Best Payment Gateways In Canada In May 2024

• Braintree: Best overall
• Stax: Best for high-value transaction
• Stripe: Best for customization
• Square: Best for retailers
• Helcim: Best for volume discounting

The Forbes Advisor Small Business team is committed to bringing you unbiased rankings and information with full editorial independence. We use product data, strategic methodologies and expert insights to inform all of our content to guide you in making the best decisions for your business journey.

We analyzed over 20 of the leading payment gateways and narrowed it down to the top 12, which were analyzed across 16 metrics to rank the best payment gateways for small businesses. Our ratings consider factors such as transparent pricing, employee self-sufficiency, compatibility with third-party integrations, access to customer support and ratings. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

A payment gateway is a software application that merchants use to accept credit cards and other types of electronic payments. Payment gateways are encryption systems that protect sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, as it passes from customer to merchant. These gateways then pass the transaction information to the customer’s bank and to the merchant’s acquiring bank (or the bank that has partnered with the merchant to provide credit card processing services).

The payment gateway is responsible for authorizing the credit card transaction and ensuring that the funds are transferred from the customer’s account to the merchant’s account. Payment gateways typically charge a monthly fee as well as a per-transaction fee.

Payment gateways are necessary for any business that wants to accept online credit card payments. The technology circulates financial data around to the necessary entities to authorize payments and move money from a customer to a merchant. When choosing the best payment gateway, it’s important to consider pricing and fees, integrations, security, and other factors:

Pricing & Fees

The cost factors for payment gateways are the subscription fees and the payment processing fees. The subscription fees are the monthly fees that the payment gateway charges, and the payment processing fees are the fees that the payment gateway charges for each transaction. Some payment portals don’t charge a monthly fee and charge a higher transaction fee instead.

You can expect to pay $25 to $50 per month for a subscription fee and around 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction for the payment processing fee. Anything outside these parameters tends to have more or fewer features than average.

When considering pricing, you should also factor in the following:

• Do they offer a free trial?
• Do they have any setup fees?
• Do they have any hidden fees?
• What’s the minimum monthly fee?
• What’s the chargeback fee?
• What are the refund fees?
• What are the international transaction fees?

Types of Payment Gateways

There are three main types of payment gateways:

• Redirect: The payment gateway simply takes a customer to a payment processor, like PayPal or Stripe, to process the transaction.
• Hosted (off-site payment): The customer makes a purchase on your website or at your retail location, and the payment information goes to the payment provider’s servers for processing. This is how Stripe and Square POS systems operate.
• Self-hosted (on-site payment): The entire transaction happens on your servers.

Integrations & Customizations

Your payment gateway should be able to integrate with your shopping cart, accounting software and any other software you use for your business. This will allow you to automate your accounting and save time.

You should also consider whether the payment gateway offers any customization options. For example, you may want to be able to add a logo or change the color scheme of the payment page. This can often be accomplished using an API, though not every gateway offers this option.

Security

When choosing a payment gateway, security should be one of your top considerations. You want to make sure that the gateway uses the latest encryption technology to protect your customers’ credit card information from being stolen.

The payment gateway should also be PCI-compliant. This means that they follow the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which is a set of security standards that all businesses that process credit card payments must follow.

Payment Methods

Another thing to take into account is what payment methods are supported by the chosen gateway. In addition to credit cards, you may want to accept payments via PayPal, ACH or Interac e-Transfer. You may also want to offer customers the option to pay by invoice.

On-site or Off-site Transactions

Some payment gateways allow you to process transactions on your website while others require customers to be redirected to a separate page to enter their credit card information.

If you want to process transactions on your website, you’ll need to choose a gateway that offers an on-site payment solution. If you don’t mind redirecting customers to a separate page to enter their credit card information, you can choose either an on-site or off-site gateway.

The term “payment gateway” is often conflated with the terms “payment processor” and “payment service provider,” but these are three distinct things.

A payment processor transfers information between the issuing and acquiring banks to move money into your merchant account, but it requires a payment gateway to communicate across the other moving parts and authorize the transaction.

