option than PayPal which offers very simple solutions.
- The payment options that Braintree supports are also much more varied than PayPal.
How to Choose the Best PayPal Alternative?
1. Transaction fees
PayPal’s per transaction fee can be very high which is why many business owners start looking for alternatives. While choosing the best PayPal alternative, make sure you choose a service that has a low per-transaction fee.
Look for the service providers with the lowest per-transaction cost like Dwolla that charges 0.5% per transaction and Venmo that charges 1.99% of the transaction cost. They may also charge a small processing fee, but often that is quite negligible.
2. Monthly fees
The best PayPal alternative will be the one that also does not charge any monthly or yearly subscription fee. This way, you do not have to be stuck with a service that you do not like or that does not meet your requirements.
Also, make sure that they do not charge you for early termination or subscription cancellation.
Some of the best PayPal alternatives that do not charge their customers any monthly or yearly subscription are Stripe, Square, 2checkout, and others.
3. Industry-specific requirements
You may be a freelancer, or a contractor, or may have a restaurant. Every profession will have its own requirements. Ensure that the service provider that you choose fulfills the requirements of your industry.
For example, if your restaurant needs a virtual POS to enter customer orders manually then opt for . It also lets you connect a card reader to your computer and make it a POS.
4. Purpose of use
What is the purpose that you want to address?
Are you looking for a payment processor that has advanced invoicing tools like Due or one that has a virtual terminal like QuickBooks Payments, or are you looking for one that also helps you expand your business like Stax by Fattmerchant?
Choose the best PayPal alternative that best addresses your requirements.
5. Supported currencies
If you expect to receive international payments, see to it that the PayPal alternative that you choose supports the currencies you want to get paid in. Ideally, it should also have a transparent currency conversion rate like Wise.
6. Integrations
Choose a service provider that lets you integrate with your CRMs and accounting tools or invoicing tools. This helps you do much more than just process payments using the PayPal alternative that you choose.
You can also evaluate the best accounting software for small businesses or other software for your business and check which PayPal alternative supports the same.
7. Invoicing capabilities
A very important feature that you must look for in the best PayPal alternatives is the invoicing capabilities. It should let you raise invoices to collect payments from your customers and collect payments from them through different methods.
The best PayPal alternative will also let you send reminders for due payments like Stax by Fattmerchant and Due. It could also go a step ahead like QuickBooks Payments and even update your records automatically to say that you received the payment from a particular client.
You can also consider other best billing and invoicing software if that is your only area of concern so that you get specialized software.
8. PCI compliance
Since you will be dealing with the sensitive financial information of your customers, it is best to choose a service provider that is PCI compliant.
PCI compliance is an ongoing process that prevents security thefts and payment card data theft.
9. Fraud detection and prevention
The best PayPal alternative will have a fully functional and effective fraud detection and prevention system in place which will help your business by detecting and preventing fraudulent transactions even before they happen.
10. Chargeback protection
Businesses are charged by payment processors for chargebacks and PayPal even blocks accounts if there are many chargebacks against one account.
Chargeback protection ensures that your sales are protected from fraudulent claims, chargebacks, and disputes. When such disputes do occur, chargeback protection ensures that the cost incurred gets waived and the disputed amount gets reimbursed to you.
Ensure the best PayPal alternative offers chargeback protection.
PayPal Alternatives FAQ
PayPal has several competitors but the leading ones would be Skrill, Square, Payoneer, and Stripe.
PayPal reserves the right to shut down or freeze accounts for any reason that they find fit without any explanation given. They might also freeze accounts for up to 180 days if they find any suspicious activity happening on your account.
This could happen if you suddenly start receiving a lot of money in your account or someone raises a complaint against your business. It could also happen if there are many chargebacks against your account.
Some great PayPal alternatives for small businesses are QuickBooks Payments, Google Pay, and Venmo. You could evaluate each of these options to see which one addresses your business needs the best.
Which PayPal Alternative Should I Choose?
Now that you have read so far, it is safe to assume that you did not have a good experience with PayPal or you’ve read some bad reviews about it which is why you are looking for alternatives.
This guide should have helped you narrow down on a few service providers and you can then make your decision depending on your individual business needs, the currencies that you want to receive payments in, and most importantly your budget.
If you are a small business, Venmo, Google Pay, and QuickBooks Payments are good choices. Freelancers looking at receiving funds regularly from clients can on the other hand choose between Due, Wise, Stax by Fattmerchant.
For eCommerce platforms, there is Braintree and 2checkout. For high-risk industries that PayPal does not support, there is Skrill.
If the cost per transaction is your main area of concern, you can give Dwolla’s free plan and low pricing some thought.
It all depends upon the industry you are in and the type of payments you want to receive. Carefully evaluate your options and make the right choice. Always choose a service that does not lock you in for a long time.