Top 10 best international payment gateways

Panna Kemenes

21.06.23

6 minute read

With the growth of eCommerce sales, the payment gateway market is booming. By 2030, it’s expected to reach a value of $106.4 billion USD.¹

An international payment gateway captures and transmits your customers’ payment information. This enables you to accept global online payments.

With so much choice, deciding on an international payment gateway can be a challenge.

Let’s look at the best payment gateway for international transactions.

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Top 10 international payment gateway providers

Let’s take a look at the best international payment gateway providers.

Top 10:
Stripe PayPal Square FIS Global Adyen 2Checkout Braintree Checkout.com Sage Pay Amazon Pay What to consider when choosing a payment gateway Conclusion: What’s the best international payment gateway?

Stripe

Stripe is one of the leading choices for international payment gateway providers. It has the second largest US market share in the payment processing industry of 19.44%. It supports 229,894 businesses.²

Stripe supports international business. It accepts 135+ currencies across 46 different countries and supports 50+ payment methods.³ ⁴ ⁵

It customizes the checkout based on your customer’s location. For example, locally-popular payment methods, increasing customer conversion rates and preventing abandoned carts.⁵

Stripe stands out in the variety of APIs it offers. Its wide range allows integration with almost any online store.

Stripe has high standards of compliance. It has licenses and certifications in the UK, US and EU. It's also secure, with encryption, isolated infrastructure and fraud protection.³

Stripe offers a pay-as-you-go pricing system, starting at 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.⁶ They charge an extra 1% when a currency conversion occurs.⁷

You can also design a custom package, with volume discounts and country-specific rates.

You can connect Stripe with Wise Business. You can link your EUR, GBP, USD, AUD, NZD, SGD, RON, and CAD account details with Stripe. The supported currency can depend on your location.

PayPal

PayPal is the market leading payment processor with a share of 42.35%. Its trusted name can increase your customer conversion rate by up to 44%.⁸ ⁹

PayPal is easy to set up and integrate with the majority of payment processors. It’s available in 202 countries and supports 25 currencies.⁹

As the merchant, you can host your own checkout page and allow transactions with Payflow open API. Or, you can have PayPal manage the checkout experience.¹⁰

Payflow supports all major credit and debit card payment types. It also supports PayPal and PayPal credit payment.¹⁰

You can upgrade fraud protection and automated recurring billing for a monthly fee of $10.⁹

PayPal offers a free as well as a paid version of their payment gateway: Payflow Link and Payflow Pro. In both cases, each transaction will incur a fee of $0.10. For international payments, PayPal applies a currency conversion fee of 2.5% and a cross border fee of 1%.⁹

Square

Unlike other providers, Square doesn’t offer a standalone payment gateway. Instead, it offers an end-to-end payment processing solution for eCommerce and brick-and-mortar businesses.

Square is PCI compliant, fraud secure and transparent about its fees. Its payment API can easily integrate with your current online store. It’s easy to open an account and get verified.

Square also offers a strong selection of POS terminals, both online and in-person. Using Square, you can accept the majority of credit and debit cards. You can also accept Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Square Pay payments¹¹ ¹²

Square supports payments from

US
Canada
Australia
Japan
United Kingdom
Republic of Ireland
France
Spain¹³

Square doesn’t offer currency conversions. Instead, they charge all transactions in the currency of your account. So for US based businesses, this will be USD.

This means Square charges your international customers in USD. Their bank will perform the currency conversion, costing them rather than you.⁴ ¹⁵

Square charges 2.9% + $0.30 per online transaction and 3.5% + $0.15 per manually-entered card transaction. It also offers custom pricing for businesses processing more than $250,000 USD per year.¹⁶

FIS Global

FIS Global (formerly known as Worldpay) is a payment processor focused on global markets.

They support payments in 126+ currencies, across 50 markets. Additionally, they offer 300 Alternative Payment Methods (APM).¹⁷

This wide range of local payment methods can help increase international customer conversion. WorldPay offers an end-to-end omnichannel payment processing solution that streamlines the checkout process(see FIS Global/Worldpay alternatives).

They charge 1.5% per Visa or Mastercard transaction. That said, they offer tailored pricing plans, which can vary depending on the region.¹⁸

Adyen

Adyen is a global payment processing solution with payment gateway functionality(see Adyen alternatives). It’s currently available in 45 countries.¹⁹

Adyen offers dynamic currency conversion (DCC) at the checkout for 36 different currencies.²⁰

This allows your international customers to pay in their own currency. It also offers a range of local payment methods.²¹

With these features, you can have a stronger foothold in international markets.

