12 Best Payment Processing Software for Small Business in 2026, Compared

Square is the easiest way for a small business to start taking cards: the Free plan costs $0 a month, the app runs on a phone or tablet, and a $49 card reader is the only hardware most shops need. In-person sales cost 2.6% + 15¢, online and invoice payments cost 3.3% + 30¢, and money usually lands next business day. Invoicing, a basic online store, bookings and staff scheduling are all included.

The catch is the online rate: 3.3% + 30¢ is the highest online card rate here, so a business that sells mostly online pays more than on Stripe or Braintree. Plus costs $49 a month per location and Premium $149, and both cut the in-person rate slightly. Pick Square when most sales happen face to face and you want one app for till and store.

Stripe is the standard for selling online: a hosted checkout, payment links and invoicing are included, and the standard rate is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful domestic card payment, with no setup or monthly fee. It accepts cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, bank debits and buy-now-pay-later, and Radar fraud screening runs on every payment. Payouts are sent daily, arrive in about two business days, and the API is the best-documented here.

The trade-off is support and account risk: no phone number to call, and Stripe can hold funds or close an account it judges risky, with little warning — a complaint that recurs in user reviews. In-person payments need Stripe's own card readers, at 2.7% + 5¢. Pick Stripe when the website is the shop and you want the most capable checkout; pick Square when the counter is the shop.

PayPal is the processor customers already trust: hundreds of millions of shoppers hold a PayPal account, and offering it at checkout can lift conversion for stores whose buyers hesitate to type card numbers into an unfamiliar site. Standard card payments cost 2.99% + 49¢, PayPal Checkout costs 3.49% + 49¢, and there is no monthly fee. Seller Protection covers eligible transactions, and Venmo and Pay Later come in the same account.

The price is the problem: 2.99% + 49¢ is the most expensive standard card rate here, and the 49¢ fixed fee stings on small tickets — a $10 sale costs 79¢ to process. Account holds and slow dispute handling are the most common complaints in reviews. Pick PayPal when your buyers ask for it by name; pick Stripe or Braintree when the card rate is what matters.

Helcim is the cheapest honest pricing in this list for most small businesses: interchange-plus with a 0.40% + 8¢ markup in person and 0.50% + 25¢ online, no monthly fee, no contract and no cancellation fee. The platform includes a free point-of-sale app, invoicing, recurring billing and a virtual terminal, and deposits arrive the next business morning. Volume discounts cut the markup automatically once you pass $50,000 a month.

The catches are onboarding and scale: Helcim asks for more paperwork than Square or Stripe — financial statements are a common request — and it is built for small businesses, not multi-location chains. The published rates are margins on top of interchange, so your total depends on the cards your customers use. Pick Helcim when you want the lowest possible rate with no monthly fee and you will do the paperwork.

Shopify Payments is the payment processor built into Shopify, and it is the obvious pick for any store already running on the platform: no third-party gateway, no extra transaction fee, and payouts, refunds and chargebacks all live in the same dashboard as the orders. On the Basic plan, online cards cost 2.9% + 30¢ and in-person sales cost 2.6% + 10¢. The plan costs $39 a month billed monthly, or $29 a month billed annually.

The catch is the lock-in: Shopify Payments only works inside a Shopify store, so leaving Shopify means rebuilding checkout elsewhere, and the $39 plan fee is due even in a slow month. Using any other gateway on Shopify adds a 2% fee per sale on Basic. Pick it when the store already runs on Shopify; pick Stripe or Square when the store lives anywhere else.

Clover is the point-of-sale system for shops and restaurants that want hardware and software from one company: the Starter plan costs $0 a month, in-person cards cost 2.6% + 10¢, and online or keyed-in cards cost 3.5% + 10¢. Hardware runs from a $199 handheld reader to a full countertop Station, and the app market adds inventory, loyalty, employee management and reporting. Payouts arrive the next business day.

The catch is the contract and the add-ons: full systems are commonly financed over 36 months, better plans cost $29.95 to $129.85 a month, and the most useful apps charge their own monthly fees. Rates also vary by reseller — the figures here are Clover's own direct prices. Pick Clover when you want a proper till with inventory and staff tools; pick Square when you want the same job with no contract.

