10 Best Payment Processing Companies [Complete Review]

Processing payments can be a drag, and if something goes wrong, a major disaster! If you run an e-commerce store or are a brand that generally sells products and services, you know what we’re talking about. Messed-up payment processing can easily make a good day of sales into a nightmare for your bookkeeping, and your accountant probably won’t be too happy.

These days it seems that digital technology has a solution for everything. Fortunately, this also includes transactions. There are payment processing tools that manage your company’s transactions and sales without you having to crunch the numbers manually.

So, let’s dive in the Top 10 best payment processing companies!

Source: Pixabay, Digital Payment

Almost 800 million consumers worldwide use non-cash payments as their preferred method of payment. Paying for things through a debit or credit card is easier and faster than paying in cash. This is why it’s essential to provide your customers with the option of paying through a cashless channel.

Consumers no longer carry or prefer paying through cash. Statistics show that 3 out of every ten consumers in America reported not using cash for their day-to-day purchases in a given week.

These are some of the primary reasons why cash is no longer the reigning method of payment globally.

Why Cash No Longer Reigns Supreme

These are the top seven reasons why cashless payments are so compelling for consumers and businesses alike.

1. It’s a Time Saver

You know when you’re standing in line at a grocery store, and the cashier just told you your total bill, and you’re rummaging through your wallet in a blind panic because you can feel angry shoppers getting impatient behind you?

We’ve all been there. Your entire life flashes before your eyes in those few painfully long seconds. When you finally gather the wads of cash to pay, you’re tasked with having to put your change back in your wallet as quickly as possible. Paying through cash isn’t known for being a time-saver. Paying through a card or online, however, is!

Consumers prefer paying through their debit or credit cards because it saves them time and the extra hassle of carrying a certain amount with them at all times. Similarly, processing cash payments is more time-consuming than processing digital payments. Having your transactions processed by a third party saves company time that can be better utilized elsewhere.

2. It’s More Convenient

The time-saving aspect of digital payments already makes them more convenient than cash payments. Additionally, paying for purchases through a debit or credit card is significantly more convenient if you consider online shopping.

Consumers don’t have to be physically present to receive their online orders, if they’ve already paid for them, someone else can receive them for them, or their mail carrier can even drop them at their door.

Source: Pixabay, Credit Card

Moreover, consumers can make payments such as bills and loan repayments from the comfort of their homes without having to hand over cash to the recipients. Gone are the days of going over to the bank to pay your bills. Consumers can do that from handy applications on their smartphones!

3. It’s More Secure

Digital payments are more secure because they eliminate the risks of carrying around cash. There are many scenarios where having a considerable cash reserve at your store or your wallet is dangerous.

Source: Pixabay, Secure Payment

4. It’s Travel-Friendly

Before cashless digital payments became a thing, people had to exchange currency at a money exchange service or bank before traveling to different countries.

Now, paying through a credit or debit card eliminates the hassle of exchanging currency and carrying around a calculated amount of money for travel expenses. Payment processing companies do all the math and financial heavy-lifting when it comes to international transactions!

5. Hygiene

In the past two years, people around the world have become more fixated on human contact due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Contactless payments became mainstream for many countries in 2020 because they limited manual contact between sellers and buyers. While consumers still have to hand over their credit or debit cards to cashiers at stores, paying through online channels eliminates any possibility of a hygiene risk.

6. Reward Programs

This works in favor of both consumers and business owners. Many payment processing companies have reward and loyalty programs within their organization or in collaboration with different brands.

This means consumers have access to unique discounts and special offers if they pay through the payment processing company, giving them the incentive to use the third-party company as well as shop at your business!

Loyalty programs help businesses grow by giving customers incentives to keep coming back, boosting brand loyalty and customer retention. Therefore, opening up a cashless payment channel and partnering up with a payment processing company for a rewards program is an excellent idea!

7. It Leaves a Paper Trail

Most often, cash payments also come with receipts so that you can keep track of your expenses. However, paper receipts can fade, or get misplaced, or go through the dreaded cycle of a washing machine! Cashless payments typically have digital receipts that are sent to your phone or email, or both.

Since all the data is stored online, you can refer back to it whenever you need it. This is excellent if you’re a business owner that has to keep track of every company sale and expense. The data stored online will save you and your team considerable time and reduce possible mix-ups and confusion with company finances.

With payment processing companies doing most of the work for you and sending you digital receipts for every transaction, your bookkeeping work is cut in half.

8. Reduced Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)

Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) represents the days it takes for a company to receive payment for a sale. If you deliver your goods to your customers and your payments are set up to only allow for cash, it probably takes a while for your payments to get to you. The courier company has to process them at their end and send you an accumulated amount after a certain period of time.

This can make your company’s cash flow pretty slow, making your investments back into the company slow as well. Cashless payments mean the money is on a digital ledger. It can be processed and transferred to you faster, typically in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. This speeds up your company’s cash flow and enables you to invest in your company more frequently.

