Whether you’re running a small landscaping company, offering a subscription-based coaching service or just getting started as an entrepreneur, accepting payments online is no longer just a nice-to-have — it’s essential. In today’s digital-first world, customers expect fast, secure and flexible payment options.
According to McKinsey, 92 percent of consumers in the United States made some sort of digital payment in 2024 — a new high.¹ This shift reflects a major transformation in consumer behavior, across both generations and industries.
A boost for small businesses
Enabling online payments is one of the smartest moves a business can make. Online sales allow you to reach new customers and new markets far beyond your local area. In the past, according to a Visa study,² only big businesses could scale to access customers across the country or around the world, but today’s small business owners can be virtually borderless. Small businesses report an 8 percent sales boost after accepting digital payments.³
Smooth online payment processing can also promote sales by increasing conversions and enhancing customer loyalty. Visa’s 2025 Global Digital Shopping Index found that 56 percent of shoppers say they specifically choose merchants that offer fast payments, and that leveraging new technology to accept payments more efficiently and securely can be what sets a business apart in today’s rapidly digitalizing world.⁴
What’s more, accepting online payments can simplify your operations, since many platforms offer tools for automatic invoicing, inventory tracking and financial reporting. In fact, when expenses and labor are factored in, processing a digital payment is 57 percent less expensive than processing a non-digital payment.⁵ Digital payments can also help improve liquidity and cash flow, as they typically settle within one to two business days.
To get started, small businesses and entrepreneurs can follow these five steps that walk you through how to take payments online, including how to accept credit, debit and prepaid card payments online.
Step 1: Set up the basics to take payments online
To accept online payments, your business will need some type of merchant account to temporarily hold customer funds. This account holds customer payments until they are verified, then transfers them to your business’s primary bank account.
There are two ways that a small business can open a merchant account: directly with a bank or financial institution or through payment service providers (PSPs) like Authorize.net, PayPal, Stripe and Square. Opening the account directly typically affords greater customization and control, but it can involve complicated or lengthy setup and monthly fees. As payment volumes grow, traditional merchant accounts often offer lower effective per-transaction costs compared to PSPs, making them a more economical choice for larger businesses.
Alternatively, PSPs simplify the online payment setup process by bundling essential services — like a merchant account, payment gateway, fraud tools and reporting features — into one platform. This all-in-one approach removes the need to set up each component separately, allowing most small businesses to get up and running quickly. That ease of use, combined with competitive pricing and added features like dashboards, is why most small businesses opt for PSPs to get started fast. One tradeoff: Since merchant accounts are pooled, if other merchants experience a spike in chargebacks or refunds, fees can rise for everyone.
Step 2: Choose the right provider for your small business
Regardless of how you set up your merchant account, most small businesses will want an online payment processing provider to help with collecting payments from customers. Solutions like Authorize.net, PayPal, Stripe and Square offer payment gateways or hosted pages where customers securely enter their payment information during the checkout process. E-commerce platforms like Shopify and Wix also come with built-in payment integrations and plugins.
Choosing the right online payment processing for small business means finding a provider that meets your specific needs. Key factors to consider include fee structures. Monthly or annual flat-rate pricing is simpler, but interchange-plus, which adjusts pricing based on the real cost of each transaction, may end up being cheaper as your business grows. Also, if you plan to expand globally, check whether the provider supports multi-currency transactions or international payments. To avoid unexpected costs, make sure to read the fine print on fees, reserve holds, refund policies and other terms.
Security features are another crucial consideration when you’re ready to set up a payment gateway. Your payment provider should have advanced protection features such as real-time fraud detection and tokenization, which generates a token to represent a customer’s credit card number. Thus, even if hackers access a database, they don’t get actual credit card numbers. The Three-Domain (3D) Secure authentication protocol, which requires that cardholders complete an additional verification step during checkout, can be another useful security feature.
Finally, does your provider have live chat, phone or 24/7 assistance? If something goes wrong or questions arise, you don’t want to lose sales because a customer can’t complete their checkout.
Step 3: Offer a wide range of payment methods
Your customers want flexibility. The more payment options you provide, the more customers you can accommodate and the lower your rate of cart abandonment. Today’s options include:
- Credit and debit cards: Thanks to their dominant market share, widespread acceptance and established infrastructure, cards and debit cards remain the gold standard.
- ACH transfers: These bank-to-bank money transfers can be a secure and cost-effective way to accept payments directly from a customer’s bank account. ACH transfers are slower than credit card payments, but their lower processing fees make them ideal for business-to-business (B2B) payments and high-ticket transactions.
- Digital wallets: Growing in popularity, especially among younger consumers, digital wallet acceptance is a must. Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Samsung Pay and Venmo offer fast, secure and seamless mobile checkout.
- Buy now, pay later (BNPL): Services like Affirm, Afterpay and Klarna allow customers to pay over time. BNPL can also attract younger shoppers and increase a business’s average order value.
Step 4: Prioritize security and PCI compliance for your online business
Security is critical when handling sensitive payment data. Not only does it protect your business from fraud, it also builds customer trust.
All businesses that accept credit or debit card payments, regardless of size or volume, must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a set of security standards designed to ensure that any business accepting credit cards maintains a secure environment. Larger businesses must complete a full audit, while smaller merchants may only need to fill out a PCI compliance self-assessment questionnaire.
PSPs like Authorize.net can help you remain compliant by handling most technical requirements on your behalf. These include using an address verification system, which confirms that a customer’s billing address matches the one on file with the card issuer, and a card verification value (CVV), which helps to ensure a customer has possession of the physical credit card.
In addition, the PCI DSS requires businesses to use Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption, which protects data exchanged between a user’s browser and the website’s server. It also confirms the identity of the website through a digital certificate, helping users know they’re visiting a legitimate site.
Step 5: Follow through to ensure smooth implementation
Launching your payment system involves more than flipping a switch. Once you’ve selected your provider, you’ll want to continuously test and refine your checkout experience. This could mean asking friends or team members to run tests with different payment methods, as well as checking for issues on both online and mobile platforms.
Common mistakes when setting up a payment gateway include creating an overcomplicated checkout. Asking customers to go through too many steps or forcing them to create an account can result in drop-offs. If you don’t offer a “checkout as guest” option, you risk losing business. You can also miss out on sales by not offering customers their preferred payment method. It’s worth monitoring payment trends to make sure you’re accepting any new ones that customers are adopting.
Finally, customer service shouldn’t be solely reserved for post-purchase issues. Customers should be able to get in touch with you about any payment issues, such as making sure their payment was made or changing their shipping or billing address.
Launching your online payment capability
Accepting payments online is one of the most important steps you can take to grow your business and modernize your operations. From reaching new customers to getting paid faster, the benefits are both immediate and long-term for successful online payment processing for a small business. The following five steps will get you on your way:
- Set up your merchant account
- Choose your payment provider
- Offer multiple payment methods
- Prioritize security and ensure PCI compliance
- Test and optimize your checkout process
- McKinsey. (2024, October). State of consumer digital payments in 2024.
- Visa. (2023, September). Small Businesses Eye Global Expansion as Key to Growth, Visa Study Finds.
- Visa. Getting paid. Based on survey participants who reported either specific increase or no impact in sales volume after accepting digital payments. No participant reported decrease in sales volume.
- Ibid.
- Visa. Small business payment methods.