Braintree is PayPal's developer-friendly processor, and it suits online businesses that want PayPal, Venmo and cards in one integration without paying Stripe's prices. Standard card payments cost 2.89% + 29¢, a touch under Stripe and PayPal, with no monthly fee, and Venmo costs 3.49% + 49¢. ACH payments cost 0.75% capped at $5, and the API and SDKs are well documented for subscriptions and marketplaces.

The trade-off is the learning curve: Braintree is built for developers, so a non-technical owner will need help setting it up, and the dashboard is plainer than Stripe's. Fraud Protection Lite costs 5¢ per check and full chargeback protection starts at 0.4% per transaction. Pick Braintree when you sell online, want Venmo at checkout and have a developer on hand; pick Stripe when you want the same job with a friendlier dashboard.

Adyen is the processor for businesses selling in more than one country: one integration covers cards, local payment methods and terminals in dozens of markets, at interchange-plus 0.60% + 13¢ per transaction, and no setup or monthly fee. Payouts are flexible — you choose when and in which currency you settle — and the reporting shows the exact cost of every payment. A minimum invoice applies, so it suits businesses with real volume.

The catch is the audience: Adyen is built for mid-market and larger companies, and a small business will find the onboarding and the enterprise sales process heavy. The pricing page is a long table of payment methods, not a simple rate card, so quoting your cost takes a call. Pick Adyen when you sell internationally and outgrow the flat-rate tools; pick Stripe for one country.

Dharma is a small, long-running processor that publishes its whole fee table — rare in this industry. Standard accounts pay interchange plus 0.15% + 8¢ in person, 0.20% + 11¢ online, on a $20 monthly fee, with no annual, PCI or contract fees. Nonprofits pay 0.10% plus 8¢ or 11¢ on $15 a month. The MX Merchant gateway is included.

The catches are the small print: recurring billing costs $10 a month extra and an ecommerce gateway is another $10 plus 5¢ per sale, and the rate pages list a $49 account closure fee that another Dharma page contradicts — get the term in writing. It has no G2 rating yet. Pick Dharma when you process enough volume for interchange-plus to beat flat rates and value published fees; pick Helcim when you want the same model with no monthly fee.

Authorize.net is the veteran payment gateway — the software between your checkout and your merchant account — and it suits anyone who already has a merchant account and only needs the gateway. Gateway Only costs $25 a month plus 10¢ per transaction and a 10¢ daily batch fee; All-in-One adds a merchant account for $25 a month plus 2.9% + 30¢ per sale. Recurring billing, customer profiles and fraud detection carry no extra monthly fee.

The catch: it is a gateway, not a complete processor. On Gateway Only, processing is billed separately by your own merchant account provider, so the headline price is only half the bill. The interface is dated and reporting is basic next to Stripe. Pick it when you already bank with a merchant account provider; pick Stripe when you want gateway and processing in one account.

Stax swaps the percentage markup for a flat subscription: $99 a month buys interchange at cost with 0% markup, plus 8¢ per in-person sale and 15¢ per online sale. ACH costs 1% capped at $10, funding arrives the next business day, and the plan includes invoicing, payment links, recurring billing, fraud protection and unlimited users. There are no cancellation fees and no long-term contract.

The catch is the break-even: $99 a month only pays for itself once your volume is high enough that the 0% markup saves more than the subscription costs — roughly $10,000 a month in card sales against a 2.9% flat rate. Below that, Helcim's no-fee interchange-plus is cheaper. The $19 monthly terminal protection plan is optional but easy to overlook. Pick Stax when you process $10,000 or more a month and want the markup gone entirely.

Payment Depot sells membership pricing: a flat monthly fee buys wholesale interchange rates with no markup — interchange plus 8¢ in person and 15¢ online. The entry membership is $79 a month for businesses processing up to $250,000 a year, contract-free. It is the same model as Stax at a lower monthly price, for businesses whose volume is high enough that a flat fee beats a percentage.

The catch is the price itself: Payment Depot's own pricing page does not publish the membership fee — the $79 figure comes from independent comparisons, and higher-volume pricing is quote-only. That makes the exact break-even harder to pin down before you talk to sales. Pick Payment Depot when you process high volume and want Stax's model for less; pick Stax when you want the same deal with the price on the page.