Find the best Online Payment Software
Software Advice offers objective, independent research and verified user reviews. When our advisors match you to a software provider, we may earn a referral fee.
How Software Advice ensures transparency
Software Advice lists all providers across its website—not just those that pay us—so that users can make informed purchase decisions. Users can talk to our advisors for free to receive software recommendations matching their needs. Software providers pay us for sponsored profiles to reach users interested in their products.
How Software Advice verifies reviews
Software Advice carefully verified over 2 million reviews to bring you authentic software experiences from real users. Our human moderators verify that reviewers are real people and that reviews are authentic. They use leading tech to analyze text quality and to detect plagiarism and generative AI.
Independent research methodology
Researchers at Software Advice use a mix of verified reviews, independent research, and objective methodologies to bring you selection and ranking information you can trust. While we may earn a referral fee when you visit a provider through our links or talk to an advisor, this has no influence on our research or methodology.
- Popular Comparisons
- FrontRunners
- Buyers Guide
- Related Software
Compare Products
Showing 1 - 25 of 571 products
Compare Products
Sort by
Reviews: Sorts listings by the number of user reviews we have published, greatest to least.
Average Rating: Sorts listings by overall star rating based on user reviews, highest to lowest.
Alphabetically (A-Z): Sorts listings by product name from A to Z.
Payline Data is a payment processing solution that allows business owners to accept payments through various channels. The product caters to a wide range of industries, such as small businesses, enterprises, high-risk merchants, medical practices, non-prof...Read more about Payline Data
GoDaddy Commerce is a comprehensive platform designed to help businesses sell online and in-person. It caters to a wide range of industries, from restaurants and medical practices to salons and local artisans, providing tools to help them grow. The platfo...Read more about GoDaddy POS
Stripe is a cloud-based solution that offers a varied set of unified APIs and tools that enable businesses to manage and accept payments online. Stripe handles key payment functions, such as subscriptions, storing cards and direct payouts to user bank...Read more about Stripe
The Payroll by Credit Card feature from Zil Money will allow you to pay your employees on time and earn cash back rewards. Users can also write-off payroll funding by credit card fees as a business expense. This is a flexible solution to keep your employee...Read more about Zil Money
Tipalti is a finance automation solution for managing accounts payable, procurement, expenses and card, and global payments. Tipalti allows businesses to onboard global suppliers, eliminate invoice entries with invoice processing, and make global payment...Read more about Tipalti
Stax is a cloud-based accounting solution suitable for businesses of all sizes across industries such as e-commerce, healthcare and retail. Key features of the solution include point of sale integration, mobile processing, online invoicing, virtual termina...Read more about Stax
Chargebee is a cloud-based accounting solution for businesses of all sizes across various industries such as telecommunication and media, e-commerce and IoT. The solution is PCI Level 1 certified and offers features such as subscription management, invoice...Read more about Chargebee
CellPoint Digital offers payment orchestration, payment gateway and digital commerce solution to help business owners transform the traditional payment experience into a simple seamless one. With a sophisticated but easy-to-use platform, CellPoint Digital ...Read more about CellPoint Digital
No reviews yet
SumUp Plus Card Reader is a mobile-based card processing solution for businesses of all sizes. The integration with the SumUp POS app allows users to accept credit card payments from a tablet or smartphone and sync them in real time. In addition, the solut...Read more about SumUp Plus Card Reader
Jackrabbit Gymnastics is a club management solution designed to help businesses manage registration, billing, attendance tracking, class scheduling and other operations. It provides an accounting module, which lets gymnastics schools integrate the system w...Read more about Jackrabbit Gymnastics
Jackrabbit Swim is a club management software designed to help swimming schools manage online registrations, customer relationships and payment processes. Administrators can view scheduled classes on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and record absences on...Read more about Jackrabbit Swim
Jackrabbit Music is a cloud-based class management software that helps music schools handle online registrations, track attendance and process payments on a unified platform. Instructors can use the application to view daily, weekly or monthly classes usin...Read more about Jackrabbit Music
We believe that every business should have access to affordable, easy-to-use payment solutions, no matter their size. Back in 2012, SumUp was founded by a small team with one goal in mind – to create a world where small business owners can be successful do...Read more about SumUp
Dash Billing is a cloud-based software solution for automated collection and remittance processing. The system allows you to control how you manage your customers by creating easy-to-use user experiences for both customers and employees. It helps automati...Read more about Dash Billing
