1. Why Choosing the Right Payment Provider Matters
Choosing the right provider matters. In our experience we have seen competition businesses fail simply because of their payment provider. Having a provider that is easy to setup, has minimal fees and prevents fraud payments is essential to your business’s success. If you’re still planning your full set up, this guide can help you ensure you understand payment providers in-depth. The key thing with using a payment provider to support your competition business is, not all payment providers will accept your business. Competition businesses are classed as high-risk, so companies like Stripe and PayPal will instantly deny your application.
2. What Does a Payment Provider Actually Do?
Collects Payments from Customers
The biggest feature of a payment gateway is collecting payments from customers. Card details are processed to take money from the user’s account and create an order on the website, often through an e-commerce system like WooCommerce.
Support with Mastercard and Visa Licences
You will require a Mastercard and Visa licence to process debit/credit card transactions on your website. A good payment provider will apply for this on behalf of your business. This work should not include an excess charge by the payment provider. However the licences themselves cost $1.4k, so it is a necessary cost that you need to factor in.
Fraud Protection
To comply with the law and to prevent giving away tickets you have to use fraud checks. Your payment provider must check each transaction is not fraud, which is a common reason for a payment being declined. It does this via blacklists of known fraudulent cards, suspicious order activity, like 5 purchases in 1 hour and using one-time codes to verify the card owner is the person who placed the order.
3. Essential Features to Look For
Top Class Customer support
Setting up a payment provider implementation is complex, at points you will need help from customer support, whether you’re the developer setting up the website or the merchant selling the tickets. Having a payment provider that supports on weekends is very beneficial in case of issues with implementation or something breaking in your setup. If you’re running a competition with a nearing end date, you will find quick responses to tickets from your payment provider essential to avoid missing out on lost ticket sales, in case something goes wrong.
Seamless Integration with WooCommerce
Unless you are building an e-commerce system from scratch for your competition website, you are going to need a payment provider whose software can implement with WooCommerce. The software should manage payments and WooCommerce would handle the order creation process.
Affordable Platform Fees
Obviously a big point of trying to make a profit from a competition business is reducing the fees on each transaction. Usually you will have a monthly fee to the payment platform and a fee on each transaction. This depends on the platform, but from what we have experienced with payment platforms, it’s most likely something along the lines of 10p + 2% per transaction. There’s no getting away from these fees, but try not to get anything more expensive than this, or you will risk it eating away at your ticket sales profit.
Detailed Transaction Reporting
For failed transactions you need a method of diagnosing what the issue is. Whether it is an issue with the customer’s bank account or your payment gateway integration. WooCommerce will tell you whether the transaction went through, but that’s about it. If you need to view error messages or see why transactions actually declined, your payment provider needs to display that information. Also, having a portal to view your transactions is good for keeping a log of your sales for your accountancy books.
4. Comparison Table: Payment Providers at a Glance
Take a look at our comparison table of the top payment providers in the industry. Ensure you research them fully before contacting them, but its a good starting point to select one from this list.
| Provider | High-Risk Support | Fraud Prevention Features | Integration Options | Notable Benefits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trust Payments | ✅ Yes | Advanced machine learning, predictive analytics, customer profiling, and sector-specific tools | APIs, mobile SDKs, shopping cart plugins (e.g., BigCommerce, Magento) | Quick onboarding (as little as 3 days), 24/7 support, multi-currency support |
| Nomupay | ✅ Yes | Comprehensive fraud assessments, including identity checks against UK electoral roll and BT databases | WordPress, Shopify, and other major platforms | Over 198 payment methods, strong partnerships with acquiring banks |
| Fibonatix | ✅ Yes | Customizable fraud prevention solutions tailored to high-risk industries | Various e-commerce platforms and custom integrations | Settlement support in multiple currencies, expertise in gaming and gambling sectors |
| QuadraPay | ✅ Yes | Multi-layered fraud detection systems | Integration with various e-commerce platforms | Multi-currency support, recurring billing options |
| ePaymentSolutions | ✅ Yes | Chargeback protection and fraud prevention services | Tailored solutions for UK businesses | Over 20 years of experience, tools for managing risk levels and compliance |
| WebPays | ✅ Yes | Advanced fraud detection mechanisms | International payment gateways and credit card processing | Support for various high-risk sectors, including gaming and gambling |
| FastoPayments | ✅ Yes | Multiple banking relationships to ensure secure funds | High-risk payment gateway solutions | Built specifically for regulated industries, including gaming and gambling |
| Midly | ✅ Yes | Extensive global acquiring network for fraud prevention | Supports various payment methods, including cryptocurrencies | Specializes in finding high-risk merchant accounts for online businesses |
| Ikajo International | ✅ Yes | Proprietary fraud prevention software | Multiple payment methods across 130+ countries | Operating since 2003, extensive experience in high-risk industries |
6. Common Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Provider
Not Researching the Payment Provider
You need to be 100% sure of the payment provider’s features, fees and support available before you sign up with them. Don’t just sign up because they accept high-risk businesses, like competition businesses. You need to be sure they match the requirements stated in this post.
Avoiding a Thorough Testing Strategy
Testing your implementation is essential to ensuring your checkout system works as intended. Without proper testing, your checkout may not accept payments when it should, or not show descriptive error messages when it should. Often this is due to simple mistakes when setting up and can be corrected by customer support reasonably easily. But, this can impact the first competition after launch if you have issues, which is arguably the most important competition of the entire business.
Choosing an Inexperienced Payment Provider
High-risk businesses are a vague category. You may find payment providers who have a vast experience of dealing with businesses such as gambling etc, but not skill based competitions. It’s always better to speak to somebody with specific past experience, so they can ensure that their system can support the requirements for your business. If you’re new to the competition business industry, you may not know what you need. Having a company/person who has worked with competitions in the past is important.
7. Final Thoughts: Picking the Right Provider for Your Competition Website
In conclusion, you need to pick a reputable, supportive payment provider that is well versed in successful competition businesses. We have over 5 years’ experience with helping competition websites. We know the damage a bad payment provider can cause for the business. Learn more about how we can support your competition business.
