Compare Payment Processors
Compare payment processors and secure the lowest payment processing fees for your business
- Receive preferential rates from trusted payment processors
- Compare multiple merchant service providers from a single source
- Back up support throughout the agreement with the provider you choose
Compare payment processors and secure the lowest payment processing fees for your business
- Receive preferential rates from trusted payment processors
- Compare multiple merchant service providers from a single source
- Back up support throughout the agreement with the provider you choose
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Compare payment processors and secure the lowest payment processing fees for your business
Payment Gateways For UK Businesses
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We list the most popular payment gateways for businesses looking to take online payments in the UK and internationally. We’ll start with those that offer end-to-end payment processing solutions offering in-house acquiring and then list those that are agnostic about which merchant acquirer is used. We’ll also list white-label payment gateways that many ISOs and PSPs partners with as well as crypto gateways and sector specific gateways.
What is an acquirer agnostic payment gateway?
Each payment gateway needs to be certified with at least one acquirer in order for it to process payments. Acquirer agnostic payment gateways can be integrated with multiple acquirers and are not tied to a single acquirer.
Gateways that are not acquirer agnostic are tied to a single merchant acquirer and offered by end-to-end payment processors (they offer acquiring, a gateway and payment processing in-house) or payment facilitators that partner with an acquirer that is not not known to their customers (i.e. Worldpay is the acquirer for PayPal transactions in the UK).
Merchant Savvy is also agnostic and will recommend the best acquiring and gateway solution for your particular business. We’ll recommend integrating an acquirer to an independent gateway if we believe it will serve your business model well. Alternatively, we may recommend using the in-house payment gateway of an acquirer if we feel it is a great fit for your business. Fill in our short form to get independent recommendations and bespoke quotes.
Many of these payment gateway providers also offer in-person payment processing and omnichannel analytics. However, if your business mainly takes face-to-face payments, our list of the top payment processing companies and card machines may be of interest. We also cover the best international payment gateways here.
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Table of End To End Payment Gateway Providers (click to expand)
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End-To-End Payment Gateways
| Payment Gateway Provider | UK Transaction Fees (Online) | Acquiring agnostic | Type: (Payment Facilitator, ISO, Merchant Acquirer) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adyen | Fixed processing fee of 11p plus a fee determined by the payment method used. e.g. Visa, Mastercard & Maestro: 11p + 0.60% + Interchange fee + scheme fee | No. In house acquiring only. | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
| Trust Payments | Bespoke | No. In house acquiring only. | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
| Mollie | Card revenue up to £50K per month: 1.2% – 2.9% + 20-30p Card revenue over £50K per month: IC++ rates with volume discounts | No. In house acquiring only. | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
| Stripe | Blended rates: UK standard cards: 1.5%+20p EU cards: 2.5%+20p Pay by link (UK cards): 1.2% + 20p All UK cards: 1.29% – 3.4% + 20-30pIC+ pricing offered to high card volume businesses | No. In house acquiring only. | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer, Payment Facilitator |
| Revolut | UK domestic consumer cards: 1% + 20p UK domestic commercial: 2.8% + 20p International cards: 2.8% + 20p Amex UK consumer: 1.7% + 20p Amex UK commercial: 2.8% + 20pCustom rates available for high turnover businesses. | No. In house acquiring only. | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
| PayPal / Braintree | UK user without a PayPal account: 1.2%+30p Alternative payment methods: 1.2%+30p All Other Commercial Transactions: 2.9%+30pBraintree Standard(UK market): 1.9% + 20pDiscounted rates are available for a business processing over 50K per month | No. Worldpay is the acquirer for PayPal in the UK | Payment facilitator |
| Cashflows | Cashflows offer a dynamic tiered pricing engine which changes the rate based on transaction volume. | No. In house acquiring only. | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
| Checkout.com | Bespoke rates. Flat rate pricing is offered to most SMEs. Higher turnover businesses will be offered Interchange++ pricing. | No. In house acquiring only. | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
Table of Full Stack & Acquirer Agnostic Payment Gateways (click to expand)
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Full Stack & Acquirer Agnostic Payment Gateways
| Payment Gateway Provider | UK Transaction Fees (Online) | Acquiring agnostic | Type: (Payment Facilitator, ISO, Merchant Acquirer) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square | UK card transactions are charged at 1.4% + 25p (15p on the Premium Plan) Non-UK card transactions are charged at 1.4% + 25p (15p on the Premium Plan) | No. They use Stripe as their acquirer. | Payment Facilitator |
| Worldpay | Bespoke fees. | Yes. They are a global acquirer, but their payment platform can support a multi-acquirer strategy | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
| Opayo by Elavon | Bespoke fees. | Yes. Elavon are a global acquirer, but its Opayo payment gateway can also integrate with many large acquirers. | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
| Nomupay | Bespoke fees. | Yes | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
| Verifone | Bespoke fees. | Yes | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
| ACI Worldwide | Bespoke fees. | Yes | Gateway, Processor |
| Nuvei | Bespoke fees. Three pricing structures offered (tiered, flat or IC+) depending on the merchants business. | Yes | Gateway, Processor, Acquirer |
Adyen
- Type: Global merchant acquirer, payment gateway and payment processor.
- Company: Over 4,000 employees across 28 global locations, including London and Manchester. Their main headquarters are in Amsterdam, where they were founded in 2006, with regional HQs in San Francisco, Singapore and São Paulo.
- Pricing: Transparent fees based on the location and the payment method. IC+ pricing used for Visa and Mastercard.
- Acquirer Options: They are a global acquirer. They also offer e-commerce payment processing solutions in countries where full stack Adyen Acquiring is not yet available.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Amex, Discover, Diners Club and UnionPay.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, AliPay, AliPay+, Amazon Pay, WeChat Pay, and Samsung Pay.
- Risk Tolerance: Low.
- Online payment integration options: Low code prebuilt UI, Semi-customisable checkout by adding using components, API, shopping cart plugins.
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, they offer in-person card terminals (Ingenico & Castles terminals) and their omnichannel solution called Converged Commerce.
- Suited to: Ecommerce, digital first, multinationals, platforms, marketplaces, subscription, mobile and app and travel businesses. Larger businesses that have a more complex scope of payment needs (SMEs are targeted with platform relationships and acquiring partnerships like the one with SumUp)
Adyen is a Dutch fintech company offering end-to-end payment infrastructure and merchant acquiring that enables online and in-person payment processing.
It has invested heavily in its in-house tech stack and obtained many local acquiring licences in the US, Brazil, Europe, and Asia. This helps it avoid the technical complexities and added cost of integrating third-party software and other merchant acquirers. It has evolved from a specialised payment gateway provider targeting enterprise businesses to a highly rated end-to-end payment processing solution for SMEs and global businesses, marketplaces and platforms.
Combining its gateway software with merchant acquiring and processing means Adyen can underwrite merchants according to its own compliance standards and save on fees they would otherwise pay third parties. This can result in a more seamless merchant experience and reduce transaction fees.
Web and app developers are likely to be impressed by the options Adyen give them to integrate and customise a high-converting checkout experience. Options include pre-built UI components and a highly customisable API.
Their global payments platform accepts over 100 payment methods and most businesses will be able to find the currencies, local card networks, digital wallets, BNPL providers and bank transfer methods their customers prefer to pay in.
They currently support over 70 currencies globally for settlements and payouts, 36 of which qualify for Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) for Visa, Mastercard and Maestro transactions.
Merchant Acquiring: Adyen offer full-stack acquiring in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and the United Kingdom. Merchants also have the option to connect to third-party acquirers via their API if they don’t want to sign up with Adyen acquiring services.
Fees: Fees are generally competitive and based on the payment method used and the location of the paying customer. Their website offers a refreshingly transparent pricing page that shows the processing fee for each method (e.g., 11p for UK payments), which is added to the fee per payment method (e.g., in the UK, for Visa and Mastercard, they charge 0.60% for their acquirer markup plus the interchange and scheme fees).
Clients: High-profile global companies that use Adyen include McDonald’s, H&M, Spotify, Uber, Netflix, and eBay. In the UK, some of their more well-known clients include Boohoo, Now TV, Debenhams, All Saints and Carwow
Adyen Fees
No setup or monthly fees
Based on a fixed processing fee of 11p plus a fee determined by the payment method used.
