Losing customers at the final step?
Choosing the wrong payment gateway can turn potential buyers away, especially if their preferred payment method isn’t available for them.
It’s frustrating when complex checkout processes hurt your profits and limit your ability to serve a global audience effectively.
On top of that, security is a huge concern. PayCompass reports that payment fraud losses surpassed $40 billion globally in 2025. A weak gateway makes you a prime target.
But what if you could find a system that fits your audience perfectly? A secure gateway helps you avoid these issues and grow sales.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through the best payment gateway services for 2025, showing you options that align with your specific business goals.
You’ll learn how to reduce churn, lower transaction fees, and expand your customer base by offering the right payment options.
Let’s dive in.
Quick Summary:
| # | Software | Rating | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stripe → | Global SaaS & marketplaces | |
| 2 | PayPal → | Small businesses & freelancers | |
| 3 | Square → | Retail & service businesses | |
| 4 | Adyen → | Enterprise & SaaS companies | |
| 5 | Braintree → | Global enterprises & merchants |
1. Stripe
Are you leaving sales on the table due to limited payment options? Stripe provides a comprehensive financial infrastructure designed to maximize your sales reach.
This means you can accept online and in-person payments, embed financial services, and power custom revenue models to enhance your business.
This integrated, AI-powered platform helps you handle all payment-related needs, manage revenue operations, and even launch new business models.
Here’s how you can capture more sales.
Stripe helps you increase authorization rates and offer local payment methods globally, significantly boosting conversion. This means fewer abandoned carts and more completed transactions for your business.
You can manage recurring revenue with flexible billing models, including flat rate, usage-based, and hybrid pricing, while also minimizing involuntary churn. Stripe’s Radar also offers AI-powered fraud protection, helping you reduce financial risk. Additionally, with features like Connect, you can easily integrate multiparty payments into your platform, simplifying transactions for marketplaces.
Plus, you gain access to 135+ currencies and payment methods, expanding your global reach and accommodating diverse customer preferences.
Boost your conversion rates and simplify operations.
Key features:
- Global Payment Processing: Accept online and in-person payments across 135+ currencies and payment methods, increasing your market reach and customer convenience.
- Revenue Automation Suite: Manage subscriptions, automate accounting with revenue recognition, calculate sales tax, and generate custom financial reports.
- Fraud Prevention and Optimization: Utilize AI-powered Radar for fraud prevention and Authorization features to optimize acceptance rates, minimizing losses and maximizing revenue.
Stripe features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Stripe offers a robust, integrated suite of financial tools that make it one of the best payment gateway services for businesses looking to expand globally, manage recurring revenue, and reduce fraud. With support for over 135 currencies and payment methods, it effectively addresses challenges like limited market reach and high transaction fees, helping you maximize your sales.
2. PayPal
Are your payment options limiting sales reach?
PayPal addresses this by offering online checkout and invoicing capabilities, making it simpler for your customers to pay. This means you can accept payments easily.
Your business can benefit from simplified online checkout and secure payment sending, helping you avoid missed opportunities. This makes your sales process smoother.
Here’s how PayPal solves common payment challenges.
It allows you to accept online payments effortlessly, whether through direct checkout, invoicing, or for freelancers. This reduces friction for your customers.
PayPal’s robust security features, including data encryption and Buyer Protection, ensure your financial information is safe. This builds trust and confidence with your customers. Additionally, the ability to withdraw funds directly to your bank account or M-PESA simplifies cash flow management, making it easier to access your earnings whenever you need them.
Spend, send, and manage transactions with ease.
Key features:
- Online Checkout & Invoicing: Provides simplified online checkout for your customers and easy invoicing for your business, ensuring you never miss a sale.
- Secure Payment Processing: Encrypts your financial data and offers Buyer Protection, giving you and your customers peace of mind with every transaction.
- Flexible Fund Withdrawal: Allows you to withdraw funds quickly to your local bank account or M-PESA, improving your cash flow management and accessibility.
PayPal features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: PayPal offers a comprehensive payment infrastructure that makes it one of the best payment gateway services, providing simplified online checkout, secure transactions, and flexible fund withdrawal options. This system reduces churn, accommodates diverse customer preferences, and scales with your business growth, helping you maximize sales.
3. Square
Struggling with diverse customer payments and sales opportunities?
Square offers comprehensive payment processing and business management tools to help your business thrive.
This means you can take payments, track inventory, and manage your cash flow all from one system, minimizing payment friction.
Here’s your comprehensive solution.
