What is the best way
to get paid?

Congratulations, you’ve got a great business idea!

You are happy to provide a service or product with a good value for money. You think about every little step in the value chain, one of them being the last step of the order to cash process: Money collection… So, what is the best way to get paid ?

There are a lot of ways to get paid. The first distinction must be made between these methods based on the moment of the payment confirmation. The “Pay now” methods provide a direct confirmation while the “Pay later” ones do not. Let’s see the difference based on some examples of each:

Pay now

Credit card
The customer pays online with his credit card.
National e-payment scheme
The customer pays online using a national payment method (ex: Bancontact in Belgium, IDeal in the Netherlands,…)

Pay later

Bank transfer
The customer pays by making a bank transfer at a branch or with their web or mobile banking application.
Domiciliation
The customer gave a mandate to withdraw money directly from his bank account (ex: SEPA direct debit).

How do I choose the payment method?

To determine the best payment method, let’s first define the criteria. Here are the most important ones:

Customer ease
How easy is it for the customer to make the payment ? How many manual steps must be taken and what is the difficulty to perform those steps ?
Customer control
Does the customer control the payment or did he give the control to the payment requester ?
Error free
Does the payment method prevent errors (wrong amount, missing reference, etc.)?
Reach
Is the payment method available to everyone in the world?
Regularity
Does the payment method enable regular payment or should the customer pay manually each time a payment is requested?

Fraud resistance
Is the payment method fraud resistant ? Does the payment method prevent cancellations?
Direct confirmation
Do you have a way to directly receive a confirmation that a non cancellable payment has been performed by the customer?
Setup cost
What is the cost to provide this payment method for customers (both to provide the method in general and then per customer)?
Direct recurring cost
How much does it cost to receive a payment ? Only direct costs are considered here. For example, we do not consider the costs of fraud, incorrect payments, etc. since they are already covered in the criteria above.

How do the payment methods fare on those criteria ?

We analyzed how payment methods score for all criteria and sorted them accordingly, from very poor to very good. Since this analysis is quite substantial, we have decided to compile the information in a white paper. You can receive your own copy by filling out the contact form below: