I have been a PayPal user for almost five years, and I love it to the core. When I was starting out online, I had no idea how to receive money from people outside of my own country, and PayPal made it so easy to receive money from these foreign country transactions.
In my homeland (India) due to PayPal and RBI disputes, I can no longer use PayPal the same as other users from countries like the U.S.A, the U.K., and Australia.
So I started digging around to find some of the best alternative sites to PayPal.
There are many sites that are similar to PayPal with more or fewer features. I will list some of the best money transfer sites which I have found while searching for an alternative method for receiving payments. If you know of any others feel free to suggest via the comments.
For the quick read, here is the list of services that are mentioned below:
Note: This article was updated on January 2019 to feature new services.
Best Alternative sites to Paypal: 2019 Edition
I’m making this list exclusive for bloggers and freelancers, but if you are a small business, I would love to know what tool you are using to send or receive payment from overseas.
So, let’s start with our grand list of best PayPal alternatives:
1. Payoneer
Payoneer is one of the oldest services for global payment, and now they are available in countries like India, Pakistan, and many more. Payoneer will let you receive money from the U.S. & European countries. The best part about Payoneer is the transaction fees are lower and because of this, you will end up saving a lot of money.
Signing up for Payoneer is free, and once you have done a transaction of $1000 using Payoneer, you will get a bonus of $25.
Here are a few more tutorials & guides for using Payoneer:
- How to receive Commission Junction payment using Payoneer
- How to Configure Amazon Affiliate account to receive commission using Payoneer
2. Stripe
If you are looking for a PayPal alternative to accept payment on your online store, Stripe is the best option. It’s a USA based company & accepts the application from many countries in the world. If you are from a country which is not in operation list of Stripe, you can take advantage of Stripe Atlas program that let you incorporate a company in USA & also opens a bank account for you. I actually did all this to run ShoutMeLoud store & you can read about Stripe Atlas program here.
Stripe has integration with almost all the web stores, e-commerce store so you are more likely to find a plugin or a way to integrate Stripe with your web store or e-commerce site. You can use Stripe to accept one-time payment & even for accepting recurring payments.
Stipe accepts payment from all major debit/credit cards from 135+ countries, so you can truly go global with Stripe.
There is no setup fees or monthly fees. However, per transaction Stripe charges 2.9% + 30 cents. You can also accept payment in Bitcoins using Stripe payment processor.
3. TransferWise
Many of you might not know this popular money transfer website which was created by the people behind Skype & backed by Richard Branson. You might prefer TransferWise over PayPal because of their low transaction fees & currency conversion charges. That means you won’t lose money in currency conversion.
Watch the below video to understand how easy it is to send money using TransferWise:
TransferWise supports various countries & currencies.
When you signup for TransferWise using the link below, your first transaction (up to £500) is completely free.
Claim your first free transaction on TransferWise
4. 2Checkout
Many of my online partners have resorted to 2CO for all their online money needs. 2CO has a lot of positive reviews and is considered as a great alternative to Paypal. Here at the ShoutMeLoud download store, 2CheckOut is used to collect payment from all over the world.
The only downside of 2CheckOut is the high transaction & transfer fees. If you use 2CheckOut, I would suggest keeping your payment release level high so that you save on money transfer fees.
Getting on-board with 2CheckOut is easy & their support is pretty awesome.
Supported currencies for FOREX:
US Dollars, Argentina Peso, Australian Dollars, Brazilian Real, Canadian Dollars, Danish Kroner, Euro, GBP-Sterlings, Hong Kong Dollars, Indian Rupee, Japanese Yen, Mexican Peso, New Zealand Dollars, Norwegian Kroner, South African, Rand, Swedish Kroner, Swiss Francs
5. Instamojo
Instamojo is the PayPal equivalent for Indian users. You can quickly send payment to other Instamojo user using @username or email address. Similarly, you can receive payment by giving your username to others. You can also setup an online store if you like and sell stuff like digital products or services. I have been using Instamojo for almost 2 years and it’s getting better day by day.
6. Skrill
Skrill is a very popular alternative for PayPal & Payoneer because of their currency conversion rates (they are the best).
I have tried it myself a couple of times and MB transfers work great. They also offer a prepaid Mastercard that works in millions of shop worldwide. They also have an iPhone & Android app so you can make transactions from your mobile.
7. Remitly
Remitly is another popular service to send money to India & Philippines. They are running great promotional offers & one of them is no charge on transfers over $1000. When sending money via credit or debit card, the transfer will happen automatically at the flat rate of $3.99.
You also have an option to send payment without any fees, but it will take 3 days.