Square simplifies your operations by integrating payment processing with various business tools like point-of-sale systems, online stores, and invoicing. This allows you to manage orders from one place and accept diverse payment types, reducing lost sales.
You can also manage appointments, attract new clients, and keep customers coming back with built-in marketing and loyalty programs. Additionally, Square provides tools for managing your team, including scheduling and payroll, ensuring your entire business runs smoothly. Plus, you can track performance and improve overall operations, empowering you to scale your business efficiently.
The result is optimized cash flow and maximized sales reach.
While discussing customer relationship tools, understanding online reputation management software is crucial for sustained growth and positive brand perception.
Key features:
- Integrated Payment Processing: Accept credit cards, digital wallets, and invoices across various channels, including in-person, online, and via mobile, ensuring no missed sales.
- Comprehensive Business Management: Manage inventory, appointments, payroll, and customer loyalty programs from a single dashboard, streamlining your operations and saving time.
- Scalable Solutions for Diverse Businesses: Offers tailored capabilities for retail, food & beverage, beauty, and service industries, allowing your business to grow seamlessly.
Square features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Square stands out among the best payment gateway services for its integrated approach to business operations. Its ability to manage payments, inventory, staff, and customer relationships from a unified platform makes it ideal for businesses seeking to reduce churn, accommodate diverse preferences, and improve cash flow management.
4. Adyen
Struggling to maximize sales reach and minimize payment friction?
Adyen offers an end-to-end platform for payments, data, and financial management, directly addressing lost sales from limited payment options.
This means you can easily add more payment methods and expand into new markets with local acquiring, overcoming the challenge of aligning payment methods with customer demographics.
Here’s how to scale your business growth.
Adyen helps you accept, process, and settle payments with a single provider, whether online, in-app, or in-person. This consolidates your payment infrastructure, supporting credit cards, digital wallets, and more.
You can also connect online and in-store payment data in one system, gaining cross-channel insights to understand customer behavior better and deliver flexible buying journeys. Additionally, their machine learning technology helps manage fraud at scale and increase approval rates, protecting your revenue.
The platform further optimizes finances and increases automation with its banking infrastructure, allowing you to payout users faster in preferred currencies and even generate physical or virtual payment cards for instant fund management.
Ultimately, this optimizes conversion and reduces churn.
While we’re discussing optimizing your customer experience, my article on best cloud contact center solutions covers how to streamline customer interactions.
Key features:
- Unified Payment Acceptance: Accept payments globally across online, in-app, and in-person channels with local acquiring and a single provider, preventing missed sales.
- Smart Data & Fraud Management: Leverage a unique data ecosystem with machine learning to uncover growth opportunities, protect against fraud, and increase payment approval rates.
- Financial Control & Automation: Optimize financial operations with an integrated banking infrastructure, enabling faster payouts, custom payment cards, and improved cash flow management.
Adyen features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: For business owners and SaaS entrepreneurs seeking the best payment gateway services, Adyen’s comprehensive platform directly addresses pain points like limited market reach and involuntary churn. Its unified commerce solution, smart data insights, and financial management tools deliver a flexible payment system that maximizes conversions and scales with your business growth.
5. Braintree
Are your sales limited by payment friction?
Braintree, now PayPal Enterprise Payments, helps you capture the full potential of commerce by [streamlining how you accept payments]. This means you can process payments securely and accept customer-preferred methods.
It’s all about helping your business thrive, by giving you the [tools to optimize operations], reach new customers, and manage risk. This comprehensive platform helps you maximize customer conversion and reduce churn.
Here’s how Braintree simplifies your payment infrastructure.
This solution introduces an integrated payment platform that supports a wide range of global and local payment methods, including credit cards, digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, and PayPal Pay Later. This comprehensive approach means your customers can pay however they prefer, minimizing missed sales opportunities.
You can send payments worldwide to 200+ markets in 50+ currencies, all from one provider. Additionally, Braintree offers robust adaptive fraud management solutions, shielding your business from evolving threats and improving risk decisions. This ensures secure transactions while protecting your profits.
Its single integration allows you to share payment data with other service providers, helping accelerate growth and accommodate diverse customer preferences. Plus, Braintree provides a sandbox environment to test the platform before committing, so you can explore its control panel, reporting tools, and features, and run sample test transactions.
The result: a flexible, global payment system.
Key features:
- Integrated Payment Solution: An end-to-end platform accepting global and local payment methods, including credit/debit cards, PayPal, Venmo, and popular digital wallets, maximizing sales reach.
