How to Accept Payments on Your Online Store

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Every online store eventually runs into the same question: which payment methods should actually be turned on, and in what order should you set them up? Card processing feels like it should be simple, but the moment you look past the headline rate you find chargeback fees, cross-border surcharges, currency conversion costs, and a growing list of alternatives - digital wallets, buy now pay later, bank transfers - that shoppers now expect to see at checkout.

Get this wrong and the cost shows up as abandoned carts rather than a line item you can point to. A shopper who doesn't see their preferred method simply leaves, and unlike a pricing mistake, that kind of loss rarely gets noticed until someone actually checks the numbers. This guide walks through what to offer, what each option really costs once the fine print is included, and the order to set it all up in.

None of this requires a finance background. It requires knowing which five or six decisions matter and which ones are safe to skip for now, which is what the rest of this article covers.

If you haven't built your store yet, you don't need to start from a blank page to get here. AI Website Builder turns a short description of your business into a complete, editable storefront - product pages, navigation, and design already in place - so you can move straight into everything below: turning on payments, testing checkout, and opening for business.

What Payment Methods Do Shoppers Actually Expect in 2026?

A workable baseline for most stores is: major credit and debit cards, at least one digital wallet (Apple Pay or Google Pay), PayPal, and - if your average order value is above roughly $75 - a buy now, pay later option. That combination covers the large majority of how people actually prefer to pay online, without you having to integrate a dozen separate providers.

Card payments still carry most of ecommerce volume, but the share going through alternative methods keeps climbing every year. Buy now, pay later alone has grown into roughly a 5% slice of ecommerce checkout volume, and digital wallets now clear a meaningful share of mobile purchases in most markets. Offering only a card field, with no wallet and no alternative, is one of the more common reasons a store's checkout conversion rate quietly underperforms its traffic.

It's worth separating what you need at launch from what you can safely add later. Cards, one wallet, and PayPal cover the first sale for almost any store. ACH, multi-currency settlement, and buy now, pay later are all things you can bolt on once real order data tells you whether they'd move the needle - none of them need to be solved before you take your first order.

Payment Processors at a Glance

Here's how the main processors compare on a standard US online card transaction. Rates checked for 2026; always confirm current pricing before you commit, since processors adjust rates periodically.

Processor	Standard Online Rate	Extra Platform Fee	Payout Speed
Wix Payments	2.9% + $0.30	None on Core plan and above	2-3 business days
Stripe	2.9% + $0.30	None (ACH is 0.8%, capped at $5)	2 business days standard
PayPal	~3.49% + $0.49	None	Instant to PayPal balance
Square	2.9% + $0.30 online; 2.6% + $0.10-0.15 in person	None	Next business day

International cards typically add another 1% to 1.5% on top of the base rate with most processors, and currency conversion, when it applies, adds roughly 1% more. Those two charges are the ones sellers most often forget to budget for when a store starts getting international traffic.

Card Payments: Wix Payments, Stripe, and Square Compared

Wix Payments is built into Wix's own checkout, so there's no separate account to create or app to connect - you enter your business and bank details directly in the dashboard and start accepting cards once you're verified, which typically takes one to three business days. The standard US rate is 2.9% of the transaction plus $0.30, matching Stripe almost exactly, and Wix doesn't add its own transaction fee on top for standard product sales on the Core plan or higher (subscription and pricing-plan sales are the one exception, where an additional fee applies). American Express runs higher, typically 3.1% to 3.7%, and a chargeback costs a flat $15 regardless of outcome.

Stripe charges the same base rate - 2.9% + $0.30 for standard US online cards - but is built for developers integrating a custom checkout rather than a drag-and-drop site builder. It's the natural choice if you're building on a platform that doesn't include its own native processor, or if you need functionality a built-in processor doesn't offer, like ACH transfers at 0.8% capped at $5, which is worth using for any large B2B invoice.

Square's online rate lands in the same range - 2.9% + $0.30 - but its real strength is in-person selling, where the rate drops to roughly 2.6% + $0.10 to $0.15 with no separate hardware contract required. A store that sells online and also does markets, pop-ups, or a physical counter often ends up running Square alongside its main online processor rather than choosing one over the other.

For most single-platform online stores, the practical choice comes down to convenience rather than price, since the big three land within a few tenths of a percent of each other on a standard domestic card sale. Use whichever one is native to your platform unless you have a specific reason - custom checkout code, in-person sales, or ACH-heavy B2B invoicing - to add a second one.

