Accepting credit and debit card payments is an easy way to increase sales and improve the customer experience for your business. By 2029, global credit, debit, and prepaid card usage could total 1.1 trillion transactions annually, up significantly from the 776 billion card transactions made in 2024. If your business doesn’t accept card payments, you’re missing substantial revenue opportunities.
Credit and debit card payments aren’t just relevant for retailers. Even businesses that don’t sell physical goods are increasingly offering customers an online card payment option, either before or after providing services.
Below, we’ll explain each step of how to accept credit and debit card payments online, in person, and by phone.
What’s in this article?
- How to accept credit card payments online
- How to accept credit card payments in person
- How to accept credit card payments over the phone
- What does it cost to accept credit card payments?
- Benefits of accepting credit cards
- How Stripe Payments can help
Quick note: When we mention “credit card payments,” we mean both credit card and debit card payments. There is not much difference in payment processing between the two kinds of cards.
How to accept credit card payments online
To start accepting credit card payments, you need to connect your digital storefront and the banking networks. Follow these four steps to set up your payment infrastructure.
Choose a payment processor and merchant services provider: Payment processors collect payment information from customer transactions and coordinate with the credit card networks, issuing banks (also called issuers), and receiving banks to transfer the funds. If your payment processor doesn’t include merchant account capabilities (like Stripe does), you’ll also need to open a merchant account to accept credit card payments. Stripe customers do not need—and, in fact, cannot have—a separate merchant account.
Set up your digital storefront: Whether it is a custom-built website or a shop on an external marketplace, your storefront is where you present products and where the customer begins the checkout journey.
Integrate a payment gateway and find a payment processor: A payment gateway is an interface for customers to input their payment information. Most top-tier processors provide a gateway that can be embedded directly into your site to ensure a smooth checkout experience.
Connect your accounts and test the flow: Once your storefront and gateway are linked to your processor, the processor will communicate with the credit card networks and banks to transfer funds to you.
Many small business owners use peer-to-peer payment platforms to accept customer payments. Businesses must report any commercial transactions over $600 received through those apps on their taxes.
How to accept credit card payments in person
To start accepting credit card payments at a physical location or on-the-go, follow these steps to set up your infrastructure.
Select hardware based on your business setup
Businesses need a point-of-sale (POS) system and a card reader to accept credit card payments in person. The exact hardware you’ll want to use will depend on the physical setup of your business:
Countertop card readers: Best suited for businesses with physical counter space, allowing customers to swipe or tap their credit cards.
Mobile card readers: Best for business owners who work outside a fixed location(like plumbers or massage therapists). These connect to phones or tablets via a physical port or Bluetooth.
Connect your hardware with POS software
Card readers typically interface with a POS system. Depending on your provider, this will either be a standardized, ready-to-use product or a highly customizable solution. For example, Stripe Terminal is an all-in-one POS solution that can be set up easily or tailored for specific functionality.
Determine your specific service needs
While online payments are growing, in-person payments remain essential for several business models:
Brick-and-mortar retail: Grocery stores, hardware stores, and bike shops.
On-site services: Contractors, landscapers, and private makeup artists.
Mobile businesses: Food trucks and coffee carts.
Enable in-person checkout: It is important to accept payments in person if you’re doing business in person. For most mobile businesses, it doesn’t make sense to offer online payments only; for instance, few customers buy coffee online only to walk to a corner cart to pick it up.
How to accept credit card payments over the phone
If your business regularly accepts credit card payments over the phone, you probably don’t need unique hardware to facilitate these transactions, but you will need a steady hand. For most businesses, over-the-phone card payments require manually inputting the card number into their POS terminal or online payments interface.
Here are some steps to start accepting card transactions over the phone.
Enable a virtual terminal through your provider: Before you can take a call, you must ensure your payment processor provides a virtual terminal. This is a secure, web-based version of a physical credit card machine that allows you to turn any computer or tablet into a payment station.
