Running a successful customer-facing business means delivering projects your clients love - and getting paid for them. Sometimes though, that’s easier said than done. You’ve probably encountered your fair share of situations where receiving payments from clients becomes a huge headache rather than a seamless process.

Getting paid for the work you do should be the easy part, so we compiled a list of our three favorite payment platforms (that let you get paid faster) so that you can avoid future headaches:

1. Authorize.Net

Authorize.Net is a great option for small-to-medium-sized businesses with its free mobile app, verified merchant seal (to build customer confidence), and fraud tools. If you’re running a small business without a smart technology platform to automate your everyday tasks, you probably feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day *sigh*. Authorize.Net understands this, so they offer free 24/7 support so help fix any issues you encounter quickly to keep your business running smoothly.

With them, you can accept payments online and on mobile. Here’s a quick rundown: 

• Payment processing: with all major credit cards, signature debit cards, digital payment solutions like Apple Pay and PayPal, and they accept international transactions from customers worldwide.

• Online account access: aside from being able to manage and review transactions and download reports, you can also sync your account with QuickBooks and have your transactions automatically imported.

• Fraud prevention and payment security.

If you’re interested in how Authorize.Net integrates with Accelo, click here.

2. Stripe

Stripe is an awesome choice if you’re a developer or work in the mobile commerce, on-demand economy, SaaS, or platform payments industry. Whether you’re building a marketplace, mobile app, online storefront, or subscription service, Stripe’s got your back. It has a powerful toolkit that works with any type of business and its robust support is perfect for companies of all sizes (giving you the room you need to grow).

It’s a got:

• A beautiful, optimized, cross-device payment form, with support for single click payments

• Payments for platforms

• Seamless security

• Built for developers with simple, composable, and orthogonal APIs: Curl, Ruby, Python, PHP, Java, Node, and Go

• Powerful toolkit: Whether you need to store cards or power a marketplace, Stripe’s got you covered. Or, if you just want to accept payments quickly and easily, they can do that too :-).

• Scalable: with over 100 currencies, they automatically handle conversions so that you can instantly charge customers in their local currencies.

• Beautiful customizable payment flow that works great across desktop and mobile (with seamlessly integrated mobile payments - you can even add Apple Pay, Amex Express Checkout, or Android Pay to your checkout flow with just a few lines of code).

• Rich third party ecosystem making everything from email automation to hassle-free hosting a breeze (i.e. you could automate your entire business with Accelo and use Stripe to get paid for the work you do). It also integrates with leading accounting software.

If you want to see how Stripe works with Accelo, click here.

3. PayPal

PayPal is a worldwide known brand so you’re guaranteed to have your customers confidence if you choose to go with them. With PayPal you can accept credit cards or let customers pay directly through their PayPal online account for even quicker transactions.

Some of the other benefits of a PayPal business account include:

• Adding PayPal as an option to your existing checkout.

• Sending online invoices where customers can pay in just a few clicks.

• Getting paid on the go (for those busy consultants) with mobile.

• Plus, because PayPal is so widely used and trusted, you can potentially sell more by having it as an option. As reported in Nielsen’s Online Buyer Insights, PayPal users can get up to 5.3% more of incremental new buyers. They also get up to 2.7% more of incremental spend from new buyers *ka-ching!*

Getting set up with PayPal is super easy too. You can create an account in a few minutes with your email address, business address and a few other pieces of information. Then all you have to do is activate the payment features you want using a partner, developer, or you can even do it yourself. Once you start collecting payments, you can transfer them to your bank account in as little as one business day.

If you’re curious about how PayPal integrates with Accelo, click here.

When it comes to delivering work your clients love, getting paid should be the easy part. Take some time to investigate the different tools out there that can simplify your billing and payments so that you can focus on doing the work you love.