PayPal: Why It's Still Worth Offering

PayPal's checkout rate runs a bit higher than a standard card processor - typically around 3.49% of the transaction plus a $0.49 fixed fee in the US, versus 2.9% + $0.30 for a card - and that gap matters more on smaller sales, where the larger fixed fee eats up a bigger share of the total.

The reason to offer it anyway is conversion, not cost. A meaningful share of online shoppers have a PayPal balance they'd rather spend than pull out a card, and PayPal's buyer-protection reputation still nudges some first-time shoppers toward completing a purchase on unfamiliar sites. Losing that group over roughly one extra percentage point in fees is usually the worse trade for any store that isn't operating on razor-thin margins already.

Funds land in your PayPal balance instantly; getting them into your bank account is free on the standard 1-3 business day transfer, or costs roughly 1.75% for an instant transfer if you need the cash sooner.

Digital Wallets: Apple Pay and Google Pay

Apple Pay and Google Pay ride on top of the card networks, so they generally cost you the same processing rate as the underlying card - there's no separate wallet fee stacked on top with Wix Payments, Stripe, or Square. What you get in exchange is a meaningfully faster checkout: the shopper authenticates with a fingerprint, face scan, or device PIN instead of typing a 16-digit card number, an expiry date, and a CVC on a phone keyboard.

That speed matters most on mobile, where a large share of ecommerce traffic now originates and where typing a full card number is the single most common point of checkout abandonment. Both wallets are close to a checkbox decision: turning them on costs nothing extra and removes friction for a growing share of shoppers, so there's little reason not to enable both once your main processor is active.

Buy Now, Pay Later: Klarna, Afterpay, Affirm, and the Rest

Buy now, pay later lets a shopper split a purchase into installments - usually four biweekly payments - while you, the merchant, get paid the full amount upfront. The shopper takes on the repayment risk and, if they pay on time, usually pays no interest at all. For you, the cost is a merchant fee that runs well above standard card processing: Klarna's base rate starts around 3.29% + $0.30 and can run up to roughly 6% depending on the plan, Afterpay charges roughly 4% to 6% + $0.30, and Affirm and Sezzle typically land closer to 6% + $0.30, since Affirm focuses on larger, longer-term purchases where its underwriting risk is higher.

That fee is steep next to a 2.9% card rate, but the case for BNPL isn't the fee - it's the lift in average order value and conversion that most merchants report after adding it, particularly for baskets above roughly $75 where splitting the cost meaningfully changes a shopper's willingness to buy. Electronics, furniture, and fashion tend to see the largest gains; a store selling $15 items will see far less benefit and probably isn't worth the integration effort.

If you're deciding whether to add BNPL at all, look at your current average order value first. Below roughly $50, the fee usually isn't worth it. Above $75 to $100, it's worth testing for a billing cycle and comparing checkout conversion and average order value before and after.

Bank Transfers and ACH for Larger Orders

For high-value orders - custom work, wholesale, B2B invoices - a direct bank transfer or ACH payment is usually cheaper than routing the same amount through a card. Stripe's ACH rate is 0.8% capped at $5, which turns what would be a $145 card fee on a $5,000 invoice into a flat $5. The trade-off is speed: ACH transfers typically take one to three business days to clear, against an instant or near-instant card authorization, so it's a better fit for invoiced B2B sales than for a shopper checking out on impulse.

Most all-in-one platforms don't expose ACH as a checkout option the way a card field is exposed by default, so this usually means either using a processor like Stripe that supports it directly, or sending a separate payment link for large orders rather than routing everything through the same card checkout.

How to Actually Turn On Payments on Your Store

The setup sequence is largely the same regardless of platform. Here's the order that avoids the most common hold-ups.

1. Gather your business documents first. Most processors ask for a registered business name or sole-trader ID, a linked bank account, and a government ID for the account owner. Having these ready before you start cuts the typical one-to-three-day verification window down considerably.

2. Enable your primary card processor in your platform's dashboard (Wix Payments, Stripe, Square, or similar) and complete identity verification. This is the one step you can't skip or shortcut - no processor activates without it.

3. Turn on at least one digital wallet (Apple Pay and Google Pay both, if your processor supports it) - there's no added cost and no separate verification step in most cases.

