Setting up online payment gateways in Ecwid

With online payment methods, you can accept credit/debit cards, PayPal, or cryptocurrency in your online store. Ecwid offers over 70 third-party payment systems and integrations to the most popular digital and mobile wallets, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal to process your transactions.

Your store location will determine the payment gateways available to you. You can choose one or several of these payment systems to accept online credit card payments from your customers. Offering several options to your customers will increase conversion and reduce the number of abandoned carts. We recommend not using more than two or three. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, you may want to include a few manual methods as well.

You can activate or change a payment provider from the Payment page of your Ecwid admin.

Before you begin

When setting up your payment providers, keep in mind that:

• Ecwid does not handle payments directly.
• Payment processors do charge transaction fees.
• Ecwid does not charge any additional transaction fees.
• Payment provider availability depends on your location.
• Make sure the provider supports your business.

Adding online payment gateway

To accept payments online, you should open a merchant account with a payment processor from our supported list and choose this payment processor (gateway) when adding an online payment method in your store. Recommended payment providers for U.S. merchants are Lightspeed Payments, Stripe, Square, and PayPal. Note that every payment provider charges a different fee for processing transactions in your store.

To add an online payment method in your store:

That’s it! Your payment gateway is now set up. Try running a test order to get an idea of how this will look to your customers.

The payment gateways will display on your checkout page in order of time you set them up. You can always change that order. Some payment gateways, such as PayPal, will also show a button on the cart page.

Once a customer pays for an order, funds go to your merchant account and your payment provider has to process a transaction first. For successfully processed transactions, you can withdraw the money from your merchant account to your bank account. You can check order payment statuses in your Ecwid admin → My Sales.

Learn more: How do I get paid? →

If you sell expensive products and want to provide a financing option for your customers, consider enabling PayPal Credit in your store's checkout. It allows customers to pay for online purchases in installments.

Sorting payment methods on the storefront

By defaut, all payment methods display on your checkout page in the order of time you set them up, but you can change the payment methods order if required.

To sort enabled payment methods:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to the Payment page.
2. Locate to any of the enabled payment methods, click Actions, then Sort:
   

   

3. Change the order by drag-and-dropping them to the right position.
4. Changes are autosaved.

Setting your currency for accepting payments

In order to accept payments through your site using a payment provider (e.g. PayPal, Stripe, etc.), the currency in your Ecwid account must match the currency in your payment provider account.

To change your currency:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to the Settings → General → Regional Settings tab.
2. Choose your store currency in the Currency drop-down menu.
3. Choose the Price display format for the prices in this currency (it will not affect input fields for prices in your Ecwid admin):
   

   

4. If you use a non-USD currency, you can specify the conversion rate in case a payment gateway you want to use accepts dollars only or if a shipping service connected to your store doesn't accept your currency but works with USD. Ecwid will use the entered rate to convert the order total into dollars and send the request to a payment system. In the case of shipping, it will show the correct actual shipping rate in your store's currency so that your shipping costs coincide with the shipping prices in your store. Example:
   

   

5. Choose if the currency symbol should be displayed before (prefix) or after the price (suffix).
6. Enable or disable the Hide trailing zeros in the fractional part option for prices in your store.
7. Save the changes.

Disabling a payment provider

You can disable or remove a payment provider if you no longer wish to use it. Once you've removed it, it no longer appears on your checkout page.

To disable a payment provider:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to the Payment page.
2. Locate any enabled payment method and click the toggle button to disable this method to remove from the checkout page.
3. (optional) Click Actions, then Remove beside the relevant payment provider to disconnect the payment provider.

FAQ

Where do I manage my funds?

Сontrol and direct funds in your merchant account with your merchant service provider which is in most cases your payment gateway.

How can I withdraw money?

Ecwid does not process any transactions. Online payments are processed by the payment gateway that you’ve selected for your payment method. To withdraw the money received for orders through the payment gateway, you should log into your account with this payment system and link your bank account or use another withdrawal option that they offer.

Learn more: Withdrawing funds from PayPal →

How can I issue a refund?

To refund a payment, you should find the respective transaction in your account with the payment gateway that processed the payment and issue the refund there.

Learn more: Refunding orders →

Can customers pay by credit card without leaving my site?

Yes. With several payment providers, Ecwid shows the credit card form right within the store’s checkout page, so customers are not redirected to the payment gateway website to enter their credit card details there. Instead, they stay on your domain during the entire checkout process.

If you want to use such on-site payment methods, you can use one of these payment providers for online credit card processing in your Ecwid store: Lightspeed Payments, Stripe, Square, American Express, Payleap, Clover payment gateway.

Can I capture payments later?

Yes. With some payment methods you can choose how you want to capture payments from customers:

• Capture payments automatically
  With this transaction type, funds are captured from a customer’s credit card immediately, at the time of order placement. This transaction type is usually called Purchase, Purchase only, or Sale in the payment method settings.
• Capture payments manually
  If this transaction type is selected, during order placement your store will check the credit card balance of your customers. You can then capture the money from the customer’s credit card later (for example, when you are ready to ship their order). To actually charge the customer, you should log into your account with the payment gateway and click a special button. This transaction type is often called Auth Only, Authorization Only, Pre-authorization in the payment method settings.
  You can choose what transaction type suits you best with the following payment systems supported by Ecwid: Authorize.Net, American Express, Bambora North America, PayPal Payflow link.

The payment gateway determines the time window when the funds can be captured manually.

Can customers buy now and pay later?

Yes, you can offer financing options to your customers through PayPal Credit, Afterpay.

Can I add a surcharge to use a payment method?

Usually, a payment processor charges a service fee for processing credit cards. You can add a surcharge for customers so that extra fees appear at checkout when the certain payment method is selected. Please note that some payment gateways may prohibit surcharges.

Does Ecwid support recurring payments or subscriptions?

Yes, you can turn on recurring subscriptions in your store and charge customers on a regular basis.

Can I use an online payment method that Ecwid is currently not integrated with?

In case you want to use some online payment method that Ecwid is currently not integrated with, it might be possible to add this method as a custom solution with the help of Ecwid's API. You can do it yourself (if you have coding skills), hire a developer, or you can contact our Customization Team to request development on a paid basis.

Related articles

Creating a test order
Processing refunds
One-page online checkout