Comparison of payment systems

Comparison of payment systems (also known as comparison of payment processing services, comparison of payment processors, or comparison of merchant services) is a list displaying comparative information and fee rates on various payment systems (also payment processing services, payment processor, or merchant services). Information such as these are compared and shown: seller's/merchant's fees, buyer's fees, banking transfer fees, clearing-house fees, interchange fees, chargeback/return fees, currency conversion fees, monthly fees, usage, verification time, deposit time, technology support, customer-service quality, etc.

There are too many payment systems and services providers (see List of online payment service providers) to list in detail or in brief all on the same page. This article will focus mainly on the payment/merchant systems and services that are the most popular among majority of sellers and buyers, have comparatively lowest fee rate or free options, and which have comparatively most features for sellers/merchants and buyers, lowest cost or free payment receiving (card readers, Payment terminal (PTà, Point of sale (POS) & printing equipments, and which have good or better track record, (good or better) customer service quality, etc according to BBB and similar credible rating services.

Displayed fees and rates can change anytime. Displayed fee-data and rate info may not be actual fee or rate in use currently right now. Fee-rates also vary, based on volumes/quantities of sale, for different seller/business, i.e. sellers/merchants can negotiate with payment-system or merchant-service provider to obtain a comparatively lower & better rate, when their selling volume is comparatively very high. When this page is edited by Wikipedia editors, then they will usually add at-that-moment minimum-fee or flat-rate info, for the section which they are editing. Visit payment-system's referenced linked webpage (shown at bottom-side), for payment service provider's current information.

General comparison information

To find the definition of an unknown abbreviation, please press Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F) and then type in that abbreviation and press the ">" or "<" button to find the location where it is shown in full.

