Top 10 Best Payment Gateways in
Canada for 2025: The Ultimate Guide

A payment gateway acts as an intermediary between the customer’s bank and the merchant’s website to facilitate smooth and secure online transactions. When authorizing payments, it encrypts sensitive data, including credit card details, and communicates with the bank for further processing. Once the transaction is approved, the funds are transferred to the merchant account. These gateways support various payment modes, including cards, digital wallets, and net banking. 

A payment gateway and a payment processor, though they often work together, serve different purposes. A payment gateway captures and transmits payment data from customers to the payment processor, acting as an interface between the merchant’s website or app and the customer’s bank. On the other hand, a payment processor handles the actual transfer of funds from the customer’s bank to the merchant’s bank.

Implementation time varies greatly depending on the gateway and your technical resources. Simple implementations like PayPal can be done in hours, while custom Stripe or Adyen integrations can take weeks. Most e-commerce platform plugins can be set up in 1-3 days.

Yes, you can use multiple payment gateways in your solution. These practice ensures that customers have more flexibility in choosing their preferred option, thereby enhancing the user experience. It also improves reliability by giving customers a backup option when one gateway experiences downtime.

Settlement times vary by gateway. Square typically takes 1–2 business days, with instant deposits available for a fee. Stripe takes 2 business days, PayPal takes 2–3 business days to transfer funds to a bank account, Moneris takes 1–2 business days, and Helcim also takes 1–2 business days. These timeframes may vary depending on your bank and account history.

Most gateways allow you to process full or partial refunds through their dashboard or API. Refund time varies by gateway, but the customer gets funds within 5-10 business days. Transaction fees are not refunded to the merchant unless you’re a larger business and the gateway refunds a portion of the fees.

Common hidden fees include PCI compliance fees, account maintenance fees, statement fees, batch processing fees, early termination fees, chargeback fees, currency conversion fees and international transaction fees. Always ask for a complete fee schedule before signing up with a payment gateway, and review your monthly statements for unexpected charges.

Payment gateways have advanced technologies and protocols to secure transactions. They use SSL encryption to protect data during transmission. Through tokenization, sensitive card info is replaced with unique tokens to reduce data theft. Fraud detection tools, PCI DSS compliance, and multi-factor authentication are implemented to prevent fraud and secure access.

If fraud is detected after processing, the legitimate cardholder can file a chargeback through their bank. The merchant may be liable for the transaction amount plus a chargeback fee (usually $15-25). Advanced fraud prevention tools can reduce these incidents. Some gateways offer chargeback protection programs that can cover losses in certain cases.

Using a payment gateway can reduce your PCI compliance burden, but it doesn’t eliminate it. How much responsibility you have depends on how you set it up. If you go for a complete redirect solution where customers leave your site to make their payment, the PCI requirements are minimal. If you’re using embedded forms, you’ll usually need to fill out self-assessment questionnaires. And if you’re doing a custom setup where you’re handling card data directly, you’ll need to follow the strictest compliance measures.