The largest payment service providers (PSP) for Swiss online shops as well as two smaller options are analyzed - namely Datatrans, PayPal, Payrexx, PostFinance, Stripe, wallee, Worldline and zahls.ch.

To do this, some terms are clarified first, a cost analysis is carried out and then the individual providers are evaluated in detail. Finally, you will receive information about which payment service provider is best suited for you.

Online Payments: Theory for Understanding

To accept payments in an online shop, retailers need an acceptance agreement with an acquirer and a processing contract, which is concluded with a payment provider.

What is a Payment Service Provider (PSP)?

A payment provider, in English Payment-Service-Provider, is a company that handles the technical connection of online payment methods in online shops. Instead of dealing with many individual contract partners, if an online retailer chooses a payment provider, they only need to negotiate with this provider to integrate the desired payment methods, such as Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, PostFinance and TWINT into their shop.

What is a Payment Method Provider?

A payment service provider offers many external payment methods with which a transaction can be carried out. Companies that offer this option themselves are referred to as payment providers. This can be in card form like MasterCard and VISA or in wallet form like Google Pay or TWINT.

What is an Acquiring or Acceptance Agreement?

Acquiring in banking involves acquiring contract partners who are willing to accept payments via credit card. The so-called acquiring bank is the financial institution that processes the card payments for merchants. Merchants can conclude an acceptance agreement with acquirers such as Worldline, Concardis or PostFinance, or with a payment facilitator like Payrexx.

What is a Payment Facilitator?

A payment facilitator, also called Collecting PSP, is directly in contact with the retailer and manages the merchant account with the acquirer. The payment facilitator can sign the acceptance agreement in the name of the acquirer and thus facilitates the setup of online payments because the retailer has fewer direct relationships to maintain.

How do you choose the right provider?

It is crucial for merchants to keep costs as low as possible. It is important to look at setup and monthly costs as well as transaction fees. Before making a decision, it should also be clarified which payment methods and tools are needed for the online shop. Depending on the provider, all important payment methods* are supported and integrated tools are available. It is also of paramount importance for merchants and their customers that payment processing is secure. Compliance with PCI DSS Level 1 standards is significant in this regard.

It is advisable to choose a payment provider who is also an acquirer or payment facilitator, so retailers have a single point of contact for both. Other important points are the provider's customer support and the offer of plugins to well-known shop solutions.

Cost Analysis

Online Shops with a Monthly Turnover of 20,000 CHF

The cost analysis shows the monthly fees for smaller online shops with a sales revenue of 20,000 CHF and 200 credit card transactions per month. This results in an average price of 100 CHF per purchase.

Price Calculation

To conduct the cost analysis, the cheapest offers from the individual payment providers for a sales revenue of 20,000 CHF per month were selected. The price information is mostly taken from the websites of the respective payment service providers.

Notes

The diagram excludes any setup costs.

Up to a turnover of 5,000 CHF, transaction fees are included in the E-Commerce Large package from Worldline. Transactions exceeding this volume will incur a percentage fee of 2% and fixed costs of 0.1 CHF.

Additional acquiring costs are added for the Get-Started offer from Datatrans. As the percentage fee is not publicly visible, a value of 2% was assumed (the average of all other providers).

Conclusion: Costs for Smaller Online Shops

The lowest fees are with Payrexx, closely followed by wallee. With costs of 790 CHF, PayPal is the most expensive for online shops with this volume. The absolute price difference between Payrexx and PayPal is 421 CHF. Consequently, the costs with the cheapest payment provider Payrexx are more than 50% lower than the most expensive offer.

Online Shops with a Monthly Turnover of 100,000 CHF

The cost analysis shows the monthly fees for medium-sized online shops with a sales revenue of 100,000 CHF and 1,000 credit card transactions per month. The average value of a transaction is thus 1,000 CHF.

Price Calculation

To conduct the cost analysis, the cheapest offers from the individual payment providers for a sales revenue of 50,000 per month were selected. The price information was mostly taken from the websites of the respective payment service providers.

Notes

The diagram excludes any setup costs.

Up to a turnover of 5,000 CHF, transaction fees are included in the E-Commerce Large package from Worldline. Transactions exceeding this volume will incur a percentage fee of 2% and fixed costs of 0.1 CHF.

For the Scale-Now offer from Datatrans, additional acquiring costs are added. The average value of the first diagram was reduced by 0.5%.

Conclusion: Costs for Medium-sized Online Shops

Payrexx is the cheapest provider with costs of 1,549 CHF per month, followed by wallee. PayPal and Stripe are significantly more expensive for medium-sized online shops compared to other providers. Payrexx is 2,401 CHF cheaper than the most expensive provider PayPal, which amounts to a percentage price difference of 60%.