- Visa, Mastercard & Maestro: 11p + 0.60% + Interchange+
- American Express: 3.95%
| Payment Method | UK Processing Fee | Additional Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Afterpay & Clearpay | 11p | Varies by region: UK: 4.19% + 30p |
| Alipay | 11p | 3% |
| Alipay+ | 11p | 3% |
| Amazon Pay | 11p | Varies by method (e.g., Visa: 0.80% + Interchange++) |
| American Express | 11p | North America: 3.3% + $0.10, Global: 3.95% |
| Apple Pay | 11p | Defined by card used |
| BACS Direct Debit | 11p | £0.55 |
| Billie | 11p | 3.29% + 30p |
| Diners | 11p | 3.95% |
| Discover | 11p | 3.95% |
| Google Pay | 11p | Defined by card used |
| JCB | 11p | 3.75% |
| Klarna | 11p | Varies by product & region (e.g., Pay Over Time: UK: 4.99% + £0.20) |
| Maestro | 11p | Interchange+ + 0.60% |
| Mastercard | 11p | Interchange+ + 0.60% |
| Open Banking / PaybyBank | 11p | Online (DE/UK): €0.50 |
| PayPal | 11p | Direct contract with PayPal + management service fee |
| PaySafeCard | 11p | 10% to 12% |
| Samsung Pay | 11p | Defined by card used |
| Trustly | 11p | € 0.50 |
| UnionPay | 11p | 3% |
| Visa | 11p | Interchange+ + 0.60% |
| WeChat Pay | 11p | 3% |
You can integrate Adyen’s client-side libraries with different server-side flows. They have comprehensive integration guides for web, iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter.
Pre-built UI. They offer drop-in code to integrate a pre-built user interface into your website or app. This requires the lowest level of development time or expertise.
Semi-customisable checkout by adding using components. You can drop in some code and customise the UI styling for each payment method. You can also add payment method components.
API integration. Their API offers the most flexibility and options for customisation.
Integration plugins: Magento, Shopware, Salesforce.
Trust Payments
- Type: Payment gateway, global merchant acquirer and payment processor.
- Company: Founded in 2019 with 9 offices worldwide, including their corporate headquarters in London.
- Pricing: Bespoke transaction fees are offered based on card turnover and business type.
- Acquirer Options: They only offer their own acquiring solution.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Amex, Discover and Diners Club.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Google Pay and Apple Pay.
- Risk Tolerance: Low, medium and high.
- Online payment integration options: No code (payment links, invoicing), low code (redirect to a checkout page hosted by Trustpayments), some code (API for total integration and control), plugins (major ecommerce platforms).
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, they offer in-person card terminals (Ingenico & Castles terminals) and their omnichannel solution called Converged Commerce.
- Suited to: Retail, travel, and financial services have been its key sectors, but it also works with hospitality, gambling, crypto, forex and education verticals.
Trust Payments evolved from an ecommerce-only merchant services acquirer into a full stack omnichannel payment processor. Based in London, they are still popular with many online-only businesses but are also increasingly used by retailers looking for omnichannel solutions and reporting. They also offer other business critical solutions such as ePOS, data analytics, loyalty and inventory management, which is used by Waitrose.
They expanded their global reach by purchasing TruPayMe in 2019, a payment processor serving Europe and North America. In July 2024, they reached the milestone of exceeding £1bn+ in monthly processing volumes.
Their retail functionality was expanded in 2022 after they purchased Wonderlane, a retail technology provider, and Stor, an ecommerce website platform builder. Their CEO Daniel Holden said at the time, “The acquisition of Stor is part of Trust Payments’ ambitious digitisation expansion drive as we create a one-stop-shop for small and medium sized enterprise businesses“.
They enable merchants to accept payments in over 100 currencies and offer support for settlement in 14 currencies. Several alternative payment methods are available, including digital wallets (Google Pay, Apple Pay, Ali Pay and Paypal), BNPL, crypto wallets (Bitpay) and bank-to-bank transfers (Trustly, Przelewy24, Pay by Bank, MyBank, EPS, iDEAL, PayU and Sepa).
They continue to scale the business via direct merchant relationships as well as partnerships with ISVs and payment service providers.
Trust Payment Fees
Transaction fees are bespoke based on the business and annual card turnover. Contact us to get a quote from Trust Payments and our advice on potential alternatives.
TRU Connect system offering payment pages hosted by Trust Payments or merchants can create custom UIs on their own websites using their JS Library, Android SDK or Web Services API.
Shopping cart plugins are available for Shopify, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce (Magento 2), and SAP Commerce Cloud.
They also have an ecommerce website platform, Stor, which they purchased in 2022.
Mollie
- Type: Payment gateway, global merchant acquirer and payment processor.
- Company: Founded in 2004 and based in Amsterdam, Mollie is one of the largest payment service providers (PSPs) in Europe, with over 250,000 clients and a team of around 850.
- Pricing: 2 pricing models based on annual card turnover. (1) SMEs with a card revenue up to £50K per month are offered transparent fixed fees split by payment method. (2) Businesses with over £50K card revenue per month will be offered lower bespoke IC++ rates with volume discounts.
- Acquirer Options: They offer their own acquiring service and don't integrate with other acquirers.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, and Amex.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Paypal, Google Pay and Apple Pay
- Risk Tolerance: Low, medium and high.
- Online payment integration options: No code (payment links, invoicing), low code (redirect to Mollie Checkout), some code (Mollie API client for web and mobile integrations and Mollie Connect for platforms and marketplaces), plugins (major ecommerce platforms).
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, they have one API for both online and in-person payments (taken by PAX A920 & A35 card terminals or iPhone / Android apps).
- Suited to: Ecommerce platforms, SaaS (ecommerce, hospitality, ticketing, food ordering), marketplaces, digital agencies, startups, subscription-based services.
Mollie is a full-service payment processor that has grown to become one of the largest PSPs in Europe on the back of $864 million in funding. In 2021, it was regarded as one of the top five most valuable privately-held fintechs in Europe by CBInsights, with its $800 million Series C funding round valuing the company at $6.5 billion. Since then, it has continued to expand to new territories and verticals.
In 2023, it started offering POS terminals to meet the demand from its existing client base and attract more omnichannel retailers. At the end of 2024, Mollie’s UK team had grown to 26 people after its UK operations experienced triple-digit year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2024.
It supports over 35 payment methods and merchants can offer UK customers the the choice of paying with the major creidt card schemes (Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Amex), digital wallets (Paypal, Google Pay and Apple Pay), bank transfer (Trustly, SEPA bank transfer), recurring payments (SEPA, Bacs, Pay by Bank) prepaid cards (paysafecard), or via a BNPL solution (Klarna).
European customers also have plenty of local payment options, including iDEAL in the Netherlands, Cartes Bancaires in France, Bancontact in Belgium, Postepay in Italy, EPS in Austria, BLIK and Przelewy24 in Poland, Twint in Switzerland, MB Way and Multibanco in Portugal, and Swish in Sweden.
Mollie Fees
Transaction fees for SMEs with annual card turnover up to £50K per month are in table below.
Businesses with over £50K card revenue per month will be offered lower bespoke IC++ rates with volume discount.