- Global Payouts & Fraud Management: Enables sending payments to 200+ markets in 50+ currencies, combined with adaptive fraud management to protect your business from evolving threats.
- Developer-Friendly Sandbox: Offers a testing environment to explore the platform, run sample transactions, and integrate easily before going live, ensuring smooth implementation.
Braintree features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Braintree stands out as one of the best payment gateway services for businesses seeking to maximize sales reach. Its comprehensive platform, offering global payment methods and robust fraud protection, ensures you can cater to diverse customer preferences and securely expand into 200+ markets, backed by over $1.53 trillion in total payment volume in 2023.
6. Payoneer
Struggling with international payment complexities?
Payoneer’s multi-currency account simplifies global payments, allowing you to accept funds from clients and marketplaces worldwide, seamlessly.
This means you can easily expand your reach, manage cross-border transactions, and reduce the friction often associated with diverse payment methods.
Your global business wallet is here.
Payoneer offers a comprehensive platform designed for businesses, freelancers, and marketplaces to manage cross-border payments with ease. You can get paid by clients, connect to global marketplaces, and even accept payments directly on your website using Payoneer Checkout. This flexibility helps you maximize sales reach by accommodating diverse customer preferences, no matter where they are located, supporting transactions in 70 currencies across 190+ countries.
Additionally, Payoneer provides workforce management solutions to hire and pay employees and contractors across 160+ countries, ensuring compliance with local regulations. You can also pay suppliers, manage business expenses with a Payoneer card, and handle VAT payments directly from your account, all contributing to improved cash flow and reduced operational headaches.
Finally, managing finances with your multi-currency account becomes effortless.
Key features:
- Multi-currency account: Manage cross-border payments in 70 currencies across 190+ countries, allowing you to pay and get paid globally with ease.
- Global workforce management: Hire, pay, and manage employees and contractors across 160+ countries while ensuring 100% compliance with local labor laws and taxes.
- Payoneer checkout solution: Accept payments directly on your website, offering a seamless online payment experience for your customers and boosting conversion rates.
Payoneer features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Payoneer stands out as one of the best payment gateway services for businesses aiming for global expansion, offering robust multi-currency accounts and a comprehensive platform for managing international payments, payroll, and marketplaces. With its strong focus on compliance and simplified cross-border transactions, it directly addresses critical pain points for entrepreneurs.
7. Worldpay
Struggling to broaden your sales reach?
Worldpay provides diverse payment acceptance options like online, in-store, and omnichannel capabilities, addressing limited market reach.
This means you can easily accept payments across various channels, helping you avoid missed sales opportunities and expand your market reach.
Now, imagine simplifying your payment process.
Worldpay offers solutions to optimize and protect your payments, boosting authorization rates and safeguarding transactions.
You can disburse funds globally with their payouts feature and analyze your payments data to improve performance.
Additionally, for software platforms, Worldpay offers embedded payments and embedded finance technology, making payment integration intuitive and customer-centric for a sharper competitive edge.
The result is truly unleashed payments potential.
Key features:
- Omnichannel Payment Acceptance: Enables you to accept payments seamlessly online, in-store, and across all channels, significantly expanding your sales reach.
- Payment Optimization and Protection: Helps enhance authorization rates and safeguard your transactions, reducing involuntary churn and boosting overall payment success.
- Global Payouts and Data Insights: Allows you to disburse funds worldwide and analyze payment data, improving cash flow management and market understanding.
Worldpay features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Worldpay is a strong contender for the best payment gateway services, processing $2.3 trillion annually for over one million merchants in 174 countries. Its robust features for omnichannel payments, optimization, and global payouts, as seen with customers like Virgin Atlantic, directly address challenges of limited reach and complex payment environments, ensuring maximized sales for your business.
Conclusion
Losing customers at the checkout?
Choosing from countless options is overwhelming. The wrong one limits your global reach, increases friction for customers, and hurts your bottom line.
According to PayCompass, 98% of financial institutions face rising compliance costs from global regulations. This complexity trickles down, making secure, cross-border expansion a significant hurdle for your startup.
So what’s the right move?
From everything I’ve reviewed, Stripe provides the most comprehensive financial infrastructure to maximize your sales reach and cut through this complexity.
Its integrated, AI-powered platform lets you accept 135+ currencies and automate revenue management. That’s why I consider it one of the best payment gateway services for global growth.
I recommend you start a free trial of Stripe to see how its powerful financial infrastructure can directly benefit your operations.
Your global conversions will thank you.