A payment service provider, like PayPal, includes a payment processor and a payment gateway, as well as a merchant account and often other features to handle all aspects of a transaction.

The reason there are so many payment gateway providers is that each of them is adept for specific situations. Brick-and-mortar retailers and pizza shops have different requirements than a law firm or a dental implant manufacturer. So, when it comes down to picking your payment gateway provider, you need to consider your unique needs. But here are a few common questions you should consider when choosing your payment gateway provider.

Where Do Your Customers Prefer to Shop?

Rates for in-person and online payments vary, as do the costs for processing one credit card versus another. So, if you sell more in one realm than another, one provider might not cut into your margins as much as another. Price aside, some payment gateway providers offer better features and services for handling payments in one dimension versus another.

How Do Your Customers Prefer to Pay for Goods or Services?

Some customers prefer credit cards. Others prefer digital wallets. How they like to pay should influence which service to use. Again, some providers might have better pricing, features or services (or all three) to support the payment methodology that your customers like.

What Is Your Monthly Sales Volume?

Your monthly sales volume—in terms of the total number of transactions and dollar value—is another major factor that any business should consider when selecting a payment gateway. Businesses with higher volumes would benefit from plans where they pay a high monthly fee for lower rates on each transaction, whereas businesses with low volumes would be better off paying a higher per-transaction fee without a monthly fee.

When choosing a payment gateway or payment service provider, ask yourself these questions:

• Is it available in your country and those of your customers?
• Does it keep financial information secure through encryption and other methods? Is it payment card industry (PCI) compliant for online payments?
• Do you prefer a hosted or self-hosted payment gateway?
• Which payment methods does it accept? Does it cover your customer’s needs?
• Does it easily integrate with your website, financial software and POS?
• Does it offer features your business is looking for?

If you’re just getting started with a small business, the simplest option is to go with a payment service provider like PayPal, Stripe or Square. They handle the process all the way through, so you don’t have to worry about setting up an additional bank account or custom software.

You forfeit some control over the customer experience by using a third-party service, but you also don’t have to worry about handling security yourself. If your business has more complex needs, you can choose a payment gateway provider or build a custom solution. You’ll need to open a merchant account with a bank and set up the necessary hardware and software to accept credit card payments.

To determine the best payment gateways for small businesses, we considered over 20 of the most popular providers in the space and narrowed it down to the 12 top providers. We analyzed these five primary categories for a total of 16 metrics. We then weighted scores to favor features that matter most to small businesses.

Here are the metrics we used to evaluate the top payment gateways.

Pricing and Transaction Fees

Pricing can vary greatly between payment gateways, so we looked at the monthly subscription costs and transaction fees to determine which providers are the most affordable. We also considered the pricing of hardware in addition to software, such as the inclusion of a free card reader and the cost of payment terminals. This accounts for 20% of the total score.

General Features

We factored in features like a reporting dashboard, invoicing, data exports, contactless payments and software integrations to account for 30% of the score.

Compliance and Support

We analyzed whether each payment gateway offers PCI Compliance and 24/7 support via live chat, phone and blog to account for 40% of the score.

Expert Score

Taken together, we evaluated several key attributes for a total of 20% of the overall score.

Ease of Use

The best payment gateways enable businesses to process payments easily. For this reason, we considered ease of use, including how intuitive each gateway is and whether or not there is a learning curve involved.

Features

To ensure that the payment gateways on our list offer the best solutions for businesses, we looked at features and customization capabilities. We selected payment processors with a wide variety of key and unique features, including the ability to create invoices, set up subscriptions and process international payments. We also considered customer loyalty tools, inventory management solutions and advanced reporting.

First-Hand Expertise

Of course, we also included first-hand expertise when analyzing and ranking the best payment gateways. After much experience with the providers, we have a depth of knowledge about how user-friendly each gateway is, whether or not there are hidden fees, or frequent technical issues.

Third-Party User Reviews

To better understand the user experience, we reviewed third-party user reviews. We looked at average ratings and the volume of reviews, as well as what users commonly liked and disliked. This accounts for 10% of the overall score.

Related: Best Credit Card Machines