| Payment Method | Transaction Fee |
|---|---|
| Mastercard | |
| – UK Domestic Consumer Cards | 1.20% + £0.20 |
| – UK Domestic Commercial & European Cards | 2.90% + £0.20 |
| – All Other Cards | 3.25% + £0.20 |
| Visa | |
| – UK Domestic Consumer Cards | 1.20% + £0.20 |
| – UK Domestic Commercial & European Cards | 2.90% + £0.20 |
| – All Other Cards | 3.25% + £0.20 |
| American Express | |
| – UK Domestic Cards | 2.50% + £0.20 |
| – All Other Cards | 2.60% + £0.20 |
| Apple Pay | Rate defined by the underlying card |
| Google Pay | Rate defined by the underlying card |
| PayPal | PayPal fees + £0.10 |
| SEPA Direct Debit | £0.30 per transaction |
| SEPA Bank Transfer | £0.30 per transaction |
| Klarna | |
| – Germany, Austria & Switzerland | 2.99% + £0.30 |
| – Netherlands & Belgium | 2.99% + £0.40 |
| – Denmark, Finland, Norway & Sweden | 2.99% + £0.35 |
| – France | 4.50% + £0.30 |
| – Italy, Portugal & Spain | 4.99% + £0.35 |
| – United Kingdom & Ireland | 4.99% + £0.30 |
| Riverty | |
| – Netherlands, Belgium, Germany & Austria | 2.99% + £0.30 |
| iDEAL | £0.30 per transaction |
| Bancontact | 1.40% + £0.20 |
| Alma | |
| – France Pay in 3× | from 4.50% + £0.30 |
| – France Pay in 4× | from 5.50% + £0.30 |
| – Belgium Pay in 3× | from 4.29% + £0.30 |
| Billie | |
| – Germany | 3.49% + £0.35 |
| – Austria, France, Netherlands & Sweden | 3.49% + £0.35 |
| Pay by Bank | 0.90% + £0.20 |
| Trustly | 0.90% + £0.25 |
| TWINT | 2.30% + £0.25 |
| EPS | 1.50% + £0.20 |
| PostePay | 2.90% + £0.20 |
| BANCOMAT Pay | 1.50% + £0.25 |
| Satispay | 1.50% + £0.25 |
| Gift Cards | Brand fees + £0.25 |
| KBC Payment Button | 0.90% + £0.30 |
| Belfius Pay Button | 0.90% + £0.30 |
| Eco-, Gift-, and Meal Vouchers | 0.50% + £0.50 |
| Payconiq | £0.39 per transaction |
| Przelewy24 | 2.20% + £0.20 |
| BLIK | 1.60% + £0.25 |
| MB Way | 1.50% + £0.20 |
| Multibanco | 2.10% + £0.30 |
| paysafecard | 15% |
Payment links: URLs are sent to your customers, which redirect them to a payment page in your brand styling hosted by Mollie. Hubspot users also have the option to integrate Mollie and send payment requests from Hubspot directly.
Invoicing: They offer a simple no-code tool for generating and managing online invoices.
E-commerce Platforms Plugins: WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, Shopware, Lightspeed, JTL5, PrestaShop, Wix, plentymarkets, Sylius, BigCommerce, OXID 6, Gambio.
Mollie Checkout: Redirect customers to a checkout page that is hosted by Mollie, where they can select their preferred payment method.
Mollie API client: For building a customised checkout experience hosted on your own site. They have client and server libraries for JS, PHP, Python and .NET.
Mollie Connect: Integrate, accept and route payments for platforms (SaaS) and marketplaces. Mollie Connect is a co-branded solution that can support single 1st party & 3rd party payouts for platforms and 1st party & multiple 3rd party payouts for marketplaces.
Stripe
- Type: Payment gateway, global merchant acquirer and payment processor.
- Company: Global payment processing company with headquarters in San Fransisco and nearly 9,000 employees in 24 offices worldwide.
- Pricing: 5%+20p for UK standard cards and 2.5%+20p for EU cards, Pay by link: 1.2% + 20p for all UK cards) or custom IC+ pricing with volume discounts available to businesses with a high card turnover.
- Acquirer Options: Stripe offers their own acquiring service (i.e. they are an end-to-end payment processor) and doesn't integrate with other acquirers.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, JCB, Amex, Union Pay, Discover, and Diners Club.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Google Pay and Apple Pay.
- Risk Tolerance: Low, medium and high.
- Online payment integration options: No code (payment links, invoicing), low code (redirect to a Stripe hosted checkout or embed prebuilt checkout), some code (customisable, modular components with CSS styling possible).
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes. Stripe also offers in-person payments via terminals and mobile apps (Stripe Readers, BBPOS, iPhone and Android Tap to Pay apps) with a unified, customisable reporting interface. In-person payment checkouts can also be customised with a toolkit of APIs and SDKs
- Suited to: Domestic startups up to large global businesses. Its main verticals are retail, SaaS, marketplace, ecommerce and platforms.
Stripe’s focus on the design of its checkout UI and the accessibility of its API were key in driving its steep growth curve. They have continued to focus on ease of use and customer experience, and in 2024, Stripe processed $1.4 trillion in card payments, up 38% from the year before. and over 100
Its product portfolio has evolved so it meets the needs of startups up to enterprise-level global clients across 46 countries. Stripe’s high-converting and easy-to-use checkout solutions continue to be popular with many SMEs who are willing to pay its higher fees in exchange for relatively simple no-code implementation options.
They continue to attract large online businesses with more complex payment processing needs through its customisable Elements and Connect products. They are now used by half of the Fortune 100, and over 100 companies process more than $1 billion annually through Stripe.
They are also used to process payments by some of the largest ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, Squarespace and Wix.
Whilst Stripe continues to be the market leader for platform and marketplace payments, with over 14,000 clients and $1 billion processed across 84 platforms in 2024, Adyen is giving them stiff competition. Adyen is increasingly taking large enterprises with complex payment needs away from Stripe, which has tended to focus on providing a user-friendly developer experience for smaller businesses. In essence, Adyen caters to more complex, global businesses, while Stripe is often preferred by smaller online merchants looking for simple integration solutions. See how Stripe compares to Adyen here.
Stripe payment methods inlcude ACH Direct Debit, Alipay, Affirm, Afterpay / Clearpay, Apple Pay, Bacs Direct Debit, Bancontact, Boleto, EPS, FPX, Giropay, Google Pay, Grabpay, iDEAL, Klarna, Link, OXXO, Pre-authorised debits, Przelewy24, SEPA Direct Debit, WeChat Pay, Swish.
Stripe Checkout supports 34 languages and 133 currencies. In order to improve conversion rates, they also automatically convert the price to the currency of the customer’s location and offer payment methods more popular in that region (i.e. Cartes Bancaires if the customer is in France).
Stripe Fees
Blended option (offered to lower turnover businesses):
- 1.5%+20p for UK standard cards
- 1.9%+20p UK Premium cards (Commercial, corporate or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard)
- 2.5%+20p for EU cards
- Pay by link: 1.2% + 20p for all UK cards
Custom IC+ pricing with volume discounts is available to businesses with a high card turnover.
| Payment Type | Fee |
|---|---|
| UK standard cards (Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Amex, Discover, JCB, Diners Club, Apple Pay, Google Pay) | 1.5%+20p |
| UK Premium cards (Commercial, corporate or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard) | 1.9% + 20p |
| European Economic Area cards | 2.5% + 20p |
| International cards | 3.25% + 20p + 2% if currency conversion is required |
| Pay by link | 1.2% + 20p |
| Wallets | Alipay: 2.9% + 20p Paypal: 0.2% + 10p + Paypal fees Revolut Pay: 1.5% + 20p + Wechat Pay: 2.9% +20p +2% if currency conversion is required |
| BNPL | Clearpay: 6% + 30p + 1.5% for international transactions +2% if currency conversion is required |
| Bank Transfers (UK) | GBP Bank Transfer: 0.5% (£5 cap) Bacs Direct Debit: 1% (Min: 20p, £4 cap) Pay by Bank: 0.5% + 20p (£5 cap) |
Payment Links: Links can be shared over any digital channel (i.e. email or SMS), which takes the customer to a Stripe-hosted checkout page.
Checkout: Pre-built payment form that can be integrated into your website. Alternatively, you can also redirect customers to the payment form hosted by Stripe.
Elements: Stripe provides UI building blocks that can be styled using CSS. React or JavaScript can be used for web integration, and SDKs are available for iOS, Android, or React Native for mobile checkout.
Connect: Payment solution for marketplaces and platforms. Payment pages can be embedded components or hosted by Stripe. Their platform also handles customer identity verification and onboarding.
Revolut
- Type: Neobank for individuals and businesses. Merchant services include a payment gateway, merchant acquiring and payment processing.
- Company: It operates in 48 countries and has over 10,000 employees.
- Pricing: Blended rates (see fees tab) or custom rates for high turnover businesses.
- Acquirer Options: Revolut is an acquirer and doesn't integrate with other acquirers.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, Maestro and Amex.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Google Pay, Apple Pay and Revolut Pay.
- Risk Tolerance: Low, medium and high.
- Online payment integration options: No code (payment links, invoicing) and low code (redirect to a hosted checkout or use a widget).
- Omnichannel solutions: They also offer card terminals (Revolut Terminal and Reader), but there is no evidence of a single platform for all payment channels.
- Suited to: UK SMEs that don't require extensive customisation of their customers' online checkout experience.
Revolut is an online bank and fintech based in London with over 500,000 business customers globally. A secondary share sale at the end of 2024 valued the company at $45 billion.
It doesn’t offer the same level of payment gateway functionality as payment processing specialists, who have had several more years of experience (Revolut only launched its merchant acquiring services in March 2021, having started in 2015 as an app for spending and transferring money internationally).
