Since “what’s the best payment gateway for my tour or activity business?” is a question that we get asked a lot, we decided to write a blog post on it.

Here are our top 3 picks for you to take a look at. They are by far the best in the market for niche tour operators.

1. eWay

eWay recently launched eWay merchant services, which signs you up for an Internet Merchant Account and a Gateway. This removes the need to set up a Merchant Facility with a bank, because you can do it all through eWay. This can be set up in 4 days.

However, many small businesses do have a merchant account in place. In this case, the Customer Success Team is very proactive to help get merchants set up with difficult questions, especially if they still go down the path of dealing with banks. They will deal with the banks on your behalf.

Support:

Support-wise, eWay has free 24-hour support so you can contact them any time. They also have a handy chat box that pops up on their website that connects you to someone who can help.

Pricing:

eWAY costs from as little as $1 per day plus a small processing fee for each transaction. You get 24/7 support, a dedicated success manager, every essential feature, setup and much more all included in the price.

Learn more about eWay

2. DPS Payment Express

For tour operators with Merchant Accounts, DPS Hosted Payment Solution – Is a cloud-based service that enables real-time payment gateway processing without exposing the merchant to sensitive data because this is done on their PCI DSS compliant servers. Packages include reporting, manual payments, refunds, online gateway and tokenisation.

Support:

24-hour support. Their support centre is open from 9am-7pm weekdays and 11am-3pm on weekends, but for emergencies you can contact their 1300 number.

Pricing:

The monthly service fee is based on the sale of a block of transactions, however if you exceed the limit of included transactions on your plan, additional transactions will be charged at an overage rate per transactions.

Learn more about DPS

3. Stripe

Stripe gives you a Merchant Account and Gateway in one. That way you don’t have to handle sensitive card data, and you can get started without setting up your own merchant account. Stripe lets you collect payments and push the money to your own account, without your needing to store credit card information.

You have to use SSL encryption on your site to collect the information (which means you need a private IP), but you don’t have to worry about storing credit cards and PCI compliance requirements.

Support:

24/7 support is available via email and in an open chat room that is sometimes staffed by their team, though mostly intended as a forum for Stripe users to chat with each other publicly. They do their best to respond within 48 hours, typically.

Pricing:

2.7% (in Australia) / 2.9% (in the US) +30c per successful charge, or less based on volume. There are no monthly fees, and no refund costs.

It’s a better alternative to PayPal – not only because you don’t have to redirect users to another site, but the pricing is simpler. PayPal has additional fees, like international payments and a fixed fee portion of the original transaction fee when you issue a refund.

Learn more about Stripe

Make sure your online reservation software integrates well your payment gateway.

This will ensure the entire booking experience is seamless for your customers.

According to Shannon O’Brien, who owns Australia’s largest full service kayak and ski centre, “with the combination of Rezdy [online booking software] and the good payment gateway, there’s complete peace of mind for any customer, so they’re more willing to click more times – and freely – instead of waiting til the morning and phoning the company for that reassurance.”

Take a free trial to see Rezdy in action:

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