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If you’re someone who loves online shopping then chances are that you might have stumbled upon Razorpay payment gateway. With its headquarters located in Bangalore, Razorpay is one of the leading and best payment gateways today. Razorpay basically looked at Stripe, and thought “Wow Stripe is so good, but it’s missing a few things, and we’re going to fix those” and well, that’s how you have Razorpay. They have an amazing UI and the onboarding process is quite hassle free, but they only work with the current accounts, you cannot operate with this company if you have a savings account or you just want to test out your business, then in that case Razorpay is “not the one for you”. They also have pretty competitive pricing, they have no set up fees and no annual maintenance along with top-notch documentation in the industry.
They provide you with almost everything that you need in terms of payment options and the UI is absolutely dope, but we mentioned that already. Although it would be great if they could provide us with an App, that being the only drawback.
In this article, we have compared the best payment gateway alternatives to razorpay with their respective features and pricing options.
With the rising number of new startups in the game, there are more new options to choose from. In this article, we have compiled a list of the best payment gateways that offer the best value for money.
Stripe:
Stripe is one of the most industry standard and best payment gateways loved by every single developer, reason being that they have openly stated on their website that they are “developer first” so we obviously love them a lot. In fact, handling everything into just an object is so simple and this was the first payment gateway that made everything so simplified. The below table gives a brief about this app:
| Features | Encryption, Credit card processing, Mobile payments, Reporting & Analytics |
| Unique Selling point | Multicurrency payouts, Unified payout, Payout timing |
| Best Suited for | Code-savvy, Developers, Small businesses |
| Pros | Amazing UI, Great Customer support, reasonable pricing. |
| Cons | Onboarding process is not as easy as it should be, Less account features, no ability to send invoices. |
| Available Integrations | API-based, Drupal, Magento, Shopware, WordPress, WooCommerce. Here’s the list of all supported integrations |
| Setup fee | Pay-as-you-go, no setup fee. |
| Transaction fee | In India- 2%, outside of India- 3%, International- 4.3% Learn more about PayPal fee calculator. |
| Countries supported | Available in 44 business countries: Available Countries: Find Stripe in Your Country |
| Supported Banks, cards, wallets | Discover, JCB, American Express etc. |
| Rating | 4/5 |
So overall, the documentation is great- best in the industry, the pricing is very competitive, payment options seem to be lagging a bit, the UI is amazing- it’s the gold standard of how the UI should be.The reporting is again top-notch , although the charts and graphs seem to be missing quite a bit, but we would still say it’s really great.
PayPal:
PayPal is the oldest in the game and well-known in all the countries and it has been trying to get its hands and feet in India as well. It is another best payment gateway alternative to razorpay. It provides a faster, safer way to send money and make an online payment. You can also set up a merchant account. You can shop from anywhere, from any corner of the world.
The following table lists the specifications:
| Features | Manual entry payment, Instant payment, Split payments, Two-factor authentication |
| Unique Selling point | Barcode scanning, Credit card reader, Bill me later, Express checkout. |
| Best Suited for | Businesses, Merchants |
| Pros | Simple UI, Availability across different platforms, Quick payments |
| Cons | The fee is comparatively high, poor customer care support. |
| Available Integrations | Salesforce, REST API, Swift, Stripe |
| Setup fee | The setup is absolutely FREE |
| Transaction fee | Base rate of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction |
| Countries supported | Here’s a list of countries: PayPal |
| Supported Banks, cards, wallets | Visa, Discover, American Express, MasterCard |
| Rating | 3/5 |
The reporting and documentation is not the best, there are plenty of things that they still need to work on.
Paytm:
Paytm is the Indian giant which is the victim of its own success. This payment gateway is amazing and has a lot of options to choose from which makes them as one of the best payment gateway. These days their onboarding process has gotten a little trickier, they have a huge number of client base that’s contributing for that reason. Pricing wise they’re very competitive and have a low fee.
| Features | Paytm wallet, Net banking, EMI options on card, Paytm postpaid |
| Unique Selling point | Bank account via UPI, Checkout with saved cards. |
| Best Suited for | Students,Employees, Public |
| Pros | Instant transfer, Clean UI, many integrations. |
| Cons | Poor customer support, No financial assessment. |
| Available Integrations | The major plug-ins available: Paytm Ecommerce Plugins and Hosted Platforms |
| Setup fee | Zero setup and maintenance cost |
| Transaction fee | 2% transaction fees |
| Countries supported | Available in India only, as of now. |
| Supported Banks, cards, wallets | Canadian bank account, Mastercard, American Express, |
| Rating | 3.5/5 |
PayU:
This is another competitor of Razorpay. Again, their onboarding process can be a little tricky and can take up to a week to set up your account. Their pricing is almost the same as Razor pay with an additional 1% on MX. The documentation provided is top-notch- same as Stripe.