No calculation was made for large online shops, as most payment providers offer non-public special conditions for larger customers — these include Datatrans, Payrexx, Stripe, wallee, Worldline, and zahls.ch.

Overview Table

If you run an online shop, it is of high importance that you can offer a variety of different payment methods. The table shows which payment provider offers which methods. The most common methods in Switzerland are listed.

In the second part, you will see with which software you can build your shop. In addition to the well-known solutions, there are also some providers that offer their own shop system, the setup of which does not require programming knowledge. These offers can be found in the row "Integrated E-Commerce Tools" in the table. This tool allows you to easily create a shop for products, vouchers, subscriptions or donations.

Finally, you will find an overview of the publicly accessible reviews of companies on Google. It is also important to consider the number of reviews, which can represent a broader opinion.

All Payment Providers in Detail

Payrexx: Payment Facilitator with Integrated E-Commerce Tools

Payrexx is both a payment provider and a payment facilitator, offering an all-in-one solution through a cost-effective pricing model and the number of payment interfaces and e-commerce tools as a modern and user-friendly option. With the diverse tools such as payment link, one-page shop with its own URL, virtual terminal, QR-Pay and digital invoices, Payrexx meets the individual requirements of almost every retailer. Payrexx is suitable for selling products, services, online tickets or vouchers as well as for collecting membership fees or conducting donation projects. Thanks to the 30-day test phase, the platform can be tested free of charge. Payrexx has an average Google rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars with a total of 96 reviews.

Price Overview of Payrexx

* Preferred conditions between 1.7% and 1.3%

What do retailers need to do for integration? Since each retailer receives a payment website with its own Internet address, neither integration nor programming knowledge is necessary. If you already have a shop, you can activate the payment with one of the free available plugins.PostFinance Checkout All-in-One: a comprehensive e-payment solutionPostFinance is highly accepted by customers in Switzerland. PostFinance Checkout is a payment solution that offers all common payment methods (PostFinance E-Finance, PostFinance Card, TWINT as well as Visa and Mastercard) as well as various shop plugins. The prices listed below already include all costs for the payment provider and acquiring, as no additional contracts are required. PostFinance also offers the option of testing the provider in a simulation mode for 30 days.

Price Overview of PostFinance Checkout All-in-One

What do retailers need to do for integration?

PostFinance Checkout is available to all companies based in Switzerland or the Principality of Liechtenstein that have a business account in CHF with PostFinance.

Worldline (formerly SIX Payments): Acquirer and Payment Provider

Worldline offers both acquirer and payment provider services and therefore usually provides the offers in packages. With the SIX goCard E-Commerce package, payments can be processed directly through a payment window. Transfers are possible in more than 20 currencies. Accordingly, the customer can relatively freely decide in which currency to pay. This is also because Worldline, like most other payment providers, offers the so-called dynamic currency conversion, in English Dynamic Currency Conversion DCC. Furthermore, Worldline offers various payment functions, such as the subsequent charge or the booking of partial amounts. Worldline has an average Google rating of 2.4 out of 5 stars with a total of 237 reviews.

Price Overview of Worldline

Until the chosen turnover, transaction fees are included in the monthly fixed costs. All transactions that exceed this volume are charged with the conditions of the last column.

What do retailers need to do for integration?

No programming skills are required. According to its own statement, SIX goCard is particularly suitable for existing e-commerce solutions and static websites.

Datatrans: Provider with a Lot of Experience

Datatrans is the largest provider in Switzerland and can be directly integrated either as an external payment option (external payment window) or through an implementation (via API in the shop layout). With the Datatrans Payment Pages, retailers have access to all payment methods with a single integration. Datatrans Secure Fields seamlessly integrate into the design and help improve merchants' conversion rates. In addition, this provider also offers the possibility to create a test account. Datatrans has an average Google rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars with a total of 14 reviews.

Price Overview of Datatrans

The monthly costs and transaction fees are visible on the website, the setup costs cannot be found there. In addition to the costs of Datatrans, external acquiring fees of about 2% apply.

It is important to note that the minimum monthly charge is CHF 290 (excluding external acquiring costs).

What do retailers need to do for integration?

Either developer knowledge is required, or you implement a standard shop system. As Datatrans is neither an acquirer nor a payment facilitator, retailers need acceptance agreements with other acquirers.

