More and more customers want to pay before they show up, pay after receiving an invoice, or simply pay without picking up the phone. If your website still says "call us to pay," you're leaving money on the table — and probably frustrating potential customers who found you at 10pm when your office is closed.
Here's a practical guide to getting online payments set up for your small business.
Your Two Main Options
There are two fundamentally different approaches to accepting payments online:
Option 1: Embedded Payment Form (Recommended)
A payment form that lives directly on your website. Customers never leave your page. The checkout experience looks and feels like part of your site. This is what we set up for our merchants using the Clover/CardConnect hosted payment page or Authorize.net's Accept Payments Page.
Option 2: Payment Link / Redirect
You send a customer a link (via text, email, or invoice) and they're taken to a separate payment page to complete the transaction. Simpler to set up, but the experience is less branded. Good for service businesses that invoice clients after the fact.
Important distinction: PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App are not the same as a merchant account. They're convenient for very small transactions but come with higher fees, account holds, and no chargeback protection. For any real business volume, you want a proper merchant account with a payment gateway.
What You Need to Get Started
To accept payments online through a real merchant account, you need three things:
- A merchant account — This is your bank-level account that processes card transactions. If you're already processing in-person with us through CardConnect, you likely already have this.
- A payment gateway — The software layer that connects your website to your merchant account. We use CardConnect's Bolt gateway and Authorize.net.
- A way to embed it on your site — This is usually a snippet of code (iframe) your developer adds to your site, or a hosted payment page URL you link to.
How We Set It Up
Here's exactly what the process looks like when you work with Merchant1 Solutions:
- Account review — We check if your existing merchant account includes gateway access, or if we need to add it. Most Clover/CardConnect accounts already have it.
- Gateway configuration — We configure your Bolt or Authorize.net gateway with your business info, logo, and payment settings.
- Customization — We set the colors, fields, and confirmation messages to match your brand.
- Embedding — We give you (or your web developer) the exact code to paste into your site. For WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace this is usually a simple block or widget. For custom sites it's an iframe or JavaScript snippet.
- Testing — We run a test transaction to confirm everything works end to end.
- Go live — You're accepting payments. Funds settle to your bank account on your normal schedule.
Clover/CardConnect vs Authorize.net — Which Should You Use?
| Clover / CardConnect | Authorize.net | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Businesses already using Clover in-store | Businesses needing advanced API or platform integration |
| Setup complexity | Simple — same account as your in-person processing | Moderate — separate account and configuration |
| Recurring billing | Supported natively | Supported natively |
| Developer API | Available | More extensive, more integrations |
| Reporting | CardPointe dashboard | Authorize.net merchant portal |
| ACH / eCheck | Available | Widely supported |
What About WooCommerce, Shopify, or Other Platforms?
If you're running a full e-commerce store, you may already have a payment plugin in place. Both CardConnect and Authorize.net have official plugins for WooCommerce, and Authorize.net is supported natively by many platforms. If you're on Shopify, Shopify Payments (which runs on Stripe) is probably your easiest path — though Authorize.net is also an option.
For simple business websites — WordPress with Elementor, Wix, Squarespace, or a custom HTML site — the hosted payment page approach is usually the cleanest. No plugin dependency, works on any platform.
What Do Online Transactions Cost?
Card-not-present (CNP) transactions — meaning online payments where the card isn't physically present — carry slightly higher interchange rates than in-person swipes. This is because there's a higher risk of fraud. Typical effective rates for online transactions:
- Standard credit cards: approximately 2.2%–2.8%
- Rewards and premium cards: 2.5%–3.2%
- Debit cards (online): 1.5%–2.0%
These are still significantly lower than PayPal's standard rates (3.49% + fixed fee for most transactions).
Is It Secure?
Yes — when properly set up. Both CardConnect and Authorize.net use tokenization, meaning card data is converted to a token before it ever reaches your server. You never store actual card numbers. PCI compliance is built into the hosted payment page, so you don't inherit the complexity of PCI certification.
Ready to Get Set Up?
If you're in the Rio Grande Valley or anywhere in Texas and want to add online payment capability to your website, reach out to us. We'll look at your current setup and tell you exactly what's involved — and if you're already a CardConnect merchant, it's often just a matter of activating the gateway on your existing account.
Learn more about our embedded payment solutions here.