Payment System Name: brief comparative, key-points & highlighted description. Y = Yes. N = No. I = Incomplete. P = Partial. aka = also known as, aka Alias. Vsa = Visa. Ds = Discover. AmEx = American Express. MC = MasterCard. Dn = Diner. TR / Tx = Transaction. TX = Transmit/Send. RCV / RX = Receive. RCVd / RXd = Received. POS = Point of Sale. PT = Payment Terminal, aka POS. NFC = Near Field Communicator. HCE = Host Card Emulation. MS / MSC = Magnetic Stripe card. MST = Magnetic Secure Transmission (used to emulate MSC). EMVCo / EMV = Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (cards with electronic IC/Chip). ACH = Automated Clearing House (ACH). Crd / Cr = Credit, Credit Card. Dbt / Db = Debit, Debit Card. ETF = Early Termination Fee. PTF / PTC = Minimum Per Transaction Fee (aka, Per Transaction Cost). BBB = Better Business Bureau. M.Phn.App / M.App = Mobile Phone/Device App. Bnk = Bank. Acnt / Accnt = Account. Chk = Checking, Checking/Deposit acnt. Sav = Savings, Savings acnt. Thru = Through. Frm = From. Pswrd = Password. KB / kB = KiloBytes (equals to 1024 Bytes). BTC = XBT = ฿ = B⃦ = bitcoin. DOSP = Depends On Service Provider. DD / DC = Direct Deposit (aka Direct Credit, aka ACH, aka Giro, aka Direct Entry). DW = Direct Debit aka Direct Withdrawal, aka ACH, aka PAD, aka PAP. Tech = Technology.						Retail Shopping Centers /Markets	Online Shopping Carts Support
						POS Support	Tech
Monthly Fee. Yearly Fee	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe Fee	AmEx Fee	Keyed-In Fee	Free Equipment	ACH/DW/ DC/chk Fee	ETF	-
Alipay: Alipay mobile app allows consumers/buyers with Chinese bank accounts, cards, gift-cards, etc to pay for their purchases worldwide. Buyer needs an Alipay online account. Merchants/Sellers in most countries can open account with Alipay for their online stores/shops and they can also add Alipay support in their store/shop's retail POS. Alipay supports TR in 14 major foreign currencies.						Y	Y
						Y	MSC NFC M.App
Alipay: N. N	Vsa/MC Swipe: 3.00% (TR Total < 1M RMB in Last Month)	UnionPay: 3.00%	Keyed-In: 3.00%	Free Equipment: ?		ETF: ?
Alipay: N. N	2.00% (TR Total < 10M RMB in Last Month)	2.00%	2.00%	?		?
Amazon Local Register (ALR): no chargeback/return fees, no international fees. A $10 card-reader device purchase is necessary, (and a free App from Apple app-store or Android play-store), to attach with seller's own (non-rooted or non-jailbroken) mobile device, and then Amazon gives credit of $10 into seller's accnt (after opening account), so card-reader is free (but this policy may have been changed currently by Amazon, so inquire on this before proceeding). Fees which are charged to sellers/merchants are shown in below table-row. Next-day deposit. Bank statement (as PDF file) is required to be submitted to ALR to verify bnk acnt, or bnk-acnt password is needed to be shared with ALR, (change pswrd after they verified bnk acnt, or change pswrd 1st to something temporary but not too easy, and then share it to verify bnk acnt). Keyed-in TR may be kept on-hold for 7 to 14 days. ALR m.app forcefully requires GPS geo-location access.						Y	Y
						Y	MSC
N. N	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe: 2.5%	AmEx: 2.5%	Keyed-In: 2.99%	Free Equipment: Yes (See Description)		ETF: No
Apple Pay: it is used, for example in iTunes stores or in Apple Store, etc. Apple based services, products, and it is also supported by many retail shopping centers+markets & POS. Apple initially charged (or taken-away or cut) around 0.15%--0.30% fee from each payment TR paid by buyer (using their Crd/Dbt cards), and rest ended-up going into seller's hand. This was changed in Sept, 2015, Apple now charges around 15% + $0.15 from each payment TR, before giving rest of the amount to seller. And, banks take-away around 2% fee from Apple's portion for each (Apple Pay) TR. If seller's or merchant's PT/POS supports NFC, then it will also accept Apple Pay based payment. If NFC support is not present in PT/POS, then Apple Pay will not work.						Y	Y
						Y	NFC
N. N	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe: 15% + $0.15	AmEx: 15% + $0.15		Free Equipment: No		ETF: No