4. Add PayPal as a second checkout option. Most platforms support this as a toggle alongside your main processor rather than a full separate integration.

5. Decide on buy now, pay later only after checking your average order value. If it's above roughly $75, add one BNPL provider and test it for a full billing cycle before adding a second.

6. Set your currency and confirm which payment methods actually display to shoppers outside your home country - this is a commonly missed setting that silently limits checkout options for international buyers.

7. Run a real test purchase with an actual card before announcing the store is open, and confirm the payout actually lands in your bank account on the timeline your processor advertises.

Should You Pass Processing Fees to Customers?

Surcharging - adding a small fee at checkout to cover card-processing costs - is legal in most US states and many other markets, but the rules are specific: card network rules generally cap the surcharge at the actual processing cost (commonly around 3% to 4%), require clear disclosure before the customer pays, and in some cases require registering the surcharge program with the card networks in advance. A handful of states restrict or ban it outright, so check your specific state's rules rather than assuming a policy that works for another business applies to yours.

Most consumer-facing stores choose not to surcharge even where it's legal, since it tends to read as a hidden fee no matter how clearly it's disclosed, and the resulting drop in checkout completion often costs more than the fee saves. It's more commonly used for high-value B2B invoicing, where the buyer expects and budgets for it, than for a typical retail checkout.

Recurring Payments and Subscriptions

If any part of your store involves a subscription, a membership, or a pricing plan rather than a one-time sale, check whether your processor adds a separate fee for recurring billing before you launch it. Stripe Billing adds roughly 0.5% on top of the standard processing rate for subscription management, and Wix applies its own additional fee to memberships and pricing plans specifically, even though standard product sales carry no extra platform fee on the Core plan and above. That distinction between a one-time product sale and a recurring charge is easy to miss when you're reading a processor's headline pricing, since the rate quoted up front is almost always the one-time-sale rate.

Failed recurring charges are also worth planning for separately from one-time failed payments. A subscriber's card expiring or a bank declining a routine charge is common enough that most billing tools include automatic retry logic and a dunning email sequence - if yours doesn't, you'll want to check for it manually or you'll quietly lose subscribers to expired cards rather than actual cancellations.

International Selling: Multi-Currency and Local Payment Methods

Selling internationally adds two decisions on top of everything already covered: which currencies to display prices in, and which region-specific payment methods to enable. Showing prices in a shopper's local currency measurably reduces cart abandonment compared to showing everything in a single currency and asking them to do the mental conversion - but not every processor supports multi-currency display and settlement equally, so check this specifically before assuming it's included.

Local payment preferences vary more than most first-time sellers expect. Bank transfers dominate checkout in parts of Europe, certain digital wallets are effectively mandatory in specific Asian markets, and cash-on-delivery remains common in some regions despite being all but extinct in US and UK ecommerce. If a meaningful share of your traffic comes from a specific country, it's worth a quick search for that market's dominant payment method rather than assuming your default card-plus-PayPal setup covers it.

The cross-border and currency-conversion fees covered below apply on top of whatever base rate you're already paying, so international sales are rarely as profitable per-order as domestic ones unless you've priced in that gap deliberately.

Checkout Design Choices That Affect Whether Payments Get Used

Which payment methods you enable matters less than whether shoppers can actually find and use them without friction. A few checkout-design habits consistently correlate with lower abandonment: offering guest checkout instead of forcing account creation before payment, keeping the payment form to as few fields as the processor allows, and surfacing accepted payment logos before the shopper reaches the final page rather than only at the last step.

Autofill compatibility is a smaller but real factor - a payment field that doesn't play well with a browser's or phone's autofill forces manual entry of a 16-digit number, which is exactly the friction digital wallets exist to remove. If you've enabled Apple Pay and Google Pay but buried the buttons below the fold or after several other form fields, you've undercut much of the benefit of offering them in the first place.

Fees That Catch Sellers Off Guard

The advertised rate is rarely the whole story. A few charges consistently surprise first-time sellers:

• Cross-border fees. An extra 1% to 1.5% applies when a customer's card was issued in a different country than your merchant account, on top of the standard processing rate.

• Currency conversion. If the sale involves converting currencies, expect another 1% or so, separate from the cross-border fee - the two can stack on the same international sale.

• Chargeback fees. Most processors charge a flat fee, commonly around $15, every time a customer disputes a charge, regardless of whether you win the dispute.

