If you’ve ever made a purchase on eBay, you likely used PayPal to complete your transaction. Whether for personal or professional use, PayPal is hands down the most popular online payment service to send and receive money. However, the ubiquitious company soon could have some serious competition.
It’s been predicted the market for mobile payment transactions will reach over $235 billion in the next year. Which is why some major players, like Facebook and Apple, are testing the waters with their own mobile payment services. PayPal will need to step up their game, particularly with longstanding complaints such as poor customer service and frequently freezing accounts.
But why wait on hypothetical situations? Regardless if Apple or Facebook follows through with their mobile payment apps, there are still several other options available now. Believe it or not, there’s more competition than you are probably aware of, and many of them are superior to Paypal.
If you’re involved with an online business, here are twelve alternatives to PayPal that you should definitely investigate.
Google Wallet
Google Wallet was once Google’s Checkout. And while the name has changed, the features have remained intact. It’s safe, simple and has rapid transfers to and from your bank account. It also has similar features to PayPal, such as credit card processing and the ability to send out invoices.
WePay
Besides featuring stellar customer service and fraud protection, WePay is a standout alternative because consumers can make purchases without leaving your site via a virtual terminal. Not only does this make your site look more professional, the service seems to be more focused on the individual’s interests and not just their credit card numbers.
2CheckOut
By combining a merchant account with a payment gateway 2Checkout permits customers to receive credit card and PayPal payments. The company also features international payments, a solid shopping cart, and recurring billing.
Authorize.Net
Authorize.Net has been around since 1996 and is supposedly the Internet’s most widely used payment gateway. Authorize.Net has over 400,000 merchants and has been the recipient of the Achievement in Customer Excellence (ACE) award for five consecutive years.
Skrill
Skrill, formerly Moneybookers, has some intriguing features such as a free setup, low fees, and the ability to send text messages straight from your account. Besides being a popular and simple alternative to PayPal, the service is great for international merchants since you’re allowed to transfer your account balance onto a prepaid debit card almost instantly.
Intuit
Intuit is almost an essential service if you’re a small business owner who needs help with your finances. Besides being able to accept payments, both online and in-person with GoPayment, Intuit can also help you pay employees, calculate payroll taxes, and file payroll tax forms.
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ProPay
ProPay offers similar features to other PayPal alternatives including the ability to receive and send money anywhere in the world and even recurring billing and a built-in shopping cart. The one big advantage that ProPay has over the others is it’s also accepted by eBay. There’s also the ProPay JAK, a mobile phone credit card reader which can process credit and debit cards in real-time on your iOS or Android phones, in case you’re doing transactions in person.
Click2Sell
While Click2Sell has the normal features found on any worthy PayPal replacement, it’s one of the few that will accept PayPal, Google Checkout, Skrill, and credit cards with or without a merchant account. But, the most standout features are affiliate tracking, powerful reports, and automated sales management. They also have the leading sales reporting tools so you can better understand your strategies and sales tactics.
Dwolla
Dwolla is very similar to PayPal in that you can do everything from paying your friends back to accepting or receiving payments at your place of business. What’s unique about this service is that it’s specialized in bank transfers, or Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments, for over 5 years. In that time, Dwolla has built simple branded tools and a flexible API to access ACH quickly and do things other services cannot. Their branded capabilities, like send, receive, and request funds, are free, while premium services, like white-label, higher limits, and next day transfer, are available to for flat-fixed monthly fees.
Braintree
Braintree has been growing steadily since 2007. Some of the platform’s features include a payment gateway, recurring billing, credit card storage, and allowing global online and mobile businesses to accept credit card payments via a merchant account.
ClickBank
ClickBank has been around since 1998 and offers a ton of easy to use features. ClickBank does everything for you, including building a site for your products and optimizing your business. Basically, ClickBank is a one-stop shop for online businesses.
Stripe
Stripe is a rapidly growing start-up that removes the need for a merchant account or gateway. Stripe takes care of all your payment needs from storing cards, to handling subscriptions, to direct payouts to your bank account. Web developers will dig the ability to integrate a payment system into a projects by using Stripe’s API.
Do you think Paypal’s reign almost over? Which of these competitors will you keep your eye on?
This post was originally appeared on Searchenginejournal.