Bitcoin Payment System: Such payment processing services are used by bitcoin supporting trading services or by some retail shopping centers+markets & POS, and by many online (centralized+decentralized) shopping centers/markets/stores. Usually, bitcoin (BTC) transaction (TR/Tx) fee was ฿0 (zero), but changed into "Cost very little". To transfer bitcoin virtual-currency from one bitcoin wallet to another, and to include the transfer in bitcoin blockchain (decentralized distributed database) and to receive verification (or proof, or confirmations) on that transfer very quickly (within 15 minutes or 1:30 hour:minutes), then there is a variable higher fee rate which is charged by bitcoin miners. But currently minimum fee for miners is close to or around ฿0.00001 btc per KB (kilobytes) of data/info for a confirmed btc transfer. A typical btc TR may contain around 0.5 KB (or 512 Bytes) of data. Some bitcoin mining service providers also support free or low-cost bitcoin transfer (usually for a TR which has less than 1 KB data), though verification might be slightly delayed. For more info on such very-low cost or free confirmation, view: Free Tx Relay policy and Eligius mining pool. Sellers who cannot run their own btc mining hardware, bitcoin node, etc to include a Tx into the blockchain, or sellers who cannot integrate plugin/addonBitcoin Software - Shopping cart integration into their shopping-cart for connecting with their own btc mining & related servers/nodes, for receiving btc-Tx verification (aka, confirmations), for a sale/purchase, then such sellers have to use 3rd-party services from other btc exchange or other btc merchant service processor, etc and their processing fees are much higher, see: BitPay (pricing), BitPay pricing, Coinify Coinify pricing Stripe (brief info on Stripe rates/fees, is shown few rows below in this webpage). Seller/Merchant should not ship-out or deliver products or services, before receiving sufficient number of confirmations (>3) on a BTC/XBT payment.						Y	Y
						Y	DOSP
N (DOSP). N (DOSP)	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe: DOSP	AmEx: DOSP	Keyed-In: DOSP	Free Equipment: DOSP	ACH/DW/ DC/chk: DOSP	ETF: DOSP
Capital One Merchant Services (Spark Pay): it has a no monthly-fee plan: Go plan. Fees which are charged to Go-Plan sellers/merchants, are shown below in table-row. Minimum PTF is $0.05. No minimum number of TR requirement. Mobile card reader device is included for free (it needs to be attached with Seller's own mobile device). Receipt can be emailed or network printer can be used for printing the receipt when paper/hard-copy receipt is required. SparkPay m.app (v1.5.0) forcefully requires GPS geo-location access, (when this info was added here on July 2, 2016). Mobile card reader does not support EMV/IC-chip feature yet. As EMV cards also has magnetic-stripe, so SparkPay free card-reader can still charge such cards.						Y	Y
						Y	MSC M.App
Go.Plan N. N	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe: 2.65% + $0.05	AmEx: 3.7% + $0.05	Keyed-In: 3.7% + $0.05	Free Equipment: Yes (Card Reader)		ETF: No
Google Pay (aka, Google Wallet), upgraded into Android Pay Google-Checkout was upgraded into Google-Wallet, then Google-Wallet was upgraded into Android-Pay (also known as Google-Pay). Android Pay (or Google Wallet) is used by Google based services, products, and supported by many retail shopping centers+markets & POS. Google Wallet allows users to send money from Wallet to other users, relatives, etc via their Android or iOS based phone, it also allows to receive money. Android Pay (GAP) is used by buyers for purchasing, and available mostly on Google Android OS based phone. Google charges sellers/merchants (or takes-away) around 30% fee from each payment TR what buyer pays. Google Wallet charged 2.9% fee to users when a fund was added (into Wallet) from Debit-card, but changed policy on May 2, 2016 that fund addition into Wallet is not allowed anymore from bnk-acnt or Dbt-card (after May 1, 2016), fund must be RCVd from another Wallet account or RCVd from another (Android Pay) user, and, fee for receiving fund is $0 (zero). Google Wallet (v15.0-R265-v4) and Android Pay (v1.4.125363284) m.apps both forcefully require access to GPS geo-location, (when this info was added here on July 2, 2016), Google Wallet (GW) even reads contacts-list, modify systems settings, etc. Such app need to ask user, before each access, and single contact needs to be copied out of user's Contacts-List and pasted manually into GW when needed. Usually Android v4.4 (KitKat) Phones & above, have NFC & HCE feature, which are needed for initiating payment from Google-Pay/Android-Pay supported devices. If seller's or merchant's PT/POS supports NFC, then it will also accept Google Pay based payments. If NFC support is not present in PT/POS then Google Pay will not work.						Y	Y
						Y	NFC HCE M.App
N. N	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe: 30%	AmEx: 30%	Keyed-In: 30%	Free Equipment: No		ETF: No
