E-commerce payment systems

Which payment solution should I use?

Having a secure, efficient payment service is integral to your business. Our analysis of e-commerce and point-of-sales solutions compares and contrasts evaluations from 12 comparison websites, industry reports and sector reviews (hereafter “expert sources”) to give you a well-rounded analysis of what service will work for you. Our “best-of” rankings do take account of pricing as well as functionality of e-commerce payment systems, but when considering solutions pricing, this will vary depending on contract length and perceived risk of the small business (years of operation, nature of business, etc).

Our analysis focuses on payment providers and, depending on your business, you may have greater need for a standalone point-of-sales (POS) system that fully manages your electronic till. Our POS system introduction provides useful links to systems that specialise in electronic tills.

Key:   paid for service     registration required     official

Expert sources’ evaluation of payment providers

Payment provider

Website

ecommerce

POS

Average score

PayPal

88% – 4.4/5

Worldpay from FIS

88% – 4.4/5

Square

87% – 4.3/5

Izettle

86% – 4.3/5

Stripe

83% – 4.2/5

Clover

79% – 3.9/5

Shopify

78% – 3.9/5

Payment sense

73% – 3.7/5

Amazon Pay

73% – 3.6/5

Paypoint

65% – 3.3/5

Analysis of expert sources’ functionality

Expert source

Website

Strengths and weaknesses

Details features

Ranking

Procurement info.

Start-ups

Expert market – POS

Merchantsumo

Merchant Machine

Fit Small Business

Small biz trends

Expert market – POS

This is Money

Merchant Savvy

Merchant Savvy – ecommerce


Ratings by evaluator

Expert source

Paypal

Worldpay (FIS)

Square

izettle

Stripe

Clover

Shopify

Payment sense

Amazon Pay

Pay point

Start-ups

80%

85%

90%

95%

Expert Market

95%

90%

80%

Quickbooks

95%

90%

80%

85%

75%

Merchantsumo

85%

80%

95%

90%

Merchant Machine

95%

85%

70%

75%

80%

55%

90%

65%

FSB

95%

Fits small business

85%

95%

Small biz trends

95%

90%

85%

80%

Expert market – POS

75%

95%

80%

This is Money

80%

Merchant Savvy

75%

90%

95%

85%

Merchant Savvy – ecommerce

95%

90%

85%