It is likely to be attractive to UK online businesses looking for a simple way to take payments with a simple fee structure, especially if they already use an ecommerce platform they have a plugin for (e.g. WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Prestashop or OpenCart).
They can accept 21 currencies (33 if the Revolut Pay wallet is used) and started accepting American Express in October 2024.
Fees are on the more expensive side, and high card turnover businesses may qualify for reduced rates.
Revolut Card Processing Fees
Revolut’s standard card processing fees are below. They also offer custom rates for businesses processing high monthly volumes.
| Payment Method | Card Type | Online Payments | In-Person Payments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visa & Mastercard | UK Domestic Consumer Cards | 1% + £0.20 | 0.8% + £0.02 |
| UK Domestic Commercial Cards | 2.8% + £0.20 | 2.6% + £0.02 | |
| All International Cards | 2.8% + £0.20 | 2.6% + £0.02 | |
| American Express | UK Domestic Consumer Cards | 1.7% + £0.20 | 1.7% + £0.02 |
| UK Domestic Commercial Cards | 2.8% + £0.20 | 2.6% + £0.02 | |
| All International Cards | 2.8% + £0.20 | 2.6% + £0.02 | |
| Revolut Pay | 1% + £0.20 | 0.5% + £0.02 | |
| Instant Bank Payment | 1% + £0.20 | Not Applicable | |
| Tap to Pay on iPhone | Not Applicable | Additional £0.08 |
Additional Fees:
- Set-up & Maintenance Fee: No cost.
- Monthly Fee: No cost.
- Hardware One-Time Cost:
- Revolut Terminal: £169 + VAT
- Revolut Reader: £49
- Chargebacks: £15 or equivalent per occurrence.
4 integration options
- Revolut Pay: Enables customers to pay in one click, which can be integrated via a widget or using redirect URLs.
- Revolut Checkout Widget. Enables merchants to add a card field or card pop-up to their website. This can also be integrated into iOS and Android apps.
- Apple Pay and Google Pay: Revolut provides SDKs for their merchant account customers to easily integrate Apple Pay and Google Pay into their websites or apps.
Ecommerce plugins
Plugins are available for WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Prestashop and OpenCart.
Payment links
They also offer the ability to send payment links that redirect to a self-hosted checkout page. The checkout page can be branded with the merchant’s logo, a cover image and preferred colours.
Paypal
- Type: Payment gateway, payment processor, payment facilitator.
- Company: US company with over 600K merchants in 200+ countries. Over 5,000 employees in 65 offices around the world (265+ staff in the UK).
- Pricing: PayPal offers Blended rates (see fees tab), and its enterprise solution, Braintree, offers discounted rates for businesses processing over £50,000 per month. IC+ pricing is also available to high card turnover businesses.
- Acquirer Options: They are not an acquirer (Worldpay is the acquirer for PayPal in the UK) and are not acquirer agnostic.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, Maestro and Amex.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay
- Risk Tolerance: Low.
- Online payment integration options: Pay by Link, Hosted Payments Page, iFrame, Server-to-Server API.
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, they also offer an extensive variety of POS hardware and all channel data is consolidated in their Verifone Central platform.
- Suited to: Low card volume SMEs looking for a simple integration and no extensive customisation options. Higher card volume businesses may find the rates too expensive (even the Braintree ones) unless they qualify for discounted rates (available when card revenue exceeds £50K per month) or IC+ pricing.
PayPal they are worth considering for SMEs with limited or no developer resources looking to start taking online payments quickly. The trade-off for SMEs that value the ease of use is PayPal’s high transaction fees.
PayPal targets enterprise customers with Braintree, the gateway it purchased in 2013 and which has now been merged into the PayPal website. Braintree’s standard fees are lower but still may be too high for some high card volume businesses, although discounted rates are available once monthly card revenue exceeds £50K per month.
Unlike many other payment gateway providers on this list, PayPal are a payment facilitator (Payfac) and not a merchant acquirer. Worldpay is the acquirer for PayPal in the UK, and AIB (Allied Irish Bank) acts as the acquirer for PayPal in Ireland.
Paypal UK Fees
- UK user without a PayPal account: 1.2% +30p
- Paypal Braintree for standard merchants: 1.9% + 20p
- Alternative payment methods: 1.2%+ 30p
- QR Code Transactions: 1.5% £10.01 and above, 2.0% £10.00 and below
- All Other Commercial Transactions: 2.9% + 30p
Ecommerce Plugins
BigCommerce, Shopify, Opencard, WooCommerce, commercetools, CubeCart, Ecwid, IRP Commerce, osCommerce, Shopware, SmarterCommerce and Wix.
Standard Checkout
Use the JavaScript SDK to display payment buttons to customers so they can pay with PayPal, debit and credit cards. You can edit button shapes and colours only. Customers can pay with credit or debit cards through a guest checkout or use PayPal or Pay in 3 (BNPL service). Customers can not use Google Pay or Apple Pay with this integration option. All payments are processed as PayPal payments.
Advanced Checkout
This option allows merchants to customise the checkout flow and offer more payment methods (i.e. Google Pay or Apple Pay, bank transfers) and multi-currency credit and debit card processing. Merchants can customise the credit and debit card fields as well as the buttons. All payments are processed outside of PayPal payments.
Enterprise Checkout (Braintree)
This option gives merchants the most control over the checkout flow. Braintree Direct, their enterprise solution, is used to build a checkout UI for web or mobile, add payment methods required and store customer data. Client SDKs are available for Android, iOS, and JavaScript. Server SDKs are available for Java, .NET, Node.js, PHP, Python, and Ruby.
Cashflows
- Type: Payment gateway, European merchant acquirer and payment processor.
- Company: Founded in 2005 and based in Cambridge, UK, with ~172 employees.
- Pricing: They have a 'dynamic tiered pricing engine' that changes the rate based on transaction volume.
- Acquirer Options: They are a European acquirer but don't allow other acquirers to integrate into their gateway.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, and Amex.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Samsung Pay, and Mastercard Click to Pay.
- Risk Tolerance: Low and medium.
- Online payment integration options: Redirect to hosted checkout, customisable checkout components via API, embeddable checkout form, Pay-by-Link.
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, they have one reporting platform for both online and in-person payments (processed by Castles terminals).
- Suited to: SMEs and small corporates in the retail, financial service and insurance sectors. ISOs and ISV may also want to consider them if they are looking for a European acquiring partner.
Cashflows, based in Cambridge, UK, and owned by Pollen Street Capital, is a cloud-based payment processor, gateway and European acquirer. They became regulated by the FCA as an electronic money institution in 2011 and were the first independent UK payments institution to be accepted as a principal member of both Visa and Mastercard.
Since then, they’ve made significant investments in their tech stack and recently won the ‘Best Online Payments Solution’ award at the 2025 Payments Awards.
Their growth has come from direct merchant relationships and partnerships with ISOs, ISVs and payment facilitators who use their acquiring services. Their latest set of accounts show that as of 31st Dec 2023, they had 2,114 merchants, a net revenue of £18.3 million (after interchange and scheme fees) and processed £8.8 billion of transactions in the previous year.
Their ‘Anytime Settlement’ feature enables merchants to monitor your transactions in real time, with card payments being available within hours (subject to individual terms).
They also offer instant payments so merchants can make payments by Visa Direct (or Mastercard Send when launched) that are received by their customers in minutes.
They offer 3D Secure Version 2.2 as standard and can store card details so that returning customers can pay with just one click. Their onboarding process is relatively fast, with over 80% of merchant applications being processed within 24 hours.
Cashflow Fees
Cashflows offer a dynamic tiered pricing engine which changes the rate based on transaction volume.
Pay By Link: Their pay-by-link tool is included in their payment gateway.
Ecommerce Plugins: Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, OpenCart.
Redirect Hosted Checkout: The customer is redirected to the checkout page hosted by Cashflows.
Embedded Checkout: The payment form fields can be customised but are hosted by Cashflows.
Direct API: Payment details are entered into your website and sent to Cashflows via API.
Checkout.com
- Type: Payment gateway, global merchant acquirer and payment processor.
- Company: Over 2,000 employees across 19 cities in Europe, the US, APAC and MENA regions. Their HQ is in London.
- Pricing: Flat rate pricing based on the risk profile of the business and risk category. Interchange++ pricing is also available for higher turnover businesses.
- Acquirer Options: They offer direct acquiring in more than 55 countries in APAC, MENAP, the UK and EEA (they offer US domestic acquiring via a partner bank). 3rd party acquirers can't use their gateway.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Amex, Discover and Diners Club.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: PayPal, Google Pay and Apple Pay.
