WooCommerce helps WordPress users to turn their websites into online shops. It is used by over 4 million websites to develop elegant websites, manage their inventory, and fulfill orders.
Generating sales from your online store is very important, but it is just as important as selecting and implementing the right method of accepting payments from customers. Otherwise, if customers find it difficult to pay, they will abandon their carts and you will lose sales. According to Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate by shoppers is 69.8%, and 6 out of 10 abandonments are as a result of payment issues. Thus, shoppers will abandon their carts if there is a long and complicated checkout process, if they can’t trust your site with their credit card information, or if there are not enough payment methods.
If you run an eCommerce store, selecting a method for receiving payments is very essential. In this article, we will be discussing WooCommerce payment gateways in detail.
Table of Contents
What is a Payment Gateway?
A payment gateway refers to a platform through which you can receive payments. Instead of going through the legal and financial processes needed to process money yourself, you simply have to sign up for a third-party payment gateway that will handle everything for you.
A WooComerce payment gateway will also handle the customers’ credit card numbers, expiration dates, and other personal details securely on your behalf. Payment gateways also make transactions less anonymous and more transparent.
How Do WooCommerce Payment Gateways Work?
Image Source
To set up and use a WooCommerce payment gateway, you have to go through the following sequence of steps:
- Step 1: You create an account with a WooCommerce payment gateway of choice.
- Step 2: Link the above account to your personal or business bank account.
- Step 3: Connect the payment gateway to your WooCommerce store. Most of these WooCommerce payment gateways come with plugins that you can use to connect them to your WooCommerce store.
- Step 4: You can now accept payments. Once a customer purchases your WooCommerce store, the gateway will open up a secure link to the payment processor. The transaction will then be approved and WooCommerce will receive a success message, meaning that the transaction is complete.
- Step 5: The money will then be sent to your account, either immediately or after some days, depending on the payment gateway that you are using.
Factors to Consider when Choosing a WooCommerce Payment Gateway
The best WooCommerce payment gateways for your eCommerce store will depend on the nature of your business and its needs. The good news is that you have many payment gateways to choose from for your online store. However, before choosing a payment gateway for your WooCommerce store, consider the following factors:
1. Transaction Fees
Every Woocommerce payment gateway applies different transaction fees for every purchase. These fees are usually of two types:
- A percentage of the transaction- Most WooCommerce payment gateways charge a transaction fee of between 2.5% and 3.5%.
- A small fee per transaction- In most cases, this fee is around $0.30.
Although most WooCommerce payment gateways charge different transaction fees, they are competitive with each other.
The number of fees charged will also depend on factors such as the type of transaction and how the payment will be made, that is, whether via invoice, chip credit card, etc.
2. Ease of Use
Different WooCommerce payment gateways provide different levels of user-friendliness. Some are easier to use than others. Stripe and Square are well-known to be easier to use.
3. Currency Conversion
Your WooCommerce payment gateway should support currency conversion and it should do so affordably. Some gateways charge huge amounts of fees for conversion between currencies, especially the unpopular ones.
4. Security
Security is very important as far as payment is concerned. If the WooCommerce payment gateway is not secure, you will be exposing yourself and your store customers to data loss and other issues. The good news is that most WooCommerce payment gateways are safe provided you use them correctly.
A fully managed No-code Data Pipeline platform like Hevo Data helps you integrate and load data from 100+ Data Sources such as WooCommerce (including 40+ Free Data Sources) to a destination of your choice in real-time in an effortless manner.
Get Started with Hevo for Free
Hevo with its minimal learning curve can be set up in just a few minutes allowing the users to load data without having to compromise performance. Its strong integration with umpteenth sources allows users to bring in data of different kinds in a smooth fashion without having to code a single line.
Check out some of the cool features of Hevo:
- Completely Automated: The Hevo platform can be set up in just a few minutes and requires minimal maintenance.
- Real-Time Data Transfer: Hevo provides real-time data migration, so you can have analysis-ready data always.
- Transformations: Hevo provides preload transformations through Python code. It also allows you to run transformation code for each event in the Data Pipelines you set up. You need to edit the event object’s properties received in the transform method as a parameter to carry out the transformation. Hevo also offers drag and drop transformations like Date and Control Functions, JSON, and Event Manipulation to name a few. These can be configured and tested before putting them to use.
