Comparison of Swiss online payment providers for the year 2022

We analyse the largest payment service providers (PSP) for Swiss online shops as well as two smaller options — namely Datatrans, PayPal, Payrexx, PostFinance, Stripe, wallee, Worldline and zahls.ch.

For this purpose, we first clarify a few terms, carry out a cost analysis and then evaluate the individual providers in detail. Finally, you will receive information on which payment service provider is best suited for you.

Online payments: Theory for understanding

To accept payments in your online shop, merchants need an acquiring contract with an acquirer and a processing contract concluded with a payment provider.

What is a payment service provider (PSP)?

A payment provider, in English payment service provider, refers to companies that take care of the technical connection of online payment methods to online shops. Instead of dealing with many individual contract partners, an online merchant, when choosing a payment provider, only needs to negotiate with this single 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 makes many external payment methods available, 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 such as MasterCard and VISA or in wallet form such as Google Pay or TWINT.

What is an acquiring or acceptance contract?

In banking, acquiring is about recruiting contractual partners who are willing to accept payments via credit card. The so-called acquiring bank is the credit institution that settles card payments for merchants. Merchants can conclude an acceptance contract with acquirers, such as Worldline, Concardis or PostFinance, or with a payment facilitator such as Payrexx.

What is a payment facilitator?

A payment facilitator, also known as a collecting PSP, is in direct contact with the merchant and manages the merchant account with the acquirer. The payment facilitator can therefore sign the acceptance contract on behalf of the acquirer, making it easier to set up online payments because the merchant 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 the setup and monthly costs, as well as the transaction fees. Furthermore, you should clarify which payment methods and tools are needed for your online shop before making a decision. Depending on the provider, all major payment methods* are supported and integrated tools are available. It is also of central importance for merchants and their customers that payment processing is secure. Compliance with PCI DSS Level 1 standards is significant here.

It is recommended to choose a payment provider that is also an acquirer or payment facilitator, so that merchants have a single point of contact for both. Other important points are the provider's customer support and the availability of plugins for popular 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 commercial turnover of 20’000 CHF with 200 credit card transactions per month. This results in an average price of 100 CHF per purchase.

Price calculation

To carry out the cost analysis, the cheapest offers of the individual payment providers were selected for a commercial turnover of 20’000 CHF per month. The price details are mostly taken from the websites of the respective payment service providers.

Notes

Any setup costs are not included in the chart.

Up to a turnover of 5’000 CHF, transaction fees are included in Worldline's E-Commerce Large package. Transactions that exceed this volume are charged a percentage fee of 2 % and fixed costs of 0.1 CHF.

With Datatrans' Get Started offer, additional acquiring costs apply. Since the percentage fee is not publicly visible, a value of 2 % was assumed (average of all other providers).

Conclusion: Costs for smaller online shops

The lowest fees are achieved with Payrexx, closely followed by wallee. At a cost of 790 CHF, PayPal is the most expensive option 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 with 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 commercial turnover of 100’000 CHF with 1’000 credit card transactions per month. The average value of a transaction is therefore 1’000 CHF.

Price calculation

To carry out the cost analysis, the cheapest offers of the individual payment providers were selected for a monthly commercial turnover of 50’000. The price details were mostly taken from the websites of the respective payment service providers.

Notes

Any setup costs are not included in the chart.

Up to a turnover of 5’000 CHF, transaction fees are included in Worldline's E-Commerce Large package. Transactions that exceed this volume are charged a percentage fee of 2 % and fixed costs of 0.1 CHF.

With Datatrans' Scale Now offer, additional acquiring costs apply. The average value from the first chart was reduced by 0.5 %.

Conclusion: Costs for medium-sized online shops

Payrexx is the cheapest provider at a cost of 1’549 CHF per month, followed by wallee. For medium-sized online shops, PayPal and Stripe are significantly more expensive than the other providers. Payrexx is 2’401 CHF cheaper than the most expensive provider PayPal, which represents a percentage price difference of 60 %.

No calculation was carried out for large online shops, as most payment providers do not publish special conditions for larger customers — this includes Datatrans, Payrexx, Stripe, wallee, Worldline and zahls.ch.

Overview table

If you run an online shop, it is highly important that you can offer a variety of different payment methods. In the table you can see which payment provider offers which methods. The most common methods in Switzerland are listed.

In the second part, you can see which software you can use to build your shop. In addition to the well-known solutions, there are also some providers that offer their own shop system, which requires no programming knowledge to set up. In the table, such offers can be found in the row "Integrated e-commerce tools". This tool makes it easy to create a shop for products, vouchers, subscriptions or donations.

Finally, you will find an overview of the publicly available Google reviews of the companies. The number of reviews is also important, as they can represent a broader range of opinions.

All payment providers in detail

Payrexx: Payment facilitator with integrated e-commerce tools

Payrexx is both a payment provider and a payment facilitator, representing a modern and user-friendly all-in-one solution with a cheap pricing model, numerous payment interfaces and e-commerce tools. With its versatile tools, such as payment links, One Page Shop with its own URL, virtual terminal, QR Pay and digital invoices, Payrexx meets the individual requirements of almost any merchant. Payrexx is suitable for selling products, services, online tickets or vouchers as well as for collecting membership fees or running donation projects. Thanks to the 30-day trial period, the platform can be tested for free. Payrexx has an average Google rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars from a total of 96 reviews.