- Risk Tolerance: Low.
- Online payment integration options: Shopping cart plugins, flexible prebuilt components (Flow), mobile SDK, or API.
- Omnichannel solutions: No. They don't offer in-person payments, and therefore, there is no omnichannel solution across all channels.
- Suited to: Digital-first businesses, enterprise-level merchants, high-growth fintech companies, marketplaces and online businesses with international payment needs.
Checkout.com is a London-based fintech company that offers an end-to-end solution. They manage the entire payment lifecycle in a single platform that securely accepts and processes online payments globally. Businesses can also use them just as a payment gateway and payment processor and integrate with one or more third-party merchant acquirers.
They hold principal membership with Visa, Mastercard, and other major card schemes and numerous domestic acquiring licenses in APAC, MENAP, UK and EEA (they offer US domestic acquiring via a partner bank).
They have also invested heavily in building their proprietary technology stack. Keeping the payment gateway, acquisition, and processing in-house requires far more investment upfront, but this enables them to maintain control over the entire payment flow, offer faster settlement times, and hopefully reduce costs, allowing them to offer lower rates to merchants.
It is undoubtedly an expensive strategy that has yet to make them a profit. Their two UK entities, Checkout Ltd (which records revenues from payments processing) and Checkout Technology Ltd (which holds the group’s IP and tech), saw losses increase by 73% in 2023 to $306m. It is hard to know how healthy the business is as it comprises a tangle of several companies in different countries, which often trade with each other, all held within an offshore company.
Target sectors include ecommerce, gaming, crypto, fintech and travel. Crypto and adult traffic now represent less than 5% of Checkout’s sales after they stopped working with Binance and OnlyFans. At the start of 2025, they claim to have now four merchants processing over $1bn (Stripe has 100+).
Their payment platform supports direct acquiring in more than 55 countries, over 150 currencies, and over 20 payment methods.
In the UK, they support multiple credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners, JCB, UnionPay Internation), digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal), BNPL solutions (Klarna) and local bank transfers (Sofort).
They offer a range of options for integrating their gateway software. Their ‘flow’ solution provides a pre-built payment interface that works on all the major browsers and can be installed by pasting in some code. It has limited customisation options (logo, colours, preferred currency, payment methods) but requires the least coding knowledge. Those who lack the technical know-how to get involved in API code also have the option to let Checkout.com host your checkout page. Businesses wanting the most flexibility and freedom to customise can use their unified payments API and mobile SDK for iOS and Android apps.
Payment links are very simple to set up, and they have a range of plugins for popular e-commerce platforms, including Magento, WooCommerce and Shopify.
Checkout.com serves many notable global brands, including Sony, Deliveroo, Farfetch, Grab, Getty Images, and The Hut Group. In the UK, they work with major companies such as Revolut, Wise, Pizza Hut, and ASOS.
Checkout.com Fees
Flat rate pricing is offered to most SMEs based on the risk profile of the business and risk category (MCC code).
Higher turnover businesses will be offered Interchange++ pricing.
Rates are all bespoke.
They offer Low code pre-built components (Flow), hosted checkout, Mobile SDK and API.
- Unified API: Accept payments, split payments, and make payouts through a single API connection.
- Mobile SDK: Build native iOS and Android checkout experiences
- Flexible pre-built components: Branded ‘Flow’, these easy-to-integrate UI components allow businesses to host their own web and mobile checkouts that securely store customer payment info for faster checkouts.
- Hosted checkout: Customers are redirected to a payment page hosted by Chekcout.com but with your logo and brand colours. This is the quickest and easiest to set up.
Plugins are available for Shopify (onsite and offsite payments), WooCommerce, Magento 2, Prestashop, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud, and Zuora.
Square
- Type: Payment facilitator.
- Company: The square platform is used by 4 million merchants in 8 countries.
- Pricing: Fixed fees based on card used and plan selected (see Fees tab).
- Acquirer Options: Merchants can not use other acquirers with Square. Since 2019, Stripe has served all its European merchants as a Visa and Mastercard acquirer.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, UnionPay, VPay, JCB, Amex
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Apple Pay, Paypal, Alipay, WeChat Pay, Venmo (US only)
- Risk Tolerance: Depends on acquirer used.
- Online payment integration options: Payment links, mobile SKDs, integrate on a website using their COPYandPAY or Server to Server solutions.
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, their payments orchestration platform is a secure omnichannel payment processing platform supporting in-store, online and mobile payments.
- Suited to: UK SMEs with annual card volume under £100,000.
Square is a payment facilitator that offers online payments with no dedicated merchant account. They were mainly focused on in-person payments but have started to invest more in online payments and now offer SMEs an omnichannel solution. In 2018, they purchased the Weebly ecommerce platform and integrated it into their platform, which is now a single unified system that manages online and in-store sales.
Square Online, their standard ecommerce solution, is relatively basic, and you will need to pay £20 per month for their Plus plan for features most businesses will require as a minimum. They also have a Premium plan for £64 a month, which reduces transaction fees by 10p. Square Online is worth considering if you have relatively low transaction volumes and only require limited flexibility in your ecommerce platform.
Square’s UK Fees
Online Transaction Fees
- UK card transactions are charged at 1.4% + 25p (15p on the Premium Plan)
- Non-UK card transactions are charged at 1.4% + 25p (15p on the Premium Plan)
Monthly Plans
- Free: £0 per month,
- Plus: £20 per month
- Premium: £64 per month
Redirect options include redirecting buyers to a prebuilt checkout page using the Square API hosted page or using the Square Web Payments SDK and the server-side Payments API for a self-hosted checkout.
Full Stack & Acquirer Agnostic Payment Gateways
Best for high turnover businesses (those with an online card turnover above £100K per year).
Worldpay
- Type: Payment gateway, global merchant acquirer and payment processor.
- Company: They currently process $2.3 trillion of payments for over one million merchants in 146 countries annually. Their corporate headquarters is in London
- Pricing: Bespoke blended rates for most businesses. IC+ and IC++ pricing for high turnover businesses.
- Acquirer Options: They are a global acquirer, but their payment platform can support a multi-acquirer strategy.
- Card Schemes: Mastercard, Visa, DCI, JCB, UPI and American Express.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Google Pay, Apple Pay, Chrome Pay, Samsung Pay, Masterpass and Visa Checkout.
- Risk Tolerance: Low, medium and high.
- Online payment integration options: Shopping cart plugins, redirect to a hosted payment page hosted by Worldpay, or integrate with XML API.
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, they offer a unified reporting dashboard and cross-channel tokenisation (cardholder details are stored and shopping behaviour analysed across all channels).
- Suited to: Domestic and international SMEs and enterprise businesses. Their target sectors include omnichannel retailers, restaurants, financial services, gaming, travel and crypto. They also provide acquiring services for many ISVs, marketplaces and platforms.
Worldpay is the largest full-stack payment processor in the UK and continues to have a large global footprint after it separated from its unsuccessful merger with FIS in Feb 2024. That five-year partnership cost FIS shareholders approximately $25 billion.
Their new joint venture partner, GTCR, has a 55% stake in Worldpay and earmarked $1.3 billion for “strategic acquisitions”. It remains to be seen if they will be able to close the product gap with Adyen and Stripe and improve its ability to service global omni channel retailers.
Alternative payment methods offered include: Klarna, Konbini, PayPal, WeChat Pay, Alipay China & Hong Kong, SEPA, Bancontact, BLIK, Euteller, iDeal, Multibanco, Open Banking, paysafecard, POLi NZ, Przelewy24, SafetyPay, Trustly and UnionPay. ACH/eCheck and EFT are also available in the US and Canada.
Worldpay UK Fees
Fees are bespoke, and most SMEs will be offered a blended rate for debit, credit, and business cards. These will be split between in-person and card-holder-not-present (CNP) payments (online, mail, or telephone), which will be more expensive.
Higher turnover businesses will be offered IC+ and IC++ pricing.
Below is a range of indicative online rates based on the turnover of the business (lower rates are available for higher turnover businesses). The rates below are for businesses ranging from an annual card turnover of £25K up to £25M.
| Visa & Mastercard | Online & Phone |
|---|---|
| Debit | 0.7% – 1.0% |
| Credit | 1.1% – 1.9% |
| Commercial | 2.2% – 3.0% |
Note: These are indicative rates only, and the actual rates offered will depend on several factors.