Zoho Billing (formerly known as Zoho Subscriptions) is an end-to-end billing solution catering to small and medium-sized businesses across various industries such as SaaS startups, gyms, wine clubs and daycare facilities. The solution offers a native mobil...Read more about Zoho Billing
Upflow is an account receivable automation solution designed to help businesses manage invoices and payment reminders using pre-defined templates. Administrators can gain visibility into outstanding amounts, aging balances, Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and...Read more about Upflow
RevPay is a patient billing and collection solution developed by DoctorConnect.net that simplifies the collection of co-pays, balances, and overdue amounts for medical clinics, enhancing precision in medical billing. This solution is specifically crafted f...Read more about RevPay
No reviews yet
SoftCoPay is a unified payment management software that helps businesses automate their purchase invoice process and make smarter procurement decisions. With AI-driven automated insights, real-time reporting, and a single view of your entire organization's...Read more about SoftCoPay
No reviews yet
ACH Universal is a payment processing software designed to help small and midsize businesses create automated clearing house (ACH) files to consolidate funds between accounts and transfer payments to vendors. The platform enables managers to import transac...Read more about ACH Universal
PaidYET is a cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) and billing and invoicing that helps businesses to manage their daily operations and process transactions. The solution allows businesses to send customized payment links to customers via email and text. Pa...Read more about PaidYET
Square Point of Sale is a mobile POS system available for iOS and Android devices. Key capabilities of the Square POS system include online payment processing, sales reports, inventory tracking, digital receipts, email and SMS marketing campaigns, eCommerc...Read more about Square Point of Sale
Square Invoices is a cloud-based invoice and billing management solution that helps businesses streamline processes related to invoice creation, payment tracking, electronic signature capturing, contact management, and more from within a unified platform. ...Read more about Square Invoices
My DSO Manager is a cloud-based debt collection platform that helps businesses manage cash flows, accounts receivables, collection disputes and other financial processes. It provides a dashboard, which enables professionals to track and monitor sales perfo...Read more about MY DSO MANAGER
PayTrace is a billing and invoicing solution that helps B2B businesses automate accounts receivable processes, saving them time, money, and resources. It allows users to start accepting payments online, in-store, within ERP systems, over the phone, and on ...Read more about PayTrace
Marketing 360 is a cloud-based marketing platform suited for entrepreneurs as well as small and midsize businesses. This solution allows organizations to run social media advertising campaigns, conduct search engine optimization (SEO) programs and analyze ...Read more about Marketing 360
Popular Comparisons
Your Guide to Top Payment Processing Software, May 2024
Software Advice uses reviews from real software users to highlight the top-rated Payment Processing products in North America.
Learn how products are chosenExplore FrontRunners
“Usability” includes user ratings for Functionality and Ease of Use.
“Customer Satisfaction” includes user ratings for Customer Support, Likelihood to Recommend and Value for Money.
Reviews analysis period: The reviews analysis period spans two years and ends the 15th of the month prior to publication.
Buyers Guide
This detailed guide will help you find and buy the right online payment software for you and your business.
Last Updated on January 27, 2025Any business that accepts payment via credit or debit card, i.e., nearly every business, requires payment processing software. Those that have an online presence* in addition to a brick-and-mortar store require online payment processing.
The right online payment processor for your business will largely depend on the payment methods your customers typically use. With recent technology advances, including mobile payments and digital wallets, there are several factors you need to consider when selecting online payment software.
Whether you're looking to invest in an online payment processing system for the first time or looking to upgrade your current software, this guide can help you make a more informed purchase decision.
Here's what we'll cover:
What is Online Payment Software?
Common Features of Payment Processing Software
*If you aren't set up for ecommerce, you should be. Head over to this article detailing why every store should have an online component and read our tips for how to get started.
What Is Online Payment Software?
To understand the role that online payment software plays in payment processing, you need to first understand the payment processing value chain, and second need to know how payment processing works.
There are several parties involved with the payment processing value chain:
Issuer: Bank that provides the cardholder with a credit/debit card. The bank approves/denies any transactions, bills the customer and collects the owed funds.
Cardholder: Consumer who initiates a sale at a business with their bank-issued card
Merchant: Business owner who submits transaction authorization request to an independent sales organization (ISO)/acquirer
Acquirer: Or, merchant service provider (MSP). Owns the merchant account enabling the merchant to process transactions, i.e., payment gateway
Card associations: E.g., Visa, MasterCard and Discover. Govern bank cards, monitor processing, manage clearing and settlement/funding of transactions.