Cashless payments, therefore, reduce the Days Outstanding Sales of your company, speeding up every other process in the company by default.

To summarize, cashless payments have numerous advantages. The good considerably outweighs the bad. Now you may be wondering, what is a payment processing company? And what makes a good payment processing company? And how do you choose the right one for your business? Let’s take a look at what a payment processing company is.

What is a Payment Processing Company?

A payment processing company handles digital payments for your business. It is a third-party channel for your business and sales transactions. Payment processing companies relay financial information back and forth between your customers and your banks to facilitate transactions.

To answer the rest of your questions, here’s a complete breakdown of what constitutes a good payment processing company and our list of the top 10 payment processing companies.

What to Look For in a Payment Processing Company

These are the top five things you need to look for when choosing a payment processing company for your business!

1. PCI Compliant

PCI Data Security Standard or the PCI DSS is a standardized set of quality requirements your payment processor should meet. The PCI Council has laid out an elaborate framework for secure card payments to ensure the utmost security for everyone involved in digital transactions.

Typically, every payment processing service and merchant business needs to fill out and pass the Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) every year to check if their policies comply with PCI requirements.

A payment processor that is PCI Compliant has measures in place to ensure secure payments for you and your customers, as well as measures to tackle security breaches.

2. eCheck Payments

eCheck payments work similarly to regular check payments. They send the payee’s bank routing number to a secure server to facilitate immediate payments. ACH payments like this facilitate direct deposits for payments such as bills, rent, and loan repayments. Many payment processors have eCheck ACH payments enabled for their customers and clients.

Using Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments for your business will allow you to make direct deposits where necessary, saving time and costs spent on cashing checks in person. So, when you’re choosing a payment processing service for your business, see if they have eCheck payments enabled so your payments can be done faster and your consumers have more options.

3. Security

Since digital payments have become mainstream, you can pay through your credit or debit card practically everywhere. Unfortunately, your personal information and bank credentials are sensitive information that could fall into the wrong hands.

Source: Pixabay, Cybersecurity

To combat credit card fraud and theft, payment processing companies use P2PE (Point-to-Point Encryption) and tokenization to protect their clients and their consumers’ information. P2PE protects credit and debit card information on both ends, hiding the credentials from the seller.

When looking for a payment processing company, make sure you look for one that offers tokenization and P2PE measures to make sure your and your customer’s information is protected.

4. Transparency

It’s important that your chosen payment processing service for offline and online payment processing is as transparent as possible. This means having an extensive database of your business transactions so that nothing is left up to the imagination. In case of confusion or mix-ups, the data can be referred back to.

Additionally, a good payment processor should offer transaction tracking so that you can track every step of the process of payments being made to you. This isn’t a must, it is a good bonus, though!

5. API Integrations

Ideally, your payment processor should have APIs enabled for various integrations that help enhance the user experience. These API plugins can boost the functionality of the payment method frameworks in place on your software or website.

As you can see, there are many things you need to consider before picking the right payment processing platform for your business. Ticking off these five basic factors will ensure that your consumers have a seamless payment experience without any security risks.

It will also ensure that you, as a client of this company, are satisfied with the service you’re paying for. Payment processing is not something to take lightly. There, we recommend carefully considering the setup of a payment processing provider before partnering with them.

You’re probably wondering, where do I find a payment processing company for my business or personal use? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Now that we’ve discussed the characteristics of a good payment processor you need to look out for let’s talk about our top picks for the best offline and online payment processing companies on the market right now.

10 Best Payment Processing Companies

These are the best offline and online payment processing companies that have our stamp of approval to handle your business transactions!

1. PayPal

PayPal is one of the most popular payment processing companies in the world. You’ve probably heard of it or used it, which isn’t a surprise. PayPal is a giant in the digital payment world!

Source: PayPal

PayPal is a ‘digital wallet’ service and is regarded as one of the best in the business. PayPal currently has over 300 million active users globally. PayPal is secure, has no termination fees, has a user-friendly interface, and has APIs integrated to be used with shipping software, accounting applications, and e-commerce sites.

Here are some of PayPal’s best features that make it so compelling for consumers and businesses worldwide!

Features:

• Online payments;
• Barcode scanning;
• Credit card reader/payments;
• Mobile card reader/payments;
• Online invoices;
• Inventory tracking.

Pricing:

PayPal is generally free for customers. They don’t even need to make an account on the platform. For businesses, PayPal charges a fee percentage for every transaction and sale, about 2.9% of each sale goes to PayPal. 

2. National Merchants

National Merchants is another excellent payment processing company. National Merchants handles e-commerce transactions, eChecks, etc. National Merchants also has one of the lowest e-commerce fee rates on the market!

Source: National Merchants

Here are some of National Merchants’ best features.