- Authorisation Fee: 4.5p
- Payment Gateway: Included
- PCI DSS service fee: £5
- Minimum monthly service charge (MMSC): £15
- Settlement time: 24 hours
They also advertise fixed fees for their ‘Worldpay eCommerce’ solution at the following rates:
- No monthly fee, no minimum charge, no set up fee
- 1.3% + 20p for consumer cards (Visa and Mastercard)
- 2.9% + 20p for commercial cards (Visa, Mastercard and American Express)
This fixed rate pricing structure has relatively high transaction fees and is only recommended for businesses with lower turnovers. Merchant Savvy will be ab
Hosted payment pages for Worldpay eCommerce merchants.
This is a low-code solution that enables merchants to integrate a pre-built checkout with their own brand styling. There are 3 integration options.
- Hosted checkout: Full page redirect to a Worldpay-hosted checkout with the look and feel of the merchant’s brand.
- Iframe: Insert the iframe code into your own website, which will then display the Worldpay-hosted checkout page within the iframe.
- Lightbox popup: The checkout form hosted by Wordlpay is shown in a lightbox popup.
Access Checkout SDKs (Software Development Kits)
Web, Android, iOS and React Native SDKs.
Their SDKs support payments made with Amex, Carte Bancaires, Discover, Diners, EFTPOS, ELO, JCB, Maestro, MasterCard, MasterCard Debit, Visa, Visa Debit, and Visa Electron (UK only).
APIs
Worldpay currently have 18 APIs designed for SMEs, Enterprise merchants, ISOs and ISVs. Merchants have the option of using a single Payments API or using multiple APIs to control the payment journey fully.
Their payments API supports Amex, Discover, Diners, EFTPOS, JCB, Maestro, MasterCard, MasterCard Debit, Visa, Visa Debit, and Visa Electron (UK only). Apple Pay and Google Pay digital wallets are also accepted.
Customers can pay with a new card or using a stored card and CVC number. Recurring payments are also possible.
Plugins & Extensions
There are certified Worldpay plugins and extensions for Adobe Commerce/Magento2, Oracle Netsuite, Saleforce, SAP Commerce, and commercetools.
Opayo by Elavon
- Type: Payment gateway, payment processor and acquirer
- Company: Elavon is a subsidiary of US Bancorp based in Dublin, and Opayo is the Sage Pay payment gateway they purchased and rebranded in 2019.
- Pricing: £25 per month for their payment gateway (350 free transactions) with bespoke transaction fees.
- Acquirer Options: Elavon are a global acquirer, but its Opayo payment gateway can also integrate with many large acquirers.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, UnionPay, VPay, JCB, Amex.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Apple Pay and Google Pay.
- Risk Tolerance: Low.
- Online payment integration options: Hosted payment pages, ecommerce plugins or API.
- Omnichannel solutions: In October 2024, they partnered with LS Retail to offer a new omnichannel solution for retailers called Elavon powered by FreedomPay.
- Suited to: SMEs in the retail and hospitality sectors.
Elavon, based in Dublin and a subsidiary of US Bancorp, grew its UK market share with the acquisition of Sage Pay, later rebranded Opayo, in 2019 for £232 million. Since March 2023, they have stopped using the Opayo branding and have redirected the Opayo websites to Elavon.
They have partnered with Freedom, a global payment orchestration platform, to provide their omnichannel solution rather than build it in-house.
They offer Multi-Currency Conversion for over 100 currencies.
Elavon Fees
These are indicative rates for retail businesses with an annual card turnover between £100K-£500M (ATV of £21-30). The higher the card turnover, the lower the rates.
| Visa & Mastercard | In Person | Online & Phone |
|---|---|---|
| Debit | 0.60% – 1.75% | 0.85% – 2.05% |
| Credit | 0.95% – 2.45% | 1.20% – 2.75% |
| Commercial | 2.00% – 2.52% | 2.25% – 2.82% |
- Payment Gateway: £25 per month (350 free transactions)
- Authorisation Fee: 4p
- Chargeback fee: £25
- PCI DSS service fee: £6
- Minimum monthly service charge (MMSC): £30
- Settlement time: 48 hours
Hosted Payment Page
They offer two low-code hosted payment page solutions, Lightbox and Redirect. Lightbox overlays on top of the merchant’s checkout page to process the transaction. The Redirect option is simply redirecting to a checkout page hosted on Elavon’s servers.
API
Merchants can connect to Elevon’s payment gateway directly (server-to-server) using their API, which uses REST API over HTTP. This will offer full control of the customer checkout UI. This can be used for ecommerce as well as other card-not-present transactions such as phone payments on a virtual terminal.
Shopping Cart Plugins
Elavon has plugins for Shopify, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce, and Salesforce.
NomuPay
- Type: Payment gateway, global acquirer and payment processor.
- Company: 250+ employees in 9 counties with their HQ in Dublin, Ireland.
- Pricing: Blended rates (see fees tab) or custom rates for high turnover businesses.
- Acquirer Options: They offer acquiring in-house, but their gateway is acquirer agnostic and can connect with 300 acquiring banks locally and internationally.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, UPI and Troy.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, UnionPay, Alipay, WeChat Pay, DuitNow QR/Online, GrabPay, GCash, Maya, Touch 'n Go.
- Risk Tolerance: Low, medium and high.
- Online payment integration options: API designed around REST.
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, they also offer card terminals (Ingenico, Clover and Poynt), and their uP Payments solution unifies in-store and ecommerce payments.
- Suited to: Online businesses selling in multiple territories and requiring an omnichannel solution.
Nomupay was established in 2021 with the aim of creating a market-leading unified payments company focused on high-growth customer segments in Europe, APAC, and the Middle East. In its first year of operation, it acquired five Wirecard entities in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Hong Kong with Turkey, their payments licences, infrastructure and access to key markets.
In 2023, they added to their tech stack by acquiring Total Processing, the respected UK payment gateway, for a reported $35 million.
NomuPay’s revenue grew 100% annually in 2023 and 2024 and is projected to reach an annual run rate of $20 million and turn a profit in 2205. They are valued at around $200 million, with external funding of up to $90 million to date.
They offer a range of payment methods within different regions including digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, UnionPay, Alipay, WeChat Pay, DuitNow QR/Online, GrabPay, GCash, Maya, Touch ‘n Go), Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) (Klarna), bank transfer (iDEAL, SEPA, SOFORT, Trustly, POLi, Multibanco) and local cards (Bancontact, Boleto Bancário).
NomuPay Fees
Bespoke fees available on request.
Their uP Payments e-commerce model can be enabled by reseller clients, enterprises and marketplaces that fulfil the following basic requirements:
- Have an existing merchant gateway,
- Host their own check-out pages, and
- Are able to connect to a 3rd party provider for EMV 3DS (if required)
ACI Worldwide
- Type: Payment gateway and payment processor.
- Company: Large US-based payments company formed with ~4000 employees and over 80,000 merchant customers spread across 94 countries.
- Pricing: Depends on the merchant acquirer used.
- Acquirer Options: They are acquirer agnostic; merchants can integrate with their preferred 3rd party acquirer or use their orchestration platform to integrate with multi-acquirers (local and global), which can increase acceptance rates. They are not an acquirer themselves.
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, UnionPay, VPay, JCB, Amex.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Apple Pay, Paypal, Venmo (US only).
- Risk Tolerance: Depends on acquirer used.
- Online payment integration options: Mobile SDKs integrate on a website using their COPYandPAY or server-to-server solutions.
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, their payments orchestration platform is a secure omnichannel payment processing platform supporting in-store, online and mobile payments.
- Suited to: They have expertise in financial services, airlines, gaming and digital entertainment, government, healthcare, education, insurance, restaurant, retail, travel and transportation, telecommunication, and utility sectors. They also provide payment system infrastructure for merchant acquirers and payment service providers.
ACI Worldwide provides the payment infrastructure for merchants, third-party payment processors and acquiring banks. They’ve grown significantly since being founded in 1975, and their 2024 accounts show revenues of $1.6 billion.
Merchants using them directly will also need a merchant account from an anquirer. ACI’s platform connects with the following acquirers licenced in the UK: AIB Merchant Services, Bank of America Merchant Services, Barclaycard, CashFlows, Decta, eMerchantPay, Elavon, Fiserv Via, Global Payments, Lloyds & Lloyds Cardnet, Paymentsense, Paynetics, Paysafe, Planet Merchant Services, PXP Financial, Trust Payments, Worldpay. See a list of all acquirers and payment methods their platform integrates with here.