Payment processor: Organization/vendor that partners with acquirer to open merchant accounts. Provide technology and support and oversees payment processing for acquirers.
Source: Fidelity Payments
There are four key stages in how online payments are processed when businesses use a traditional merchant account:
Authorization: Customer initiates the sale; merchant requests authorization from customer's issuing bank via payment processor. This request route is known as the payments value chain (see above).
Batching: Merchant compiles daily sales and submits transactions in a batch to the acquiring bank for payment. Batching is important to allow time to manually review orders to check for fraud.
Clearing: Acquirer/MSP accepts batched transactions from the payment processor, forwards them to the card networks, who then distribute payment to the corresponding issuer. The issuer then debits the funds from the cardholder's bank account, routing the funds back to the acquirer through the card network.
Funding: The acquirer/MSP deposits the funds into the merchant's account.
Fees accrued during this process are subtracted from the funds the merchant receives: The issuer collects an interchange fee; the card network collects an assessment fee; and, the payment processor collects a processing fee.
Online payment processing software plays a pivotal role in this process, helping to pass authorization from the merchant to the issuing bank, payment through the card network from the issuing bank and settlement between the merchant site and the MSP.
Common Features of Payment Processing Software
While features will vary from system to system, online payment software should contain some or all of the following capabilities:
Common Capabilities of Payment Processing Software
Online payments | Payment pages, merchant accounts and payment gateways allow merchants to accept payments for ecommerce, membership drives, event registration and more. |
Market your business, showcase and sell your goods or services online. Link online shopping cart to inventory, report on sales and manage customers. Mobile store (m-commerce) enables customers to access an ecommerce website from a mobile browser or app. | |
POS transactions | Allows sales staff to process transactions for customers and ensures pricing is correct, inventory is adjusted and receipts are printed/emailed. Ability to accept multiple payment types, e.g., cash, check, electronic funds transfer, credit/debit cards (swipe and chip/EMV cards and both card present and card not present) and mobile payment apps. |
Gift card management | Merchants can purchase gift cards through their POS vendor, or through a third-party supplier, depending on the POS provider. Merchants have several options for setting up a retail gift card program, from using them in brand marketing or in a loyalty program (read more about that here). |
Collect customer information including contact information, billing and shipping information, purchase history and recent searches. Use key dates like birthdays and anniversaries to target marketing efforts and tailor deals and loyalty programs to customers. Encourage customers to create and maintain user accounts. | |
Recurring billing | Set up customers on subscription plans for products or services, save payment information and bill them on a recurring basis, e.g., weekly or monthly. |
Reporting and analytics | Track business performance and sales. Manage cash flow, automate invoicing and gain customer insights. |
What Type of Buyer Are You?
Traditional business (with an online store): The ecommerce payment process referenced above will be the norm for most businesses with an online component. Customers can shop in the brick-and-mortar or visit their online marketplace, and inventory will be the same across both. Business owners require online payment processing to handle online purchases/returns.
Ecommerce business: A fully ecommerce business will follow this payment process as well. E-businesses will require online payment software to connect them to a merchant account and payment gateway and to process transactions, and won't require an in-store POS to handle card-present POS transactions.
Subscription economy business: Subscription economy businesses are relatively new. Examples include Blue Apron and Netflix. This business model is based on membership and recurring subscription fees. Most will be E-businesses without a brick-and-mortar. The focus is on marketing the brand, improving the customer experience and retention.
Key Purchase Considerations
Implementing POS software: If you're considering opening a retail shop, you'll need to implement a POS system to help you manage sales, inventory, accounting and customer management. Download our POS implementation checklist to help you as you get started.
Setting up an online business: Once you have your retail store set up and your POS system in place, you need an online presence. It's important to align your ecommerce strategy with your POS platform. Jordan Brannon, president at Coalition Technologies (a leading provider of online marketing services to small and midsize ecommerce retailers) says that if either the POS or ecommerce platform lacks an API, or pre-built integration, business owners should walk away.
Retail technology disrupters: On-demand services and support, i.e., subscription-based businesses such as Uber, Instacart and Stitch Fix, are considered to be the number one technology disrupter in the retail industry. This business model reflects how consumer expectations have changed regarding their retail experience. This includes a heavier focus on building relationships, creating memorable experiences and emphasizing personalized services.