Online payment security has reached a much greater level of sophistication since its genesis in the late 90s. Its introduction founded a lot of skepticism, as consumers were concerned about supplying their credit card info to such a new and unfounded system. However, as the convenience and security of online payments became more and more refined and more and more effective, most of this uncertainty completely faded. Just recently, hosted payment pages have risen in popularity, sought after due to their robust security features and overall convenience. Integrating this system provides customers with a secured online checkout page, hosted by your merchant services provider.

Employing a hosted payment page doesn’t defer much from the typical checkout experience, the main difference is during payment. Where customers are redirected to an external payment page, as opposed to self-hosted payment pages which keep the process all on one website. Utilizing a self-hosted page may seem more intuitive and convenient on the surface, linking all your processes onto one site to not confuse your clients. But the time and money needed to independently secure your payments and maintain the checkout process outweigh that convivence. Leaving that work to your payment provider, who possesses the faculties to handle the security and maintenance, is a much better use of your money and will leave you with time to take care of tasks you can handle.

4 Benefits of Utilizing a Hosted Payment Page

These are the main benefits you’ll find when utilizing a hosted payment page…

• Support for Recurring Billing: Offering subscription or membership services has become very attractive to consumers, in addition to ensuring on-time payments for your business. Most payment providers will offer you the option to provide recurring billing when setting up your hosted payment page.
• Enhanced Security: Advanced security features like end-to-end encryption, fraud detection, and tokenization are standard in hosted payment page setups.
• Reduced PCI Compliance Requirements: Since you aren’t digitally hosting your client’s information, your merchant services provider is the one responsible for meeting PCI compliance requirements. You still need to follow the guidelines and pay those fees, but the scope of your involvement will be greatly reduced.
• Automatic Payment Information Updates: Hosted pages can auto-detect any changes in customer card information, identifying when a card may have expired or been replaced.

Be Aware of These Essential Offerings…

While you’ll find you’re typically fit with most of the services and terms you need, you should keep an eye out for these essential offerings when working out your payment page deal…

• Seamless Installation: Integrating the system should be very simple, if you are being asked to hire an outside developer you may have a problem.
• Accepts Multiple Payment Methods: Make sure you’re not limited in what you can offer; most hosted pages should be able to easily accept any type of payment from ACH payments to digital wallets.
• Minor Customization: Despite their lack of customizability, hosted pages should at minimum provide an option to add your logo to the portal, with the potential for other small changes.
• Options for Global Payments: Hosted payment pages offer great accommodations for international purchases, providing automatic currency exchanges in addition to page translations.

Simple and Safe

It’s clear, that utilizing a hosted payment page is overall much less maintenance in comparison to the constant attention needed to run its alternatives. The time, knowledge, and money needed to self-host your payment page, makes the setup only viable or even needed for huge corporations that possess the facilities and brand recognition to take advantage of a self-hosted solution. Small businesses or even larger businesses with reduced resources, get the most out of utilizing the automated and seamless nature of hosted payment pages.

In searching for the best-hosted payment page solution for your business, it’s key to pay close attention, not to the features they offer, but to the character and flexibility of the payment provider. The best payment providers in the industry, are there to support your business and provide everything they can to help it run properly. They’ll always keep your best interest and mind and provide flexibility in areas you wouldn’t normally expect.  So, even if your preferred provider doesn’t offer every feature, you need out of the gate; it shouldn’t be too difficult to negotiate your terms to work in the accommodations you need.