• Instant payout fees. Standard payouts are usually free but take one to three business days; getting funds same-day typically costs an extra 1% to 1.95% depending on the processor.

• AmEx surcharges. American Express often runs a full percentage point or more above Visa and Mastercard on the same processor, which adds up quickly for stores with a card mix skewed toward AmEx.

Keeping Payments Secure

If you're using a built-in processor like Wix Payments, Stripe, or Square, PCI compliance - the security standard that governs how card data is handled - is largely managed for you, since card details never actually pass through your own servers. You still have responsibilities: keep your account login secure, use two-factor authentication where it's offered, and never ask a customer to email or message their full card number to you directly, which is both a security risk and a common target for phishing scams impersonating your store.

Basic fraud tools are usually included at no extra cost - address verification, card verification codes, and automatic flagging of unusual order patterns. More advanced fraud scoring, like Stripe's Radar, is typically an add-on that makes sense once your order volume is high enough that manual review of flagged orders becomes impractical.

A high chargeback rate - generally above about 1% of total transactions - can trigger a review from your processor or, in persistent cases, a higher-risk classification with steeper fees. Clear product descriptions, honest shipping timelines, and responsive customer service prevent far more disputes than any fraud-detection tool, since a large share of chargebacks stem from a customer simply not recognizing the charge or being frustrated enough to skip contacting you first.

Common Payment Setup Mistakes to Avoid

• Launching with only one payment method. A card field alone loses shoppers who specifically look for PayPal, a wallet, or an installment option before buying.

• Ignoring the renewal or true cost of BNPL. The fee is meaningfully higher than card processing; add it only once your average order value justifies the cost.

• Ignoring cross-border and currency fees. These stack on international sales and can turn a comfortable margin into a thin one if you're not pricing for them.

• Skipping the real test purchase. Confirming a processor is "connected" in a dashboard isn't the same as confirming a real card is actually charged and the payout lands correctly.

• Making customers hunt for accepted payment methods. Display your accepted cards and wallets clearly near the buy button - shoppers who have to guess whether their method works often abandon rather than find out.

• Forcing account creation before checkout. Requiring a full account sign-up before a shopper can pay adds a step many will abandon; offer guest checkout and let account creation happen afterward if you want it.

• Assuming one currency covers every market. If you're getting meaningful traffic from outside your home country, check whether your processor supports local currency display before assuming your default setup is good enough.

How to Accept Payments on Your Online Store FAQ

What's the cheapest way to accept payments online?

For a standard domestic card sale, Wix Payments, Stripe, and Square all land within a few tenths of a percent of each other at roughly 2.9% + $0.30. For large B2B invoices, ACH or a direct bank transfer is usually far cheaper than routing the same amount through a card.

Do I need a separate merchant account to accept credit cards?

No. Modern processors like Wix Payments, Stripe, and Square handle merchant-account functions internally, so you sign up directly with them rather than applying for a traditional merchant account through a bank.

Is PayPal worth the extra fee compared to a card processor?

For most stores, yes. PayPal's rate runs higher than a standard card, but the checkout-conversion gain from offering a payment method a meaningful share of shoppers already trust and prefer usually outweighs the difference in fees.

How long does it take to get approved for online payment processing?

Most processors approve standard applications within one to three business days once you've submitted business details, a linked bank account, and identity verification. Higher-risk categories or incomplete documentation can extend that timeline.

Should a small store offer buy now, pay later?

It depends mainly on average order value. Below roughly $50, the merchant fee usually outweighs the benefit. Above $75 to $100, most merchants see enough lift in conversion and order size to justify testing one BNPL provider for a full billing cycle.

What happens if a customer disputes a charge?

You'll typically pay a flat chargeback fee, commonly around $15, regardless of the outcome, and you'll have a window to submit evidence disputing the claim. Keeping clear records of order confirmation, shipping, and delivery helps you contest illegitimate disputes successfully.

Do I need to accept every payment method available?

No. A solid baseline is major cards, one digital wallet, and PayPal - that combination covers most shoppers. Add ACH, multi-currency support, or buy now, pay later only once your order volume, order size, or customer geography actually calls for it.

Can I switch payment processors after my store is already live?

Yes, though it usually means re-verifying your business with the new processor and updating any checkout integration. It's straightforward for most platforms, but plan for a short overlap period rather than switching mid-way through a high-traffic sales event.