Canadian online store owners have more payment processor options than ever. Stripe, PayPal, Square, and Moneris all support Canadian merchants. Interac e-Transfer has become a viable option for certain business types. Choosing the right processor - or the right combination - depends on your transaction volume, average order value, customer expectations, and whether you also sell in person.
The Canadian Payment Landscape
Stripe has become the default choice for most new Canadian e-commerce stores, and for good reason. The onboarding is fast, the documentation is excellent, the WooCommerce integration (WooPayments or the official Stripe for WooCommerce plugin) is reliable, and the fees are transparent: 2.9% + $0.30 CAD per successful card charge. For Canadian cards specifically, Stripe supports Interac debit as a payment method. Stripe does not charge monthly fees, making it cost-effective for stores at any volume level.
PayPal remains important not because it is the best option on fees or integration, but because a meaningful segment of online shoppers - particularly older demographics - actively prefer to pay through PayPal for the perceived security of not sharing card details directly. PayPal's standard fees are similar to Stripe's (2.9% + $0.30). Offering PayPal alongside Stripe as a checkout option is worth doing if your customer base includes people who expect it.
Square works well for businesses that sell both in person and online - the same backend manages point-of-sale and online orders, inventory syncs across channels, and the same card reader hardware works everywhere. The online processing fee is 2.9% + $0.30, matching the other major processors. If you run a retail store with a WooCommerce site, Square's multichannel inventory management can simplify operations significantly.
Moneris is a Canadian company - a joint venture between RBC and BMO - and is the dominant processor for brick-and-mortar retail in Canada. Online, Moneris is a legitimate option, particularly for businesses that already use Moneris for in-person processing or that need a processor with a strong Canadian support presence and Canadian data residency. Moneris pricing for online processing involves monthly fees plus per-transaction rates; it becomes competitive at higher transaction volumes where the per-transaction rate becomes the dominant cost.
Interac e-Transfer for Canadian Businesses
Interac e-Transfer is widely used among Canadians for person-to-person payments, and businesses can accept it too - but the integration story is more manual than credit card processing.
For low-volume stores or service businesses, accepting e-Transfer is straightforward: the customer transfers funds before the order ships or service begins, you verify receipt, and you fulfill. No processing fees beyond standard banking costs, and funds arrive in your business bank account directly.
For automated Interac integration within WooCommerce, a few plugins and payment gateways offer this functionality. The implementation is more complex than Stripe, and the user experience requires the customer to complete a bank transfer outside the checkout flow - which adds friction. For high-average-order-value B2B transactions where the customer relationship is established, this friction is acceptable. For a consumer-facing store, it is likely to reduce conversion.
Adding Stripe to WooCommerce
The official Stripe for WooCommerce plugin is the most straightforward integration:
- Install and activate the Stripe for WooCommerce plugin from the WordPress plugin directory
- Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Payments and enable Stripe
- Click Manage and enter your Stripe publishable key and secret key (found in your Stripe dashboard under Developers > API keys)
- Enable the payment methods you want to offer: cards, Interac, Apple Pay, Google Pay
- Test using Stripe's test card numbers before going live
PCI Compliance Basics
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) is the security standard that any business handling credit card data must comply with. The good news: when you use a payment processor like Stripe or PayPal that hosts the card input fields on their secure servers (rather than your own), your compliance scope is dramatically reduced.
With a hosted payment page or embedded Stripe Elements form, you never actually touch raw card numbers - they go from the customer's browser directly to Stripe's servers. Your PCI compliance obligation in this model is mainly to complete an annual Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ A), confirm your site uses HTTPS, and keep your software updated.
What you must never do: store card numbers in your database, log card data in any form, or handle raw card details through your own server. Stay in the hosted payment model and your compliance burden remains manageable.
Keep your WordPress installation, WooCommerce, and payment plugins updated. Outdated plugins with known vulnerabilities are the most common source of payment data compromises on small business sites - not sophisticated attacks, but exploitation of known holes in unpatched software.