Price overview of Payrexx

* Preferential conditions between 1.7 % and 1.3 %

What do merchants need to do for the integration? Since every merchant receives a payment website with their own internet address, neither integration nor programming knowledge is required. If you already have a shop, you can activate payments using one of the plugins available for free. PostFinance Checkout All-in-One: a comprehensive e-payment solution. PostFinance enjoys high customer acceptance 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) and various shop plugins. The prices listed below already include all costs for payment provider and acquiring, as no additional contracts are required. PostFinance also offers the option to test the provider in a simulation mode for 30 days.

Price overview of PostFinance Checkout All-in-one

What do merchants need to do for the 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 its offers in a package. With the SIX goCard E-Commerce package, payments can be processed directly via a payment window. Transfers are possible in more than 20 currencies. Accordingly, the customer can decide relatively freely in which currency they want to pay. This is also because Worldline, like most other payment providers, offers Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC). In addition, Worldline offers various payment functions, such as subsequent billing or the booking of partial amounts. Worldline has an average Google rating of 2.4 out of 5 stars from a total of 237 reviews.

Price overview of Worldline

Up to the chosen turnover, transaction fees are included in the monthly fixed costs. All transactions exceeding this volume are charged under the conditions of the last column.

What do merchants need to do for the integration?

No programming knowledge is required. According to their 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 integrated either as an external payment option (external payment window) or directly via an implementation (via API in the shop layout). With Datatrans Pages, merchants have access to all payment methods with a single integration. Datatrans Secure Fields blend seamlessly into the design and help improve the merchants' conversion rate. Furthermore, you also have the option to create a test account with this provider. Datatrans has an average Google rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars from a total of 14 reviews.

Price overview of Datatrans

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

It is important to note that the minimum billing per month is CHF 290 (excluding external acquiring costs).

What do merchants need to do for the integration?

You either need developer skills or you implement a standard shop system. Since Datatrans is neither an acquirer nor a payment facilitator, merchants need acceptance contracts with other acquirers.

PayPal: an international payment provider

PayPal is a simple solution for shop operators, but in the long run, it costs more for larger order volumes. Payment links, email invoices and various plugins are available. According to its own figures, the payment facilitator PayPal has more than 240 million active users and offers the option to process payments in over 100 currencies. PayPal is not a Swiss company, but is based in San Jose as well as in Luxembourg. As PayPal is an international provider, a merchant can choose their preferred language from a variety of options. PayPal has an average Google rating of 1.8 out of 5 stars from a total of 6 reviews.

Price overview of PayPal Switzerland

PayPal does not charge any setup fees or monthly subscription costs. The costs per transaction amount to 3.4 % of the transaction volume and a 0.55 CHF transaction fee.

What do merchants need to do for the integration?

To use PayPal, merchants must provide company information as well as a commercial register number. No developer skills are required.

Stripe: Provider for developers

Stripe offers developer-friendly tools for connecting payment provider services to various web and mobile apps with a 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 attractive mainly for smaller online shops due to its prices.

Price overview of Stripe

Transaction fees are 2.9 % and 0.3 CHF per transaction. There are neither one-off setup costs nor fixed monthly fees. No additional fees are charged for refunds.

What do merchants need to do for the integration?

Merchants must have developer know-how for the implementation. In addition, a valid photo ID and a company registration number are required for verification.

wallee: Omni-pay provider from Switzerland

Wallee is a Swiss payment provider based in Winterthur. Over 1’000 customers trust this company. Payments can be integrated online directly on the website or carried out via redirection. The templates can be modified 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 merchants need to do for the integration?

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

zahls.ch: New Swiss payment solution for the web

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, an online terminal and a self-configurable payment page (small online shop). zahls.ch provides all Swiss payment methods and a large selection of international payment methods. zahls.ch has an average Google rating of 5 out of 5 stars from a total of 10 reviews.

Price overview of zahls.ch

What do merchants need to do for the 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 includes submitting a photo ID and, if available, registration in the commercial register.

Conclusion: Which payment provider is right for you?

Basically, it is recommended to start with cost-effective options and then respond to customer needs and expand if necessary. For young and digital companies, Payrexx is more suitable than wallee, Worldline and Datatrans. The cost leader for medium-sized online shops is Payrexx, followed by wallee. PayPal, on the other hand, charges relatively high transaction fees, and Worldline involves expensive monthly fixed costs.

Of course, it is not just prices that need to be considered, but also the range of functions and supporting services. The most versatile and useful tools are offered by Payrexx and zahls.ch.

With over 200 payment methods (via integrated External provider), Payrexx offers the widest range of payment methods, followed by Datatrans with over 40 different payment methods.

In terms of simplicity of installation, PayPal, Payrexx and zahls.ch outperform 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 opportunity to test the provider and its features in a free phase is a major advantage for the merchant, as it allows you to ensure that the payment provider meets your 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 is worth not only looking at the big and well-known providers when choosing a payment provider, but also keeping an eye on the new digital payment providers. These are often cheaper, but still offer a variety of tools and can respond to the individual needs of each merchant. For small and medium-sized shops, Payrexx and wallee are very well suited, whereas for larger companies it can be worth looking at the larger providers who have a lot of experience. Basically, Payrexx is clearly among the frontrunners in the areas of price, variety and simplicity.

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

Icons

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Author

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