Their API also enables merchants to accept 120+ cryptocurrencies with one click and no fees.
ACI Worldwide Fees
Bespoke fees available on request.
Ecommerce plugins: Plugins are available for WooCommerce, Hyrbis, Adobe Commerce, Shopify, OperCart, BigCommerce, Prestashop and Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
COPYandPAY: SAQ-A compliant payment-form solution.
Server to Server: Synchronous and asynchronous options.
Verifone
- Type: Payment gateway, global acquirer and payment processor.
- Company: US company with over 600K merchants in 200+ countries. Over 5,000 employees in 65 offices around the world (265+ staff in the UK).
- Pricing: Blended rates or custom rates for high turnover businesses.
- Acquirer Options: They offer acquiring in house but also an acquirer agnostic gateway that can be used with other acquirers (e.g. Elavon, Lloyds, Barclays, Global Payments and Worldpay in the UK).
- Card Schemes: Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay, American Express, Discover, and Diners Club.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Google Pay, Apple Pay, Paypal, Alipay, WeChat Pay and Klarna.
- Risk Tolerance: Low and medium.
- Online payment integration options: Hosted payments pages, iFrame, Server-to-Server API.
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, they also offer an extensive variety of POS hardware and all channel data is consolidated in their Verifone Central platform.
- Suited to: Banking, hospitality, retail, travel & transportation, vending & ticketing, and digital businesses. They have payment solutions for startups, SMEs and enterprise businesses.
Verifone Inc. is a global payment processing company with headquarters in New York. Its POS hardware is ubiquitous in all territories and processes half of all non-cash transactions globally (over 12 billion transactions each year). Its M&A department has been busy since the company was formed in 1981, and in 2020, they purchased the popular gateway 2Checkout. Their gateway processes $480 billion worth of transactions annually.
The last accounts from its UK entity, Verifone (UK) Limited, show it had 265 sales, marketing and admin staff in the UK with an annual turnover in the UK of £79 million up to Oct 2023.
They work with merchants directly but have also scaled through their partnerships with acquiring banks, ISOs and ISVs.
In February 2025, they announced they had partnered with PayPal. Braintree, PayPal’s enterprise payment processing brand, will use Verifone POS hardware in order to expand PayPal’s omnichannel capabilities.
They offer an acquirer agnostic gateway as well as full end-to-end payment processing so merchants have the option to use a compatible third-party gateway with Verifone as the acquirer or integrate Verifone’s gateway with a third-party merchant bank.
If you don’t want to use Verifone Acquiring, their payment gateway integrates with the following acquirers in the UK: Elavon, Lloyds, Barclays, Global Payments and Worldpay. Other acquirers are available in other territories.
Verifone UK Fees
Fees on application.
2Checkout, which they own, offers the following fixed fees for its standard gateway and subscription service:
- 2Sell: 3.5% + 25p
- 2Subscribe: 4.5% + 35p
- 2Monetize: Custom pricing
- 4Enterprize: Custom pricing
Pay by Link: Send payment links to your customers that open a payment page on Verifone’s servers. This can be done manually or automatically with an API.
Hosted Payments Page: Redirect merchants to a checkout hosted on Verifone’s servers.
iFrame: Insert code on your website that displays Verifone’s hosted form within an iframe.
Server-to-Server API: Host the checkout form on your own website and add code to make API calls to capture customer payment information and place orders.
Mobile SDKs: Integrate into Andriod and iOS apps.
Ecommerce plugins: Plugins are available for WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce, Shopify, OperCart, Prestashop and Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
Nuvei
- Type: Payment gateway, acquirer and payment processor.
- Company: Large Canadian-based global payments company with 2,800 staff across 22 regional offices.
- Pricing: They offer three pricing structures: tiered, flat rate and IC+.
- Acquirer Options: They have local acquiring capabilities in 55 countries and connectivity to 680 local and alternative payment methods. They are also acquirer agnostic with a multi-acquirer orchestration platform.
- Card Schemes: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diners, and JCB.
- Digital Wallets Accepted: Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and PayPal.
- Risk Tolerance: Low, medium and high risk
- Online payment integration options: Ecommerce plugins, redirect to hosted payment page, Web and mobile SDK or API server to server integration.
- Omnichannel solutions: Yes, they launched an enhanced payments omnichannel solution for unified commerce in 2024.
- Suited to: Domestic and multinational SME and enterprise businesses in retail, financial services, transportation and igaming sectors. They also offer solutions for marketplaces, subscription businesses, government agencies and local councils, crypto platforms & exchanges and digital content providers.
Nuvei is the Canadian fintech company that went private in 2024 after its IPO in 2020. They have a global focus with local acquiring capabilities in 55 countries (6 more to be added soon), multi-currency pricing and dynamic currency conversion. They also like to advertise the fact that merchants can accept cards locally anywhere in the world by leveraging their network of 200+ acquiring markets.
They work directly with merchants but also offer integrated payment solutions to ISVs, government agencies, and B2B management ERP software. They offer over 700 alternative payment methods (44 in the UK, including bank-to-bank transfers, BNPL and crypto e-wallets).
They offer payments orchestration to increase acceptance rates, and their Smart Routing Manager is acquiring agnostic giving merchants freedom in which payment processors transactions are routed to. POS terminals can be cloud-integrated, semi-integrated or fully integrated.
Chargeback management tools include Dynamic 3D Secure, 3DS exemption management, Verifi Order Insight (Visa), Verifi Rapid Dispute Resolution (Visa) and Ethoca (Mastercard).
Nuvei Fees
They offer three pricing structures, and the type and rates offered will depend on the merchant’s business and card volumes:
Tiered pricing: Transactions are categorised as either qualified or non-qualified based on factors like card type and transaction method (i.e. in-person or remote).
Flat rate: A single, consolidated rate that is determined by a merchant’s processing history and the industry being serviced.
Interchange plus (aka cost plus): Processing fees are split into the interchange fees charged by card networks (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) and a fixed markup charged by Nuvei.
Hosted payment page: Low code solution with merchants redirecting customers to a checkout page hosted by Nuvei.
Dev Connect: Web and mobile SDK. The modular code is to be placed on the payment pages.
Simply Connect: Bets of both hosted payment pages and the Web SDK solution. Customers stay on the merchant’s site and enter their payment details on a fully customisable checkout form.
Total Control: API server-to-server solution that gives merchants complete control of their UX and UI. Merchants need to take ownership of the PCI SAQ-D.
Ecommerce Plugins: They have 32 ecommerce platform plugins, including Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Shopify, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, OpenCart, 3dcard, CoreCommerce, Foxy, Volusion, and Web.com.
Acquired.com
Acquired.com is a UK-based payments infrastructure platform founded in 2015 that specialises in recurring payments and online commerce. Its gateway can connect to multiple acquirers and accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Apple Pay and Google Pay. Their cloud-based API software is platform agnostic. Their USP is providing businesses with enhanced customer data such as precise decline reasons, chargeback details, and associated fees.
Integration options include redirecting to a pre-built checkout page hosted by Acquired, embedding pre-built UI components supported by a Javascript SDK or direct integration via API. The platform also has plugins for WooCommerce, Opencart and Adobe Commerce.
They work with merchants directly and also with payment service providers who use their white label payment gateway. Some of their partnerships include Barclaycard, Worldpay, Shift4 and Lloyds.
Cardstream
Cardstream, based in the UK, offers a full end-to-end white label payment gateway or modular payment solutions that can operate independently. Their platform, or Open®Payment Network (OPN®) as they call it, can be accessed by a single API and is used by acquirers, payment service providers, payment facilitators (Payfacs), ISOs, ISVs and other value-added service providers.
In 2023, they launched a PayFac-as-a-Service for acquirers looking for a comprehensive third-party payment facilitator so they can avoid significant upfront costs. This service also enables ISOs, PSPs and ISVs a simple pathway to become a payment facilitator.
You may have used their platform already without realising it, as their white label solution is used by 140 partners who utilise and distribute their technology as their own.
Integration options include redirecting to their hosted payment pages, direct integration where customer details are captured on the merchant’s website and batch integration, which is similar, except multiple transactions are sent a single request and not immediately.
Cardstream has plugins for WooCommerce, WooCommerce Subscriptions, Adobe Commerce, Zencart, Opencart and Prestashop. They are also 3rd party plugins for Shopify and BigCommerce.