I believe that when you are not in hurry, free is good.
Bonus service:
These are the top alternatives for PayPal. Frankly, compiling this list was a bit of a pain because all of the above-mentioned services have something unique about them.
Other services which are popular to send & receive money internationally:
I personally enjoy using Payoneer the most due to their credibility & great service.
Which service do you prefer as PayPal alternative?
Also see:
- PayPal vs. Payoneer: Which one helped me earn an extra $1,700/year?
- How I Opened A Bank Account In The USA From India: Stripe Atlas Experience
- Easy Digital Downloads Review: Best Way To Create Digital Download Store in WordPress
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Anyone used stripe ?
Due to RBI rules PayPal and Payoneer force Indian user to auto withdraw money to their bank accounts. As much I Know we can’t hold money in Payza too, and their prepaid master cards are only available in the US. I don’t much about other payment gateways you mentioned here, can you please tell me if any of them allow us to hold money on their e-wallet (no forced transfer to banks until I want), and which of them allow us to use their prepaid cards in India?
Hi! Can you please tell if there ways to receive in India from India like there are ways in paypal. Paypal allows us security by telling only our email id to payers.
Payza seems to me like a company to be careful with as it doesn’t look like an ethical one. They held my funds after charging my credit card, asking me a bunch of questions and documents in the name of verifying my identity. That is something they could just easily have done prior to charging my card. And once I sent that info to them, they came back with more document requests and more questions. At which point when I asked them to cancel the transaction, they sidestep the request and parrot the same lines and ask new questions, more confidential info, and more documents. All the while you don’t have access to your funds, or provision to cancel the transaction, and their parroted emails won’t address the request. Later my credit card company showed it as a Chinese company registered as Women’s Accessory and Specialty Shop. Definitely something fishy and I’d not do business with again, or even hesitate to recommend it to someone.
Harsh,
If I am not mistaken, there is no wordpress integration of payza for business account, so how can I link my wordpress woocommerce site to sell my digital products??
Is there any alternative of payza for business account? I have just started my business and receiving money in dollars.
@Guneet
You should use 2Checkout. I’m using it & had no problem with them in last 1.6 year.
Thanks for the useful information that you have shared. I had already implemented paypal and payumoney and planning to add few more on my website.
Pls clarify this. I want to use payment system which will ‘instantly’ transfer money to my bank account.i am from India. I want to accept payments from only India.which is better To me? Either paypal or other?
Payoneer is the best. Eg. I transfer USD from Upwork to Payoneer Account at 9 AM IST and the money gets deposited in my Indian Bank account around 5 PM same day. Moreover, their conversion rates are far better than Paypal and Upwork local transfer.
I want to run a woocommerce store for US only. Which is the best option to recieve payment from US as paypal does not support transfer of money from US to India.
@Nitin
You can use Stripe using Their Atlas program
If you looking for the simpler option, then you can use 2checkout.
Hello Harsh, PayPal is good, but they no support my country.
Do you think getting a USA paypal account from Auction Essistance would be a good option for us?
No matter who says whatever.. There is no alternative for PayPal if you want to do professional business from India in US, payza is pathetic, none of my clients could send me payment via them. And stripe Atlas program is shitty too because they will turn down your application saying you pose high risk, what high risk, when some is in India they do not have a registered address in US and is probably enrolling into your program for that only.
Harsh bhai, please help.
I am a freelancer and I have a big client paying directly. I have been trying to use Payoneer because of their better exchange rate and low fee, but it’s pathetic. They hold back the payment for approval for a long time.. their support is the worst I have experienced. Payoneer is only good when you are being paid from upwork, fiverr, etc, but not when it is direct payment from clients.
Also, they are unable to give me proper answer to this question – can I receive payments in all currencies like USD, GBP, etc.. Once they said NO, I can receive only USD. When asked again, they say yes, I can receive any currency!!
1. Can you suggest any other alternative for commercial payment receiving in India? (can’t use services like Remitly,etc, because they are only for personal payments)
2. Can I receive payment in GBP through their Billing Service, if I am an Indian user?
Thanks
@Laksh
In this scenario, I would stick with PayPal or ask the client to pay in Bitcoin if possible. You can then use an Indian Bitcoin exchange like BitBNS to quickly convert those Bitcoins into INR. This actually helps you to save a lot. The only challenge is, your client should be comfortable paying in bitcoins.
Payoneer is great!
I’m not sure why it receives negative reviews but it works for me. Thanks to them I can receive my affiliate income online instead of through the mail.
Payza has been shutdown by the US Government recently