Payment System Name: brief comparative, key-points & highlighted description. Y = Yes. N = No. I = Incomplete. P = Partial. aka = also known as, aka Alias. Vsa = Visa. Ds = Discover. AmEx = American Express. MC = MasterCard. Dn = Diner. TR / Tx = Transaction. TX = Transmit/Send. RCV / RX = Receive. RCVd / RXd = Received. POS = Point of Sale. PT = Payment terminal, aka POS. NFC = Near Field Communicator. HCE = Host Card Emulation. MS / MSC = Magnetic Stripe card. MST = Magnetic Secure Transmission (used to emulate MSC). EMVCo / EMV = Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (cards with electronic IC/Chip). ACH = Automated Clearing House (ACH). Crd / Cr = Credit, Credit Card. Dbt / Db = Debit, Debit Card. ETF = Early Termination Fee. PTF / PTC = Minimum Per Transaction Fee (aka, Per Transaction Cost). BBB = Better Business Bureau. M.Phn.App / M.App = Mobile Phone/Device App. Bnk = Bank. Acnt / Accnt = Account. Chk = Checking, Checking/Deposit acnt. Sav = Savings, Savings acnt. Thru = Through. Frm = From. Pswrd = Password. KB / kB = KiloBytes (equals to 1024 Bytes). BTC = XBT = ฿ = B⃦ = bitcoin (virtual currency). DOSP = Depends On Service Provider. DD / DC = Direct Deposit (aka Direct Credit, aka ACH, aka Giro, aka Direct Entry). DW = Direct Debit aka Direct Withdrawal, aka ACH, aka PAD, aka PAP. Tech = Technology.						Retail Shopping Centers /Markets	Online Shopping Carts Support
						POS Support	Tech
Monthly Fee. Yearly Fee	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe Fee	AmEx Fee	Keyed-In Fee	Free Equipment	ACH/DW/ DC/chk Fee	ETF	-
National Processing(NP): it has low monthly fee. No long term contracts. Crd/Dbt-card processing service fees which are charged to sellers/merchants are shown in below table-row. Per return fee $2.00. Communicate early & make sure that your contract/agreement includes clause for No-ETF, if you obtained PT/POS.						Y	Y
						Y	MSC
Y ($2.00 /month). N.	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe: 2.7% + $0.20	AmEx: 2.7% + $0.20	Keyed-In: 2.7% + $0.20	Free Equipment: No	ACH/DW/ DC/chk: $15/month + $0.24/TR	ETF: No
North American Bancard (NAB): per TR fees charged to sellers/merchants are shown in below table-row. Month-to-month contract. No Startup fees. Gateway/Virtual-Terminal: Authorize.Net. Communicate early & make sure that your contract/agreement includes clause for No-ETF, if you obtained PT/POS.						Y	Y
						Y	MSC EMV NFC Tablet M.App
N. N	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe: 0.29%	AmEx: 0.29%	Keyed-In: 0.29%	Free Equipment: Yes (Virtual Terminal App)		ETF: No
PayPal: fees charged to sellers/merchants for each TR by the PayPal is shown in below table-row. PayPal payment system can be integrated with other shopping cart systems, which enables individual website, retail+online shopping centers/markets or POS to accept payments on their own. And PayPal can also be used by any individuals for TX/RX (send/receive) personal payments. PayPal m.app v6.3.5 forcefully requires GPS geo-location, reads contacts-list, (when these info were added here on July 2, 2016). "PayPal Here" (PPH) service can allow sellers/merchants to receive payment on their own mobile devices with a free magnetic-stripe (MS) card-reader (a 2nd card-reader is $14), or with a $149 EMV(IC-chip)+MS card-reader from PayPal. Fees charged to sellers/merchants are shown in below table-row. PPH charges sellers/merchants 2.9% + $0.30 for any invoiced TR. PayPal-Here m.app (v2.6.2) forcefully collects list of all running apps, and reads sensitive log data from all apps, and forcefully accesses GPS based geo-location, reads contacts-list, (when these info were added here on July 2, 2016), so m.app very likely violating seller/merchant's Privacy-Rights. Also see Braintree, a subsidiary of PayPal, which owns Venmo (and Braintree also accepts bitcoin).						Y	Y
						Y	MSC M.App
PayPal: N. N	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe: 2.90% + $0.30	AmEx: 2.90% + $0.30	Keyed-In: 2.90% + $0.30	Free Equipment: No		ETF: No
PayPal Here: N. N	2.70%	2.70%	3.50% + $0.15	Yes (Card Reader)		No
Samsung Pay: it is used by Samsung-based services, products, and supported by many retail shopping centers/markets & POS. When Samsung Pay is used via Samsung smartphone devices, then fee for buyer is $0.000 (zero), and fee for seller is also $0.000 (zero). In S. Korea (home/origin nation of Samsung) it is already free even for non-Samsung devices. According to a March, 2015 report, when Samsung Pay is used via other non-Samsung devices then Samsung may charge seller or may take-away 0.015% fee from each payment TR. But according to a later April, 2015 report, Samsung indicated this 0.015% fee per-TR policy for sellers/merchants, may be changed into "free" per transaction, when the service will be finalized for US & other countries. Then according to a June, 2016 report, Samsung Pay is now totally free, (zero) $0.00 