Ensure PCI compliance for manual entry: Because you will be handling sensitive card data spoken over the phone, confirm that your process meets PCI DSS requirements. This typically means never writing down card numbers on paper and using a provider that encrypts the data as you type it.
Input the card details: To accept a credit card payment by phone, manually input the card number, expiration date, and card verification value (CVV) code into your POS terminal or online payments interface while the customer is on the line.
If you own a business that receives a high volume of phone orders, such as a restaurant handling takeout, manual entry can be tedious and time-consuming. In these cases, it is worth looking into payment processing providers who specialize in solutions to streamline these transactions, such as integrated caller ID or Pay by Link texts.
What does it cost to accept credit card payments?
Accepting cards involves several types of credit card processing fees that typically range between 1.5% and 3.5% per transaction, depending on the card type and how the payment is processed. To manage your budget effectively, it is helpful to understand the three main components of these costs:
Interchange fees: This is usually the largest portion of the cost. These fees are set by the card networks like Visa and Mastercard and are paid directly to the bank that issued the customer's card.
Assessment fees: These are small fees paid directly to the card networks for the use of their infrastructure.
Processor markup: This is the fee charged by your payment processor such as Stripe for facilitating the transaction, providing hardware, and offering security features.
Costs can also vary based on whether the transaction is card-present (in person) or card-not-present (online or over the phone). Generally, online transactions carry a slightly higher fee to account for the increased risk of fraud.
Benefits of accepting credit cards
Accepting credit cards allows businesses to tap into new markets and improve operations overall. Here’s a closer look at some of the most common benefits:
Convenience: The convenience of paying with credit cards can lead to increased sales.
Impulse purchases: Credit cards can encourage impulse purchases since customers aren’t limited to the cash they have on hand.
Payment flexibility: Offering multiple payment options allows customers to use their preferred payment method, which can improve customer satisfaction.
Online and mobile payments: Accepting credit cards is essential for ecommerce and mobile transactions, catering to those who prefer to shop online.
Professionalism: Accepting credit cards can add to a business's credibility and image of professionalism.
Customer trust: It instills trust in customers, as businesses accepting credit cards are often perceived as more reliable and established.
Less cash handling: Credit cards minimize the risks of theft and human error associated with handling cash.
Fraud protection: Credit card companies often provide fraud detection and protection services.
International sales: Accepting credit cards enables businesses to sell to international customers, expanding their market reach.
Currency conversion: Credit card processors and payment processors facilitating card payments often handle currency conversion, making it easier to conduct international transactions.
How Stripe Payments can help
Stripe Payments provides a unified, global payments solution that helps any business—from scaling startups to global enterprises—accept payments online, in person, and around the world.
Stripe Payments can help you:
- Optimize your checkout experience: Create a frictionless customer experience and save thousands of engineering hours with prebuilt payment UIs, access to 125+ payment methods, and Link, a wallet built by Stripe.
- Expand to new markets faster: Reach customers worldwide and reduce the complexity and cost of multicurrency management with cross-border payment options, available in 195 countries across 135+ currencies.
- Unify payments in person and online: Build a unified commerce experience across online and in-person channels to personalize interactions, reward loyalty, and grow revenue.
- Improve payments performance: Increase revenue with a range of customizable, easy-to-configure payment tools, including no-code fraud protection and advanced capabilities to improve authorization rates.
- Move faster with a flexible, reliable platform for growth: Build on a platform designed to scale with you, with 99.999% historical uptime and industry-leading reliability.
Learn more about how Stripe Payments can power your online and in-person payments, or get started today.
The content in this article is for general information and education purposes only and should not be construed as legal or tax advice. Stripe does not warrant or guarantee the accurateness, completeness, adequacy, or currency of the information in the article. You should seek the advice of a competent attorney or accountant licensed to practice in your jurisdiction for advice on your particular situation.