Are you looking to accept online payments for your business? As customer preferences evolve and technology advances, it is imperative that businesses are equipped with online payment processing solutions to fulfill consumer preferences. Whether you are an e-commerce merchant, organization, or retailer, know that you have many options for accepting payments online. Hosted checkout solutions have been favored in recent years because of their ease of setup, but the latest flexible gateway integration technologies are quickly becoming a preferred alternative — even for those who want to minimize development time. In this blog post, we’ll discuss these online payment processing options that are available to developers and merchants.
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Option 1: Hosted Payment Pages
Hosted payment pages are online payment processing solutions hosted by third-party payment providers. Also known as hosted checkout, these solutions keep sensitive customer payment data away from your website and server. It’s sent directly to a third-party payment gateway provider, who then handles all the encryption and processing on their end. These systems are set up with multiple levels of security and protection for both merchants and consumers. Hosted payment pages offer a slew of benefits to your merchants, reduce the burden of managing payments for your business, and increase the security of accepting credit cards. These merchant benefits include easy setup and maintenance, maintaining compliance with PCI standards, support for multiple payment options, and more.
Types of Hosted Payment Pages
There are two main ways you can integrate hosted payments into your online checkout flow: by either redirecting the customer to a standalone hosted payment page or by embedding a hosted form within your existing page. Let’s take a closer look at both options for implementing a hosted payment form and the use cases for which they are best suited.
Standalone Hosted Page (Redirect)
With the help of a standalone hosted page, you can redirect users to a third-party, external payment page where they can provide their payment details. The external payment provider securely processes the transaction and sends it back to the store’s shopping cart or order confirmation page in real-time. Redirects are easy to integrate with existing software and plugins and they provide a secure payment processing flow. This is the perfect solution for merchants looking to take payments without putting in much development work and integrating additional software.
The downside of redirecting to a third-party page is that it adds friction to the checkout process and may be confusing for customers — which can cause the customer to abandon their cart or not complete the payment. However, for certain industries and use cases, such as non-profits, charitable campaigns, and healthcare invoicing — redirect pages are a popular and effective option for taking payments online.
Another one of the pitfalls of using a standalone form is that there are few customization options. Developers give up much control and are generally limited to the form’s out-of-box interface, resulting in a less attractive user experience and a less cohesive brand image.
iFrames Payment Forms (Embedded)
Rather than redirecting the payee to an external page, you can embed a third-party payment form directly into your website. This option provides you with the same robust level of security as a redirect; however, it requires slightly more development effort. And while embedded forms generally cannot be customized to match your brand and checkout page design, they remove friction compared to redirects — so that customers are more confident that they’re making a payment in the right place.
Most hosted forms are simple to embed in your website — just insert a few lines of code, and your secure form should be ready to go. If you’re an ISV that wants to equip merchants with a streamlined checkout experience that supports numerous payment options while maintaining the security of their data — all within a single platform — then this is a great choice for you.
Sola’s Hosted Payment Solution: PaymentSITE
Our hosted checkout solution, PaymentSITE, is a customizable payment form that can be used as a standalone web page or embedded into an existing website to accept payments. It’s easy to set up, and you’ll have complete control over the desired form fields. All payment data submitted through PaymentSITE is fully tokenized and sent directly to Sola for processing, which means you’ll be out of scope for PCI DSS compliance.
Another significant benefit of PaymentSITE is that it supports a wide range of today’s leading payment methods, including mobile wallets and cryptocurrency. For businesses that want to give customers a variety of ways to pay, PaymentSITE is one of the fastest and simplest options. Rather than building support for multiple payment methods into your website, you can simply use PaymentSITE out of the box.
Option 2: API Payment Gateway Integrations
Opting for a full payment gateway integration rather than a hosted solution gives you the advantage of greater flexibility and control over the look and feel. While in the past, many merchants and developers opted for hosted checkout solutions because of the complexity of gateway integrations, the latest gateway solutions are much easier to integrate. Specifically, with the help of a flexible gateway API, developers and ISVs can easily integrate payment processing capabilities directly within online sites. This method offers many advantages over hosted checkout pages, and it’s no longer as daunting a solution as it was in past years.
Sola offers a robust gateway and Transaction API that allows you to connect your online site to Sola for secure processing. And when used in conjunction with iFields, our form-building technology, you’ll be able to create a secure online payment form that fully matches the brand’s look and feel. iFields allow you to create your own form with payment data fields that are essentially hosted on Sola. When payment data is entered into those fields, it’s submitted directly to Sola without touching your server. And since you’re building your own form rather than embedding a third-party form, you’ll be able to customize every element of your form just like you always would.
The Sola API used in conjunction with iFields is a common integration flow for merchants and developers because it allows them to keep their website design seamless — without disrupting the end-user experience by redirecting users to a new form. It is fully secured and keeps you out of scope for PCI compliance while giving you access to advanced gateway features and support for various payment methods. To learn more about the Sola API and iFields, be sure to check out our Knowledge Base.
Get Up and Running with a Secure Online Payment Acceptance Solution
Accepting payments online is a top priority for future-proofing your business. Both hosted checkout and API gateway integrations are great options for securely accepting payments online, and what’s right for your business depends on your unique needs and your customers’ preferences. Know that whichever option you choose, our technology makes it easy to get up and running quickly— giving merchants and developers the flexibility they need to choose the payment processing solution that’s right for them.
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