Square and PayPal are payment service providers, or PSPs, that help small businesses accept payments in person and online. PayPal may be better for small businesses with an international customer base, but if price is a priority for you, Square may be your winner.
Here’s how the two companies compare.
» MORE:
Square may be best known for its point-of-sale software and white devices plugged into checkout systems, but Square is also a payment service provider. It works with credit cards, debit cards, corporate cards, prepaid cards and reward cards.
Card payment acceptance with the Square app is available in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, Irish Republic and the United Kingdom. However, it doesn’t support payment card processing in other U.S. territories, nor does it support cross-border card payments (i.e., you can’t receive card transactions if you’re outside the country where you activated your Square account).
Square integrates with Wix, BigCommerce, GoDaddy and other e-commerce platforms. The company’s application programming interface also allows for customization. Businesses can also invoice customers digitally and take card payments without using the Square POS.
In addition to using its POS hardware systems for in-person payments, Square can process payments in three ways:
Square offers online payment services that you can integrate into your online store or mobile app. You can also get a free e-commerce website, add pickup and delivery services, or sell on social media.
Square lets small businesses create and send digital invoices to customers, and those customers can then pay you with a card or by ACH. You can also send customers a link to pay by text or email.
If you need to accept payment over the phone and key the information in, you can do that with Square by either the Square app or by using the company’s Virtual Terminal feature.
PayPal lets small businesses accept and process payments in person and online. It offers two payment gateway services: PayPal Payments Standard and PayPal Payments Pro. PayPal’s services work with major e-commerce platforms such as BigCommerce, Wix and Shopify.
This product may be best if you don’t have coding experience or a developer on your team, as you’ll simply need to copy and paste a line of code or integrate a plug-in with your shopping cart. Either option should take only 15 minutes to implement, according to PayPal’s website.
This is a customizable checkout solution that also provides access to a virtual terminal so you can accept credit cards online, by mobile or with devices that don’t have an external card reader. Also, you can accept payments in 25 currencies from 200 countries, accept phone payments and get simplified payment card industry security standards.
Both providers have transaction and other fees. Here’s how they compare.
Square may be your best option if you want customizable software at a relatively low price. But if a simple setup is more important, you may want to go with PayPal.
This post was originally published on Nerd Wallet