For payment options they provide wallets and net banking and pretty much everything that you would expect. The UI is quite decent as well, reporting is something which is not up to the mark in the PayUmoney.The reporting could take a few years to improve especially in the charts and graphs area. Let’s take a look at its specifications:
| Features | Multi-currency, Web checkout, Alternative payments |
| Unique Selling point | Tokenization, Recurring payment, Express payment |
| Best Suited for | Small to medium businesses |
| Pros | centralized integration, different payment strategies, multi-currency and security. |
| Cons | Slow innovation in product |
| Available Integrations | Magento, 3dcart, Shopify, Vin65, Sycle |
| Setup fee | No setup fee |
| Transaction fee | 2%+GST per transaction |
| Countries supported | Here is a list of supported countries: PayU Payment Gateway |
| Supported Banks, cards, wallets | You can find the link here: Free Payment Gateway – Best Payment Gateway in India |
| Rating | 3/5 |
Instamojo:
One of the best payment gateways that has been getting a lot of attention these days is Instamojo. Their onboarding process is quite simplified, all you need to do is enter your tax information and bank details and that’s pretty much it. You’ll probably be onboarded within a few hours or even less. Their pricing again is very competitive like Razorpay, but they charge an additional Rs. 3 per transaction. I think we can forgive them for that as their documentation is pretty good and even the UI is quite clean. Talking about their specifications:
| Features | Secured server, Invoices, Analytics |
| Unique Selling point | Transaction data management, Multiple payment platform. |
| Best Suited for | Small-businesses |
| Pros | Good documentation, Clean UI, You just need a bank account to work with them. |
| Cons | Reporting can be improved if they add graphs and charts |
| Available Integrations | You can check here: Best Payment Gateway Integration in PHP, JAVA, Python, WordPress SDK & API, Web, Android/ |
| Setup fee | No setup fees |
| Transaction fee | Flat 2%+Rs.3 per transaction |
| Countries supported | Only available in India |
| Supported Banks, cards, wallets | Maestro, Freecharge, OLAMoneyMore options here: Instamojo payment gateway: Pricing, charges, and key points – Wise, formerly TransferWise |
| Rating | 4/5 |
Cashfree:
One of the new guys or fairly new competition in the market is Cashfree. This can be good for you if you’re running a small business. Their onboarding process is like a breeze, the pricing is absolutely competitive, and they provide you with a lot of payment options. Their documentation is quite confusing and can take up to a week to get the hang of it. The UI is pretty decent too and their reports are just okay. The following are its specifications:
| Features | International Cards, Pre-authorization, Saved card vault, Dynamic routing. |
| Unique Selling point | T+2 settlement, Multi-currency support |
| Best Suited for | Startups, Small businesses, Agencies, Enterprise |
| Pros | Many payment options, Good UI. |
| Cons | Limited customer support, Tricky documentation. |
| Available Integrations | You can check it out here: Seamless Pro |
| Setup fee | Zero setup fee. |
| Transaction fee | 2.95% per transaction |
| Countries supported | Available in India only |
| Supported Banks, cards, wallets | Mastercard ,VISA networks and International cards. |
| Rating | 4/5 |
CCAvenue:
CCAvenue is one of the best payment gateway industry. None of the gateways that we’ve talked about so far compare to this except for Stripe. They have a unique user base. The only drawback here is their onboarding process- they still work on the manual physical papers and you have to courier them the documents making it quite a task, even after that it can take months to onboard. Their pricing is very competitive and documentation is absolutely amazing because there are a lot of blogs and articles which describe the integration process in almost any tech stack. Talking about the payment options, they provide you with an insane amount of payment options. The UI is just alright and the reports are pretty dope.
The table below gives its specifications:
| Features | Maximum payment options, Multiple currency processing, Mobile payments |
| Unique Selling point | Smart dynamic routing, iFrame Integration. |
| Best Suited for | Large scale businesses |
| Pros | Supports multiple currencies, Has support for the largest number of banks, Supports EMI as payment from over 7 banks. |
| Cons | Terrible customer support, |
| Available Integrations | iFrame, you can refer this documentation for more details: CCAvenue Integration Document |
| Setup fee | Zero setup fee |
| Transaction fee | 3% transaction fee |
| Countries supported | India, KSA, USA, UAE |
| Supported Banks, cards, wallets | You can view here: CCAvenue®: Widest Range of Payment Options |
| Rating | 4/5 |
Now, of course these aren’t the only payment gateways, there are a lot of options out there you can choose from. If you’re using any other payment gateways do let us know in the comments section below.
Also, if you get the chance to interact with any payment gateway or integrating or coding, go ahead and take that chance. It’s absolutely worth it. It sets you apart from a regular developer who is just designing websites, payment gateways are the most tricky and top-notch experience that you can get, so we absolutely encourage you to try it out.
We had to end it with a meme. #SorryNotSorry
