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Payment Gateway Popularity Contest

Since we provide an online invoicing tool that integrates with a number of payment gateways to help you collect credit card payments online, we often get calls asking for a recommended gateway to use.  Our answer is always dependent on the needs of the caller.  Our questions are usually:

From these answers we can usually recommend someone to call for a quote.  Out of curiosity, I ran some statistics to determine who were the most popular credit card gateways (this excludes PayPal and 2Checkout):

GatewayStats1.GIF

Authorize.net is the clear winner in the popularity contest.  This indicates it may be the best payment gateway solution for a small business services company based in the US. 

For those of us based in Canada, PSiGate is the winner, although their only competition is a company that used to be called Paradata, but was recently purchased by Payment Processing, Inc.


  • Pingback: Gotta Love PayPal

  • http://www.DesignInsomnia.com The Customer Focused Creative

    I’ve been looking for someone to publish Payment Gateway Statistics. Thank you for posting this. Did you know that Paypal bought out Verisign? So now I wonder who is more popular? But I have to say, my clients on Verisign are having a few problems during Verisign’s transition — longer Tech Support time, not knowing which tech support email to contact, Errors connecting to the payment gateway and duplicate order entries. Hopefully, they’ll fix all these bugs ASAP!

  • http://www.freshbooks.com/our-team.php#levi Levi Cooperman

    Hi Customer Focused Creative,

    It’s good to know you are getting value out of these numbers. I will publish more statistics as they accumulate.

    I did hear about PayPal’s purchase, and I was very nervous, here are a few posts about it:

    http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2006/05/23/is-paypal-dropping-the-ball/

    http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2006/06/27/paypal-has-dropped-the-ball/

    Thanks,
    Levi

  • Andrew Birchall

    Just so you know, Landmark does not have it’s own payment gateway, it just provides its users with the iTransact payment gateway.

    Also, Authorize.Net was recently purchased by CyberSource and it’s resellers are beginning to offer services to Canadian companies. The catch is that you must aquire an American merchant account through Authorize.Net’s resellers.

    I would be interested to see where the Cyber Source Advanced and Essentials payment gateways fit in here, since they do business primarily with fortune 500 companies.

  • Robs

    Hmm, are these stats based on popularity or merchant size? Just because someone is using a Payment Gateway does not always mean they like them.

  • http://www.freshbooks.com/our-team.php#levi Levi Cooperman

    Hi Robs,
    I guess the title is supposed to be kind of a joke Yes as you mentioned these stats are based purely on usage. It has nothing to do with how well liked each gateway is. I’m sure if we did a survey, we could find out though.
    - Levi

  • http://ecommerce.versapay.com Ryan Wilson

    With VersaPay you can use Authorize.net or PSI*Gate with your Canadian merchant account. Rates range from 2%-2.89% depending on the site of your business.

    Get local canadian personal service with your VersaPay merchant account with the brilliance of freshbooks invoicing!

  • http://www.paynetsecure.net Payment Gateway

    Hi, payment gateway can be a very useful solution for a small business services company.

    Regards

  • http://www.merchant-accounts.ca David Goodale

    Many people focus on rates (for obvious reasons), but the gateway you choose will also impact the processing currencies you can support. As e-commerce matures, expect more cardholders to want to pay in their local currency. It’s a significant marketing advantage, particularly for North American customers targeting customers overseas. We specialize in handling multi-currency processing, and is a criteria I recommend my clients at least consider before deciding which gateway they are going to put their transactions through.

  • http://www.beanstream.com/public/index.asp Chris

    I work for a Payment Gateway in Canada called Beanstream. We work with Canadian and US currencies/merchants. beanstream.com

  • yogi

    Could you please let me know which payment gateway is being used by most of the people in New Zealand ?

  • http://www.dailyplanetvirtual.ca Jef Keep

    I’m currently using Versa-Pay with PsiGate as my gateway provider. I”ve got American merchant accounts but I have been talking to Versa-Pay about dual accounts as my Canadian client base is starting to increase (and I can’t stand PayPal which is all I have for the Canadian side right now).

    Two questions:

    1) Is Authorize.Net better as a gateway or is PsiGate? I’ve had no problems with PsiGate, but I was curious.

    2) I’d like to offer American Express payment and while I can get a Canadian merchant number in two seconds flat, I have to go through some really bizarre hoops to accept payment via AMEX in USD.

    Does anybody have a dual set up with AMEX now through their processing company?

    I’d be curious to know how it’s done.

    Thanks!

    Jef Keep
    Daily Planet Virtual Services

  • Gary

    Hi, I am looking for a payment gateway for my website. I am based in India and currently provide computer support services to clients in US and Australia. I am not interested in Paypal. Can anyone suggest few names.Thanks!!

  • Brad

    A statistics major would have a field day with this one… Authorize is likely more popular because there is a little star beside it (“We recommend these gateways”). It makes sense that the one you recommend becomes the leading gateway.

    On that note, it surprises me that a Canadian Corp. would recommend an American Corp (Authorize, PayPal) over another Canadian Corp (Beanstream) when Beanstream is by far the superior product…

    That’s enough criticism from me though… I do love Freshbooks!


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