- Connectors: Hevo supports 100+ Integrations to SaaS platforms such as WooCommerce, WordPress, files, databases, analytics, and BI tools. It supports various destinations including Amazon Redshift, Firebolt, Snowflake Data Warehouses; Databricks, Amazon S3 Data Lakes; and MySQL, SQL Server, TokuDB, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL databases to name a few.
- 100% Complete & Accurate Data Transfer: Hevo’s robust infrastructure ensures reliable data transfer with zero data loss.
- Scalable Infrastructure: Hevo has in-built integrations for 100+ sources that can help you scale your data infrastructure as required.
- 24/7 Live Support: The Hevo team is available round the clock to extend exceptional support to you through chat, email, and support calls.
- Schema Management: Hevo takes away the tedious task of schema management & automatically detects the schema of incoming data and maps it to the destination schema.
- Live Monitoring: Hevo allows you to monitor the data flow so you can check where your data is at a particular point in time.
Sign up here for a 14-Day Free Trial!
Top WooCommerce Payment Gateways
Below are some of the most popular WooCommerce payment gateways that you can consider integrating into your store:
- Stripe
- PayPal Pro
- Square
- Authorize.net
1. Stripe
Image Source
Stripe is one of the common WooCommerce payment gateways which can be attributed to its clean design, developer-friendly documentation, ease of use, and setup. It is used by millions of businesses, including Amazon, Squarespace, Peloton, Shopify, and Kickstarter.
You can accept different forms of payment via customizable forms. You can also embed these different payment forms on your website. Stripe’s dashboard also comes with reporting features with the ability to show the monthly transaction history, refunds and disputes, monthly totals by category, and monitoring integrations.
Other features offered by Stripe include:
- It supports 12+ payment methods, including credit and debit cards, AliPay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more.
- Invoices and embeddable checkouts.
- WooCommerce plugin.
- Ready forms with Stripe elements.
- Financial reporting.
- Customizable design.
2. PayPal Pro
Image Source
PayPal is a widely used payment gateway across the world. PayPal Pro is its business solution. It is easy to set up with support in over 200 countries and regions. It is also a secure WooCommerce payment gateway, with anti-fraud features such as Automatic fraud screening and a Seller Protection Policy.
PayPal Pro offers the following features:
- Customizable API.
- Email-professional looking invoices for customers.
- WooCommerce plugin support.
- Access to money in minutes.
Its fees vary based on transaction type and location. Its basic fee is 2.9% per transaction and an extra 1.5% for international transactions. They also charge $30 per month for the PayPal Pro program.
3. Square
Image Source
This WooCommerce payment gateway is well-known for its ubiquitous white square devices. It is good for in-person stores, but you can still use it to accept online payments or create an online store.
It is a good payment gateway for those with physical products in their store. It offers the following features:
- Supports WooCommerce with a plugin.
- Accepts online and in-person payments.
- Automatic sync with Square device.
- Integration with Instagram.
- Support for different payment options including Google Pay, Apple Pay, and others.
It is available in the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom. It charges a fee of 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.
4. Authorize.net
Image Source
Authorize.net is owned and run by Visa, and you can use it as a WooCommerce payment gateway. It’s the most widely used payment gateway in the world, and it is good for users with huge monthly sales. It accepts many payment solutions including Visa, Discover, American Express, MasterCard, JCB, PayPal, Apple Pay, Chase Pay, Visa SRC, and E-check.
It offers the following features:
- Advanced fraud detection.
- Simple checkout options.
- Can accept nearly any payment solution.
- Recurring payments.
However, Authorize.net is only available in the US. It charges a monthly fee of $25 and 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.
Those are the common WooCommerce payment gateways that you can integrate into your eCommerce store.
Conclusion
In this article, you’ve learned about payment gateways and how WooCommerce payment gateways work. It also talks about the factors to consider when choosing a WooCommerce payment gateway. The article then dives into the top WooCommerce payment gateways that you can integrate into your eCommerce site.
Extracting complex data from a diverse set of data sources such as WooCommerce can be a challenging task and this is where Hevo saves the day!
Visit our Website to Explore Hevo
Hevo Data offers a faster way to move data from WooCommerce, and 100+ Data Sources (Including 40+ Free Data Sources), other SaaS applications, or Databases into your Data Warehouse to be visualized in a BI tool. Hevo is fully automated and hence does not require you to code.
Want to take Hevo for a spin? Sign Up for a 14-day free trial and experience the feature-rich Hevo suite first hand. You can also have a look at the unbeatable pricing that will help you choose the right plan for your business needs.