Features:

• Batch processing;
• Online payments;
• Credit card payments;
• Check-by-Web;
• Quickbooks Integration;
• Billing.

Pricing:

The monthly membership fee for National Merchants is $19.99/month. There are additional fees you’re charged for other services such as risk management.

3. Amazon Pay

Amazon Pay was created by Amazon as an integrated payment processing platform for shoppers on Amazon. Amazon Pay enables users to make payments through their existing credit or debit cards on Amazon and thousands of other Amazon-Pay-accepted sites.

Source: Amazon Pay

Here are some of Amazon Pay’s best features!

Features:

• Digital Wallet integration;
• Credit Card payment;
• Mobile payment;
• E-commerce integration;
• Omnichannel;
• Accounting integration.

Pricing:

Amazon Pay is free for consumers. For businesses, Amazon Pay quotes the pricing for each business according to the brand’s needs.

4. Apple Pay

Apple Pay is a payment processing platform created by Apple Inc. Apple pay works in a unique way. Consumers simply have to hover their iPhone over a payment terminal, press the ‘Home’ button on their smartphone, and voila! Apple stores your card credentials into a database, and you can pay through Apple Pay on hundreds of Apple-Pay-accepted business outlets.

Source: Apple Pay

Here are some of Apple Pay’s best features!

Features:

• Instant payment;
• Real-time payment;
• Billing;
• Manual payment entry;
• Credit and debit card payment;
• Special discounts and coupons.

Pricing:

Apple Pay is free for consumers! For businesses, it comes with the cost of purchasing Apple Pay hardware.

5. Google Pay

Google Play is another great payment processing company created by the digital tech giant Google. Google Pay enables users to make their payments within the app or in-store through a virtual channel.

Source: Google Pay

Here are some of Google Pay’s best features!

Features:

• Credit and debit card payments;
• In-store purchases;
• Mobile payment;
• Send money to family and friends within the US.

Pricing:

Google Pay is free for businesses as well as for commercial use! 

6. Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a digital wallet that allows users to make payments through their credit and debit cards. Here are some of Bitcoin’s best features!

Source: Bitcoin

Features:

• Digital Wallet integration;
• Credit Card payment;
• Two-factor authentication.

Pricing:

Bitcoin is free for consumers and businesses!

7. X-Payments

X-payment is a digital payment processing platform that enables users to make credit card payments. Users can use the X-Payment options available on e-commerce websites to pay through the platform. These are X-Payment’s best features!

Source: X-Payments

Features:

• Credit Card payment;
• Mobile payment;
• E-commerce integration.

Pricing:

X-Payments has various subscription plans that vary in price points depending on the number of transactions processed in a year. The lowest pricing is $49/month, while the highest pricing is $199/month. 

8. Braintree

Braintree is an excellent payment processor that lets you customize your checkout flow as a consumer on the platform. Braintree accommodates 130 forms of currencies across over 40 countries. Here are some of Braintree’s best features!

Source: Braintree

Features:

• Credit Card payment;
• Integrations with PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay and ACH credit cards;
• Customizable checkout experience.

Pricing:

Braintree has a standard charge of 1.9% from each sale and a flat fee of €0.30. Braintree also offers a customizable plan, the price of which depends on which features you avail.

9. Square

Square is a digital payment processor that provides businesses with hardware such as contactless chip readers, magnetic stripe readers, and POS stand, to accept virtual payments from customers. Square also has a ‘Point of Sales’ application for online payments.

Source: Square

Here are some of Square’s best features.

Features:

• Digital invoicing;
• In-app purchases;
• Online payments;
• Credit card payments.

Pricing:

Square comes with the cost of purchasing the additional hardware for the processor. Additionally, 2.9% of each sale goes to Square.

10. GoCardless

GoCardless is a direct debit payment processor that aims to eliminate the hassle of swiping cards in making purchases. GoCardless lets your customers make online payments for their purchases.

Source: GoCardless

These are some of GoCardless’ best features!

Features:

• Online payments;
• Payment status tracking;
• Payment automation;
• Direct debit services.

Pricing:

GoCardless charges 1% and a flat fee of 20 cents on every sale made for your business.

Key Takeaway

Cashless payments have quickly become a mainstream alternative to cash payments. This was our list of the ten best payment processing companies on the market today that we highly recommend you try out.

PayPal	For customers: Free For businesses: About 2.9% of each sale
National Merchants	Monthly membership fee is $19.99/month
Amazon Pay	For customers: Free For businesses: Amazon Pay quotes the pricing for each business according to the brand’s needs.
Apple Pay	For customers: Free For businesses: It comes with the cost of purchasing Apple Pay hardware.
Google Pay	For customers: Free For businesses: Free
Bitcoin	For customers: Free For businesses: Free
X-Payments	From $49/month to $199/month
Braintree	1.9% from each sale and a flat fee of €0.30
Square	2.9% of each sale
GoCardless	1% and a flat fee of 20 cents on every sale