How to Take Card Payments on Your Website

Taking cards on your website doesn't have to mean building a store. There are three levels, and most small businesses only need the first or the second:

• A payment link. A button on your site opens a checkout page that Stripe, Square or PayPal runs. No store at all.
• A checkout on your own site. A few products on your own pages, paid for through Stripe.
• A full store. A catalog, product options, stock, and everything else a shop runs on.

I build websites, and my own clients pay me through Stripe. This is how I'd choose between the three, with each processor's fees read from its own pricing page in October 2026.

The three ways, side by side

A payment link

A payment link is a web address that opens a checkout page for whatever you set it up to sell: a product, a service or an amount. The customer pays on the processor's page, so you never build a checkout. All three of the big names offer them:

• Stripe Payment Links need no code. The customer pays on a page Stripe hosts, and Stripe can send the receipt automatically (Stripe docs). You can share the link, make a QR code from it, or turn it into a buy button whose code you paste into your site (sharing a link).
• Square Payment Links take payments without an online store. You can share the link, a QR code or a buy button (Square help), and the customer pays on a secure online checkout page (Square Payment Links).
• PayPal Payment Links open a PayPal-hosted checkout page where customers can pay with PayPal, Venmo, Pay Later, Apple Pay or a card. For a website, PayPal also offers payment buttons (PayPal Payment Links). Only PayPal Business accounts can create links and buttons (PayPal help).

Setting one up is short work:

1. Open an account with the processor. For PayPal, that's a Business account.
2. Create a link for each thing you sell, with its name, price and description.
3. Put it on your site, as a plain link or as the buy button the processor gives you.
4. Open the link on your phone and go through the checkout, so you see what your customers will see.

Where a link runs out:

• There's no catalog and no cart. Each product or bundle needs its own link or button, and nothing lets a shopper browse your pages and check out once at the end.
• The checkout won't look like your site. Stripe's hosted page, for example, lets you set your logo and your background and button colors, and choose from preset fonts and corner styles (Stripe docs). That's about it.

What each processor charges

These are US rates for a card payment taken online, as of October 2026, each read on the vendor's own pricing page:

What the table doesn't show:

• Stripe charges no setup or monthly fees, and includes Payment Links and its Checkout page at no extra charge on its standard pricing.
• Square's online rate covers card payments made online or through an invoice. Its Payment Links page says the links have no monthly fee.
• PayPal lists its fixed fee two ways. The Payment Links page shows 10¢ per transaction. PayPal's main fee schedule, last updated October 1, 2026, lists 49¢ as the fixed fee on commercial transactions in US dollars (PayPal fees). Check what your account is actually charged before you set prices around it.
• Payments from abroad cost more. Stripe adds 1.5% for international cards, and Square adds 1.5% for cards issued outside the US. PayPal adds 1.5% when the buyer and the seller are in different markets.

On a $100 sale paid by card, that's $3.20 with Stripe, $3.60 with Square's free plan, and $3.09 or $3.48 with PayPal, depending on which fixed fee applies.

Keeping card numbers off your website

The safest card number is one your website never sees. That's the point of a checkout page someone else hosts.

• Stripe says its Checkout and Elements collect card details inside a frame served from Stripe's own domain, so your customers' card information never touches your servers (Stripe's PCI guide). A Stripe Payment Link opens a page Stripe hosts too, so the card goes into Stripe's page, not yours.
• Square's and PayPal's links send the customer to their own checkout pages, not to a form on your site.

You still have a part to play:

• PCI DSS is the card industry's security standard. Stripe calls compliance a shared responsibility: a business that takes cards has to do it in a compliant way and confirm that every year (Stripe security guide). For some smaller businesses on Checkout and similar setups, Stripe offers prefilled compliance forms and guided steps (Stripe's PCI guide).
• Never take a card number by email, text or a contact form. Stripe's guide says anyone who processes, transmits or stores card data must comply with PCI DSS. A card number in your inbox makes you one of them.
• Your site needs HTTPS. Stripe requires payment pages to use TLS 1.2 or later, the encryption behind HTTPS. Every one of my plans includes hosting on Vercel with SSL.

It's how I take payments myself: Stripe processes them, and I never see or store a client's card or account number.

A checkout on your own site

Once you sell more than a couple of things, a link per product starts to feel thin. You want the products on your own pages, with your photos and your words, and a checkout that follows from them.

My simple shop does that. It's a $900 add-on to any of my website plans: up to 10 products, built into your site, with Stripe checkout (see the add-ons). There's no separate store subscription. Stripe takes its fee on each sale.

The plans start at $2,400 for Starter, a five-page site. From launch day, the $79/mo care plan covers hosting on Vercel with SSL, daily backups, uptime monitoring, and security and dependency updates (see the plans).

The simple shop fits when you have up to 10 products at set prices. Past that, or when you need any of the things below, you're looking at a full store.

A full store

A full store is the right call when you have:

• More than 10 products, or products with sizes, colors and stock to keep track of.
• A point of sale or inventory system that has to stay in sync with the website.
• Customer logins or a portal.
• Payments a link or the simple shop can't handle.

I build those as custom projects, on Shopify or from scratch. You pay a $500 deposit and fill in an intake, and I send a free written quote with the scope, the price and the payment schedule. Nothing is built until you accept the quote in writing, and until then the deposit is refundable in full. Once you accept, the deposit counts toward the project price and the quote sets the terms.

If you're weighing Shopify against WooCommerce, my comparison of the two covers cost, upkeep and control.

Which one fits

• How many things do you sell? One to a few: a payment link. Up to 10, on your own pages: the simple shop. More than that: a store.
• Do customers buy one thing at a time? Then a link may be all you need. If they fill a basket, they need a cart.
• Do you sell in person too? Square's in-person rate on its free plan is 2.6% + 15¢ as of October 2026 (Square pricing). A store that has to keep counter and online stock in step is a custom project.
• What will the fees come to? Take a typical month of sales, apply the percentage, and add the fixed fee once per sale. Do it for each processor before you choose.

How I can help

• A payment link: set one up with Stripe, Square or PayPal, and you pay only their fees. If I'm building your site, the link or buy button goes on it as part of the plan: every plan includes embedding the tools you already use. You create the link in your own Stripe, Square or PayPal account. If you'd like me to set up the account or the products for you, that's billed at my hourly rate: $150 an hour, in 15-minute increments with a 30-minute minimum.
• A simple shop: up to 10 products with Stripe checkout, $900 added to a plan. Plans start at $2,400, with $79/mo care from launch day. See the add-ons.
• A full store: a custom project. A $500 deposit starts a written quote; it's refundable until you accept, then credited to the work. Start a custom project.