NMI
NMI’s payment gateway is used globally by over 280,000 merchants to process over 2.8 billion transactions a year. They offer modular embedded white label payment processing solutions for ISOs, ISVs, Payfacs, SaaS providers and banks. This flexible platform is designed for software companies and ISOs looking for a 3rd party partner to take care of all or some parts of merchant relationships from onboarding to payment processing and payouts. This is an omnichannel solution that can accept online and in-person card, bank, or digital wallet payments.
Their standalone white label agnostic payment gateway has over 200 certified acquiring options and can take payments from Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Diners Club, China UnionPay, JCB, Google Pay and Apple Pay.
Integration options for ecommerce sites and POS systems range from highly customisable APIs and SDKs to no code and low code components. For in-person payments, they can pre-certify popular Ingenico, Verifone, and Miura POS hardware with the largest UK and European acquirers, including AIB,
Corefy
Corefy offers a white label payment gateway and payment processing platform. Their clients include acquiring banks, ISOs, PSPs, merchant service providers, B2B SaaS providers and marketplaces. They operate in territories and verticals including ecommerce, forex, i-gaming, gambling, crypto and dating.
Their payment orchestration platform can route to as many local and payment providers as required in order to maximise payment success rates.
Integration options include several hosted or self-hosted payment pages, RESTful APIs, SDKs and shopping carts.
Their standard pricing is €2,500 per month, which includes 10,000 successful transactions (€0.072 per successful transaction thereafter). Their professional package is €6,000 per month, which includes 100,000 successful transactions (€0.024 per successful transaction thereafter), hosted payment pages with custom design and a new payment flow integration. Bespoke pricing is also available for their Enterprise package, which includes over 1 million successful transactions per month.
Crypto Payment Gateways
Whilst some of the payment gateways above accept cryptocurrency payments (e.g. ACI Worldwide and Nuvei), if you are looking for a specialist cryptocurrency payment gateway, you may want to consider the following:
These gateways enable merchants to accept various cryptocurrencies as payment and convert these earnings to fiat currencies like EUR, GBP and USD.
Sector Specific Payment Gateways
There are also many payment gateways that specialise in specific verticals, such as:
- Fondy: For marketplaces and platforms
- Planet Payment Gateway: For retail, hospitality and transportation businesses.
- Chargebee: Subscription payment gateway
- Paddle: Tailored to SaaS companies and digital product providers
FAQS
What is a payment gateway?
The payment gateway market is a huge £127.1 billion industry and set to continue to grow massively in the coming years. A payment gateway is software that securely captures card payment data from a customer and transfers it to the acquirer (aka merchant account), which results in an approval or disapproval decision being transferred back to the customer.
The cardholder’s bank only submits payments for settlement once they receive approval from the payment gateway. A payment gateway is critical when taking card payments when the card holder is not present (CNP payments).
At a very high level, a payment gateway provides 3 main functions:
- Card payment forms on websites and apps
- Transaction encryption
- Verification systems on the back end
Most merchant account providers offer their own payment gateway to their customers (and vice versa), but it is often a good idea to investigate whether it may be better to use different companies for your payment gateway and merchant account.
You may get a better user experience, higher conversion rates and lower transaction fees by splitting them (we can give you advice on this based on your business requirements).
How do you choose the best payment gateway provider for your business?
This is one question where the answer is ‘it depends’. These are the key factors you need to consider.
1. Compatibility
If you are using a third-party payment gateway that is separate from your merchant account provider, you need to ensure they are compatible and can be integrated into the two. Similarly, if you are using an ecommerce platform, you should check if your preferred gateway has a plugin for the ecommerce platform.
2. Checkout experience and ability to customise UX
Customer experience at checkout has a significant impact on your bottom line, and a good payment gateway will allow you to improve this. Most gateways will offer multiple integration options, from no-node/low-code with limited customisation options up to full customisation with API solutions.
3. Offering payment options your customer wants
Offering the payment options your customers want to use will reduce friction at the checkout screen and increase sales. This could include adding additional card types like Amex, local cards popular in the country of the shopper, digital wallets like Apple Pay, bank-to-bank transfers, or buy now and pay later functionality.
4. Security & fraud prevention
You need to check if the payment gateway has the level of PCI compliance your specific business requires. As a guide, here is how Visa decide on required PCI levels. Online payments tend to have more chargebacks than in-person payments, and your gateway is crucial in reducing fraud and chargebacks.
5. Speed of payment
Some gateways are painfully slow to transfer funds, so make sure you check how quickly you can expect to access your money once settled (it typically takes 3 days, but some providers can transfer funds in 24 hours).
6. Reporting & user interface
The user interfaces and reporting of some payment gateways are head and shoulders above others. Not only are they intuitive and a joy to use, but they can also enable better business decisions to be made. Others have omnichannel reporting capabilities for businesses taking payments across multiple channels.
7. International coverage
If you are taking international payments, it is obviously important to check that your preferred gateway(s) can take payments and pay out in the currencies you require. You should also confirm any additional fees incurred for international payments and if a merchant account in a specific country is required. We have a list of international payment gateways here.
How much do payment gateways cost?
When choosing a payment gateway, make sure you understand their fee structure and the most appropriate option for your business. Look out for hidden fees or restrictions, such as transaction limits. There are several types of costs associated with a payment gateway, such as:
- One-time account setup fee
- Fixed monthly account administration charges
- PCI DSS service fee
- Transaction fees (if you are using a separate merchant acquirer, transaction fees will also be charged by them).
- Multi-currency settlement
- Chargeback and refunds fees
You can see a more comprehensive guide to costs associated with payment processing here. The total cost of using a payment gateway will depend on how those different types of fees stack up.
How can we integrate a payment gateway on our website?
Typically, there are four different options to choose from when thinking about using a payment gateway on your website. Most payment gateway providers offer at least 2 of these integration options.
Website owners can simply copy and paste the payment link onto their own website, and customers are directed to a separate payment page when they want to make an online payment. This option has the advantages of simplicity and the security offered by the payment gateway. However, this payment gateway means less control for the merchant and also adds a second step, which can lower conversion rates.
These are pre-built, customisable payment user interfaces that merchants can embed directly onto their websites. PCI compliance will be built in, and once the customer’s card details are submitted, they are encrypted and submitted to the payment gateway for authorisation. The customer UI can be customised by the merchant. Most payment gateways also make this relatively easy to set up with modular components that can be embedded with a simple widget or code snippet to paste in. Mobile SDKs are also often available to easily integrate the gateway into Android and iOS mobile apps.
API Hosted Gateways enable the entire payment flow to take place on the merchant’s website and servers. This enables merchants to have full control of the customers’ entire payment experience. However, merchants are responsible for security and will need to pay extra for SSL certification and ensure that the payment process is PCI DSS compliant. This is the most complex integration method requiring a developer.
Most gateways offer plugins that can integrate easily with popular ecommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce. This would be necessary if you are using an ecommerce platform to sell online and don’t want to use their in-house gateway (i.e. merchants using Shopify can often reduce their transaction fees by integrating one of the gateways below with a plugin rather than using Shopify Payments).
Payment Gateways vs Payment Processors: What’s the Difference?
In short, a payment gateway is software that approves or declines transactions between your website or app and your customers, and a payment processor executes the transaction. Payment gateways capture and send card data to the payment processor and also communicate approvals or rejections to you and your customers. We cover the differences between payment gateways and payment processors in more detail here.
How is a payment gateway different from a payment service provider?
You may hear payment gateways and payment service providers (PSPs) used interchangeably, but they are different. PSPs (aka merchant service providers, payment processors or ISOs) are companies that provide a range of services that help businesses accept payments, whereas a gateway is software carrying out a specific service in the payment process.
Many PSPs combine payment gateways and merchant accounts into one package and take a nice premium for the convenience of doing so (which is why it is often worth looking at getting your own payment gateway provider and a separate contract with a merchant account provider, which can often lower transaction fees).
What is the cheapest payment gateway?
You should avoid trying to find the payment gateways with the lowest fees as this is likely to cost you more in the long run. You need to weigh up the fees against potential losses incurred by going down a more budget route. A low-cost payment gateway can often be a false economy due to low conversion rates and more costly chargebacks.
What is the difference between a payment gateway and an online payment system?
Online payment systems include the 3 elements required to accept online payments, one of which is a payment gateway. The other 2 components are a payment processor and a merchant acquirer (merchant bank account).
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