fee, for any TR, for both sellers/merchants and buyers. Mobile phone users (buyers) in US (and other countries) need to use either specific series of Samsung mobile phones, or at-least have Android 4.4+ on their non-Samsung phones, for Samsung Pay (aka, Samsung Gear) based buying+payment to work. If seller's or merchant's PT/POS already supports NFC, then it can also accept Samsung Pay based payments easily. Many (or most) sellers/merchants are still using magnetic-stripe (MS) card reader based PT/POS. Most of such PT/POS will still work with Samsung Pay supported payment devices, but some PT/POS may need a software update, or a plugin/addon software tool can be loaded into the PT/POS to enable MST support. Even when a PT/POS does not support NFC, but if it supports regular magnetic-stripe (MS) payment cards, then Samsung Pay based payments can still work.						Y	Y
						Y	MSC MST NFC EMV M.App
N. N	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe: 0.000% + $0.000	AmEx: 0.000% + $0.000	Keyed-In: 0.000% + $0.000	Free Equipment: No		ETF: No
Stripe: Stripe charges sellers/merchants fees, which are shown in below table-row. Each ACH TR has a max-fee, capped-at max-$5, (when buyer used their bank's chk acnt for sending payment). Stripe charges seller ฿0.50% from bitcoin based payment. Each chargeback/return fee includes $15 fee. Stripe payment system can be integrated with other shopping cart systems, which enables individual website, retail+online shopping centers+markets & POS to accept payments on their own. Does not require a Merchant-Account. Stripe also offers "Stripe Subscriptions" for recurring billing and "Stripe Connect" for marketplace transactions.						Y	Y
						Y	MSC
N. N	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe: 2.90% + $0.30	AmEx: 2.90% + $0.30	Keyed-In: 2.90% + $0.30	Free Equipment: No	ACH/DW/ DC/chk: 0.8% + $0.30
Total Merchant Services (TMS): No long-term contracts. Month-to-month contract. Recently they may be offering free equipment, (must be returned when service is cancelled), inquire on this before proceeding. Free online marketing tool. 2 days deposit. Cr/Db goes thru Global Payments. Groovv POS Terminal for retail outlets. Communicate early & make sure your contract/agreement clearly includes clause for No-ETF, and also make sure No-ETF exists for "Global Payments" too.						Y	Y
						Y	MSC NFC EMV
N. N				Virtual Terminal web app is free. USB Reader is free. Mobile PaymentJack rent is $5/month		ETF: No
Payment System Name: brief comparative, key-points & highlighted description. Y = Yes. N = No. I = Incomplete. P = Partial. aka = also known as, aka Alias. Vsa = Visa. Ds = Discover. AmEx = American Express. MC = MasterCard. Dn = Diner. TR / Tx = Transaction. TX = Transmit/Send. RCV / RX = Receive. RCVd / RXd = Received. POS = Point of Sale. PT = Payment terminal, aka POS. NFC = Near Field Communicator. HCE = Host Card Emulation. MS / MSC = Magnetic Stripe card. MST = Magnetic Secure Transmission (used to emulate MSC). EMVCo / EMV = Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (cards with electronic IC/Chip). ACH = Automated Clearing House (ACH). Crd / Cr = Credit, Credit Card. Dbt / Db = Debit, Debit Card. ETF = Early Termination Fee. PTF / PTC = Minimum Per Transaction Fee (aka, Per Transaction Cost). BBB = Better Business Bureau. M.Phn.App / M.App = Mobile Phone/Device App. Bnk = Bank. Acnt / Accnt = Account. Chk = Checking, Checking/Deposit acnt. Sav = Savings, Savings acnt. Thru = Through. Frm = From. Pswrd = Password. KB / kB = KiloBytes (equals to 1024 Bytes). BTC = XBT = ฿ = B⃦ = bitcoin (virtual currency). DOSP = Depends On Service Provider. DD / DC = Direct Deposit (aka Direct Credit, aka ACH, aka Giro, aka Direct Entry). DW = Direct Debit aka Direct Withdrawal, aka ACH, aka PAD, aka PAP. Tech = Technology.						Retail Shopping Centers /Markets	Online Shopping Carts Support
						POS Support	Tech
Monthly Fee. Yearly Fee	Vsa/MC/Ds Swipe Fee	AmEx Fee	Keyed-In Fee	Free Equipment	ACH/DW/ DC/chk Fee	ETF	-

See also

• Bitcoin (BTC/XBT/₿)
• Clearing House (finance)
• Digital Currency Exchanger
• E-commerce
• E-commerce credit card payment system
• E-commerce payment system
• Economics of digitization
• Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA)
• Electronic money
• Merchant account
• Micropayment
• Mobile payment
• Omnichannel
• Online marketplace
• Online shopping
• Online wallet
• Payment card industry (PCI)
• Radio-frequency identification (RFID)
• Smart card
• SMS banking
• Surcharge (payment systems)
• Virtual economy
• List of online marketplaces
• List of online payment service providers

References

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