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Home › Start here › Accept payments online
Start here · Money

How to accept payments online for your business

To accept payments online you need a payment processor, also called a payment gateway, that takes card and wallet payments and pays the money into your bank. Then you give customers a way to pay: a checkout on your website or online store, a payment link, or a pay button on your invoices. A website builder or e-commerce platform is only needed if customers should browse and buy on their own.

By Bill Belcamino · Page updated September 23, 2026 · Our methodologyResearched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team
How to accept payments online for your business
Bill Belcamino
Bottom line up frontby Bill Belcamino, founder of HelpCompare
Editorial assessment

Bottom line up front: What does it take to start accepting payments online, and what will it cost?

You need a payment processor, not a website: payment links and invoice pay buttons take money without one, and Stripe (2.9% + 30¢) and PayPal (3.49% + 49¢ on PayPal Checkout) charge per transaction, not monthly.

A store platform such as Shopify (from $29/mo, billed yearly) only earns its place once customers browse and buy on their own. The part that trips up new sellers is the books, not the checkout. Processors pay out in batches with fees and refunds already taken off, so one deposit rarely matches one sale, and if you record deposits as revenue, your sales look smaller than they were and your fees vanish from the books. Record gross sales and processor fees as separate lines, match every payout to its orders each week, and make sure the name on customers' card statements is one they'll recognise, because an unfamiliar charge is a common reason people file a dispute.

My read of the verified data on this page, checked against vendor sources on September 23, 2026. Disagree or spot an error? Tell Bill

How to accept payments online, step by step

The software this job takes

What to look for

Common mistakes to avoid

What to settle before you buy

Frequently asked questions

How do I accept payments online without a merchant account?

Some payment processors sign you up under their own merchant account, so you do not need to apply for one separately. Check each processor's terms for how it handles this and how quickly it pays out.

How can I accept payments online for free?

Of the 3 payment processing tools we track, Square lists a free plan or free tier (limits are in the table above); Stripe and PayPal charge no monthly fee, only a fee on each transaction. A plan with no monthly fee can still charge on each payment, so check the per-transaction fees on the processor's pricing page.

What payment gateway fits a small business?

Look for one that works with your website or store, supports the payment methods your customers use and has fees you can live with at your volume. The table above shows each tool's verified entry price and billing unit. You can also start from the finder for this job.

Do I need a website to accept payments online?

No. Payment links and pay buttons on invoices let you take payments online without a site. A website or online store matters once customers need to browse and buy on their own.

How we built this page

We start from the job, not the product. The phrasings people search for this job (for example “how to accept payments online for my business”) come from our research into how small and mid-size teams describe it. Which software categories the job takes is our editorial judgment. Every tool, entry price, billing unit and date comes from HelpCompare’s open dataset, recorded from each vendor’s own pricing page; nothing is estimated, and where a vendor publishes no price we say so. We take no affiliate commissions and publish no scores of our own. See our methodology or download the data from Open Data.

More jobs in Money

Cite this page: HelpCompare, “How to accept payments online for your business”, helpcompare.com/start/accept-online-payments/ (updated ).

Source links on this site are checked every month; last check . How sources are checked.

From shortlist to switched

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01 · CompareWhich tool fits your team, side by side.133 comparisons 02 · Price & approveSourced, dated pricing and a one-page brief for sign-off.Decision brief 03 · SwitchWhat moves, what you rebuild, what it costs.264 guides 04 · ShareDownload and cite the data. CC BY 4.0.Open data
Bill Belcamino, founder of HelpCompare
About the author

Bill Belcamino

Founder and author, HelpCompare

Engineer by training, operator by experience, marketer by choice. Bill spent eight and a half years as an engineer at HP, was COO of Auctiva (the number one third-party selling platform on eBay, past 200,000 users) and ran Google’s $70M/year search syndication partnership at Alot.com. Then he spent 13 years building his own web properties with his own money at stake. He has bought, trialled, integrated and cancelled more SaaS tools than he can count, and started HelpCompare because the real cost of switching tools is the part nobody covers.

“I’ve sat on both sides of the table: the agency recommending the tool and the client paying for it.”

Researched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team. No paid sponsorships, no affiliate commissions.

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