PayPal: An International Payment Provider

PayPal is a simple solution for shop operators, but with larger order quantities, it costs more in the long run. Payment links and email invoices as well as various plugins are available. According to its own information, the payment facilitator PayPal has more than 240 million active users and offers the possibility to process payments in over 100 currencies. PayPal is not a Swiss company, but has offices in San José and in Luxembourg. Since PayPal is an international provider, retailers can choose from a variety of different languages. PayPal has an average Google rating of 1.8 out of 5 stars with a total of 6 reviews.

Price Overview of PayPal Switzerland

PayPal does not charge a setup fee or monthly subscription costs. The cost per transaction is 3.4% of the transaction volume and 0.55 CHF transaction fee.

What do retailers need to do for integration?

To use PayPal, retailers need to provide company information and a commercial register number. Developer knowledge is not required.

Stripe: Provider for Developers

Stripe offers developer-friendly tools for integrating payment provider services into various web and mobile apps with modern design. It enables credit card payments and also offers some other well-known payment methods, such as Alipay. Stripe, like Payrexx and PayPal, is a payment facilitator. Basically, this provider is particularly attractive for smaller online shops due to its prices.

Price Overview of Stripe

The transaction fees are 2.9% and 0.3 CHF per transaction. No one-time setup fees or fixed monthly fees apply. No additional fees are charged for refunds.

What do retailers need to do for integration?

Retailers need to have developer know-how for implementation. A valid photo ID and a business number are also required for verification.

wallee: Omni-Pay Provider from Switzerland

Walle is a Swiss payment provider based in Winterthur. Over 1,000 customers trust this company. Payments can be processed online either on the website or via redirection. The templates can be changed as desired using a resource editor and plugins for various shop systems are also available. A test mode is also available.

Price Overview of wallee

What do retailers need to do for integration?

To use one of the many integrations, programming knowledge is necessary.

zahls.ch: New Swiss Payment Solution for the Internet

zahls.ch is a Swiss provider with a very clearly designed offer. In addition to classic payments, e-commerce tools are also available. These include payment links, digital invoices, online terminals and a self-configurable payment page (a small online shop). zahls.ch offers all Swiss payment methods and a large selection of foreign payment methods. zahls.ch has an average Google rating of 5 out of 5 stars with a total of 10 reviews.

Price Overview of zahls.ch

What do retailers need to do for integration?

Programming knowledge is not necessary to use zahls.ch. On the contrary — you can easily create an online shop with the integrated tool. The verification process involves submitting a photo ID and, if available, registration in the commercial register.

Conclusion: Which Payment Provider is Suitable for You?

In general, it is advisable to start with cost-effective options and then address customer needs and possibly expand. For young and digital companies, Payrexx is suitable ahead of wallee, Worldline, and Datatrans. Payrexx is the cost leader for medium-sized online shops, followed by wallee. PayPal, on the other hand, charges relatively high transaction fees and Worldline incurs expensive monthly fixed costs.

Of course, not only prices should be considered but also the range of functions and supporting services. Payrexx and zahls.ch offer the most diverse and useful tools.

With over 200 payment methods (via integrated third-party providers), Payrexx offers the largest range of payment methods, followed by Datatrans with over 40 different payment methods.

In terms of the simplicity of installation, PayPal, Payrexx and zahls.ch surpass the other payment providers. In general, Stripe is more comprehensive in its implementation than the other providers. With PostFinance, you need advanced developer knowledge to install the plugins.

The ability to test the provider and its features in a free phase is a great advantage for the retailer, as this allows them to ensure that the payment provider meets their needs. Datatrans, Payrexx, PostFinance, wallee, Worldline and zahls.ch allow customers to test the provider.

Datatrans, PostFinance and Worldline have the most experience in the field of payment service providing.

In summary, it can be said that it is worthwhile when choosing a payment provider not only to look at the large and well-known providers but also to keep an eye on the new digital payment providers. Because these are often cheaper, but still offer a variety of tools and can cater to the individual needs of individual merchants. For smaller and medium-sized shops, Payrexx and wallee are very suitable, while for larger companies, it may be worth looking at the larger providers who have a lot of experience. Basically, in terms of price, variety and simplicity, Payrexx clearly ranks among the leaders.

Sources

Prices

Datatrans, PayPal, Payrexx, PostFinance, Stripe, wallee, Worldline, zahls.ch

Plugins for Shop Systems

Datatrans, PayPal, Payrexx, PostFinance, Stripe, wallee, Worldline, zahls.ch

Payment Methods

Datatrans, PayPal, Payrexx, PostFinance, Stripe, wallee, Worldline, zahls.ch

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Legal (as of February 2022)

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Author

Author: Sven Otziger, Payrexx AG and Priscilla Wyss, formerly Payrexx AG