Adyen is easy to integrate into your online store. It’s also PCI compliant with a strong fraud protection system.

Adyen charges a fixed processing fee of $0.13 USD per transaction and a variable fee based on the payment method. For example, an ACH Direct Debit payment costs $0.13 + $0.27 USD, while Union Pay costs $0.13 + 3%.²²

2Checkout

2Checkout is an international payment gateway that’s truly global.

It supports transactions in 200 countries, 45+ local payment methods and 100+ currencies.²³

Aside from ease of integration, it’s also free of monthly fees, making it an affordable option.

Its pricing is per transaction. It also varies depending on your subscription plan and the payment method used. For the 2Sell plan, you’ll pay 3.5% + $0.35 per transaction.

For the 2Subscribe plan, for subscription service business models, you’ll pay 4.5% + $0.45 per transaction. If you specialize in selling digital goods, the 2Monetize plan charges 6.0% + $0.60 per transaction.²³

In some cases, a cross border fee of 2% will apply, with 3% for high fraud-risk countries. That said, some countries are exempt from the cross border fee. Additionally, non-traditional local payment methods may incur higher fees.²⁴

Braintree

Braintree offers merchant accounts and a full payments stack. This includes payment gateway functionality.

It has strong anti-fraud protection and gives you global reach. It’s available in 45+ countries and supports 130+ currencies.²⁵

It also offers features such as recurring billing and reporting.²⁶

For card and digital wallet payments, Braintree applies a fee of 2.59% + $.49 per transaction. For ACH Direct Debit, the fee is 0.75% per transaction and for Venmo you’ll pay 3.49% + $.49 per transaction.

Braintree also applies a crossborder fee of 1% to non-US cards and 1% for non-USD transactions.²⁷

Checkout.com

Checkout.com is another payment processing solution with an international payment gateway.

Checkout.com is available in 45+ countries and supports 150+ currencies. It also supports local payment methods. It has zero setup fees, fraud protection, reporting and a single unified payments API. ²⁸

Pricing is flat-rate but quote-based, tailored for your specific business and risk category.

Sage Pay

Sage Pay is an all-in-one payment processor, accounting and ERP software.

It allows you to create and send invoices. You can accept multi-currency payments and manage accounting.²⁹ It supports major credit and debit cards, e-wallets and PayPal payments. ³⁰ ³¹

Sage Pay comes with different pricing plans based on the size of your business.³² Unfortunately, it doesn’t state the transaction fees it applies.

Amazon Pay

Amazon Pay is a payment gateway offered by Amazon. It enables your customers to pay for your products using their Amazon accounts.

37% of customers abandon their cart if asked to create a new account.³³

The Amazon Pay international gateway avoids this issue, making for a trusted checkout.

Amazon Pay’s omnichannel API makes integration with your online store easy. They offer strong fraud protection, recurring billing and express payouts within 24 hours.³³

Amazon Pay supports payment in 12 currencies and is available in 18 countries.³⁴ It also supports all major credit and debit cards, as well as a range of local payment methods.³⁵

For international payments, Amazon Pay charges a cross border processing fee of 3.9%. An authorization fee of $0.30 USD comes on top of this.³⁶ Tax may also be charged when applicable.

If you’re also selling on Amazon, on a range of marketplaces, you can withdraw your multi-currency earnings into your Wise Business account. By doing this, you’ll avoid paying high currency conversion fees.

What to consider when choosing a payment gateway for international transactions

Multi-currency support and local payment methods are key to international customer acquisition. To boost sales, you need to offer the payment method of choice of your customer, in their currency.

Pricing is another factor when choosing an international payment gateway. You should check if the pricing is per transaction or volume based. You should also check to see the differences in pricing for local payment methods.

Your payment gateway should be easy to integrate with your online store. Ease of integration with other solutions is also a bonus.

Strong protection against fraud and PCI compliance is also key to ensuring reliability.

Conclusion: What’s the best international payment gateway?

The best international payment gateway is the one that best suits your business.

Multi-currency and local payment support for your customers is key. Then, finding an affordable pricing structure for your business is the next step. Ease of integration is the last key to success.

Choosing the right business account to receive payments into can also make a big difference. For example, you can link Wise Business to Stripe or Amazon to receive international payments to local account details - saving money on cross border fees.

Sources:

All sources checked June 21, 2023.

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