WooCommerce Addons to Accept Credit Card Payments with WordPress

Nearly any online selling WordPress project wants to accept credit card payments without problems or technical difficulties. One of the reasons people love WordPress platform so much is because it makes selling products and accepting payments online very easy. Setting up a payment gateway can be one of most lucrative, yet difficult tasks while creating and managing a website. This is an area where you will have to do at least a minimal amount of research, or hire professionals as an alternative way of solving the issue.

There are lots of plugins on the market that can help you to achieve your goals. Free ones, usually end up sending customers away from your site. Most small businesses will want to add a payment gateway directly on their website. This way people would not have to leave your site and you can provide smooth transactions for your customers. This post will go over a few terms related to accepting card payments directly from your website with WordPress. We will also introduce a list of plugins to help you in this direction.

WooCommerce for the Win

The majority of the plugins featured in this post are addons for WooCommerce, the most popular eCommerce solution for WordPress. WooCommerce is free to download and offers you options for every aspect of eCommerce. With over 14,000,000 downloads for now, WooCommerce is here to stay. While WooCommerce is free, you will need to purchase addons to extend functionality and get more of the professional features. The plugins on this list are all useful for managing and accepting payments directly on your WordPress website.

WordPress Makes Accepting Credit Cards a Cinch

These days almost anyone with the desire to do so can run a business online. To get started all you need is a website. If you have not run a shopping cart site before, you may wonder just where to get started. How are you going to collect payments? One of the most puzzling parts of accepting payments for newbies is understanding the terms. Basically there are three things you need to accept debit and credit cards online: merchant account, payment gateway, SSL Certificate.

Merchant Accounts

It takes an initial investment to make money. You will need a merchant account from a bank. There will be a small application fee and the bank will check your credit report as well. If you use a payment gateway from certain companies, like Stripe, they can help provide you with a merchant account. This is a good option for beginners.

Merchant accounts are created by third party organizations called ISOs (Independent Sales Organizations). The ISOs work with payment processors to move money into merchant accounts. The type of merchant account you get will be contingent on your payment gateway and processor. This is why you need to research your options.

Payment Gateways

The payment gateway is like virtual bank. It is a secure place for the transaction to occur. Once the customer decides to buy something, they will be taken to your payment gateway. Information like price, quantity or anything else is provided by the customer. Once the transaction is initiated, the payment processor will communicate with your merchant account to move the funds. If everything is on the up and up the payment will go through. Some popular payment gateways include Stripe, PayPal, WorldPay, Authorize.net and Amazon Payments.

SSL Certificate

Handling confidential information is no joke. In order to comply with the standards required to accept credit card payments, you will need to get an SSL certificate from your server. This is true for just about every type of eCommerce site, even if you are not accepting card payments. It is important not to mishandle any sensitive info. An SSL certificate can give your customers the confidence to make payments on your website. These can cost anywhere from $100 to over $1,000 a year for a single domain.

Helpful WooCommerce Addons for WordPress

Now let us proceed to the list of tools which we advise you to use within your online store on WordPress platform. Not all of them might appear useful to your website individually but we tried to gather the list for different website`s demands. The choice of the most efficient tool is always up to you.

WP Full Stripe — Subscription and Payment Plugin for WordPress

WP Full Stripe is created with 2 main goals in mind: to receive credit card payments and to gather subscriptions directly from your WordPress website. The plugin is created especially for the beginners in the sphere of WordPress administration and does not require any web development knowledge or skills.

WP Full Stripe takes care about the safety of any transaction made within your WordPress project. Moreover, the tool provides you with more convenient features like creating multiple versions of payment forms, received payments view, bank transfer creation, send custom payment emails and much more.

WooCommerce Offline Credit Card Payment Method

This plugin offers you to extend the opportunities of your WordPress online store to offline. This might be a crucial feature for all WordPress website owners who also have their brick-and-mortar local shops. WooCommerce Offline Credit Card Payment Method allow you to receive credit cards in offline to provide your customers with further options to choose from.

WooCommerce Offline Credit Card Payment Method provides high security for encryption and decryption of credit card details and allows you to get payments on your own account using the offline creadit card details given by your customer. Quick and easy installation process will be a real find for any beginner-level WordPress administrator.

BeanStream Gateway for WooCommerce

Based in Canada, BeanStream has been processing payments since 2000. You can accept card payments from customers in Canada, the UK and the US. This WordPress plugin adds a payment gateway on your site to use with a BeanStream merchant account. It’s a very effective and affordable solution for small businesses who want to take credit card payments.

Integrate this plugin with WooCommerce to accept payments on your site. Like most gateways, you will need an SSL certificate to take payments.

Network Merchants Payment Gateway for WooCommerce

Use this plugin to process online transactions from all over the world. The Network Merchants Payment Gateway works with WooCommerce to accept payments directly on your site, to give your customers an easy, safe experience. You’ll need an SSL certificate to use this plugin.

WorldPay Gateway for WooCommerce

WorldPay is another one of the top payment processing companies with partnerships all over the world. You can accept payments in multiple currencies online, right from your website. This WooCommerce addon is a great way to handle payments with ease. WorldPay is fully PCI-DSS compliant and requires the use of an SSL certificate.

WooCommerce Ultimate Multi Currency Suite

This plugin is a very advanced addon for WooCommerce that allows you to accept multiple currencies. It can be tough to manage prices and setup your product pages to work with different currencies, but this plugin makes it simple. The exchange rates are refreshed every 24 hours. The plugin also gives you the option to set them manually. You can set base or sale prices for all your products in alternative currencies.

The plugin uses geolocation to set currency or it allows your customers to choose their location manually. You can choose which currencies to use in the plugin settings panel. Users can also have their currency converted, for their own reference. The plugin works with PayPal or any other payment gateways.

Final Words

Setting up a payment gateway on your site is a sure way to take your online business to the next level. As we mentioned in the intro, you can always accept card payments with free plugins, but your customers will be directed away from your site. There are many benefits to be had from keeping people on your site for transactions. Establish your brand, give users a seamless experience and increase your sales rates. Whether you are selling products or services, payment gateways are a good investment. Have you used any of the plugins on this list? Let us know your favorite WooCommerce addons for accepting and managing payments online.