Key Takeaways
- Transaction fees compound — even a 0.3% difference in processing rates on $500,000 in annual volume is $1,500 per year.
- Checkout conversion rates are affected by gateway choice — fewer redirects and more payment options (including Interac Online) reduce abandonment.
- PCI compliance is shared between your gateway, your platform, and your hosting — understanding the split is essential for any Ontario retailer storing cardholder data.
- Stripe and Braintree both offer Canadian support in 2016 with competitive rates; Moneris remains the preferred choice for volume retailers who want Canadian banking relationships.
Payment gateway selection is one of the decisions Ontario ecommerce merchants get wrong most frequently — either by defaulting to PayPal because it's familiar, choosing a gateway that's expensive for their transaction volume, or picking one that creates integration headaches with their ecommerce platform. The decision feels like a detail but its effects compound with every transaction your store processes. In 2016, Canadian merchants have more options than they did even three years ago. Stripe's Canadian launch has given Ontario retailers access to a developer-friendly, well-documented gateway that wasn't previously available here. Moneris has improved its API documentation and its fee structures for merchants willing to negotiate. PayPal's Braintree acquisition gives it a more developer-friendly offering alongside its consumer-facing checkout. This guide cuts through the options to help Ontario retailers make a decision based on their specific volume, platform, and customer base.
Definition: Payment Gateway
A payment gateway is the technology service that authorises credit card, debit card, and digital wallet transactions for online businesses. It encrypts sensitive card data, transmits it to the payment network (Visa, Mastercard, Interac), receives the authorisation response, and communicates the result back to your ecommerce platform — all within a few seconds. The gateway is responsible for security (PCI DSS compliance), fraud screening, and the technical interface between your store and the financial system.
Stripe: The Developer-Friendly Choice for Canadian Retailers
Stripe's Canadian availability since 2012, clean API, and no monthly fees make it the default recommendation for most new Ontario ecommerce stores.
Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per successful credit card charge, with no monthly fees, no setup fees, and no minimum volume requirements. For an Ontario retailer processing $10,000/month, that's approximately $320 in transaction fees — straightforward to model and predictable. There are no long-term contracts. Disputes (chargebacks) incur a $15 CAD fee, which is standard industry practice.
Stripe's primary advantage over traditional Canadian gateways is its developer experience. The Stripe API documentation is consistently cited as best-in-class, Stripe Elements (its pre-built payment form) is straightforward to embed in any checkout, and there are well-maintained official and community Magento extensions. For Ontario retailers working with a development team, Stripe integration typically takes hours rather than days.
Stripe's limitation for Canadian retail is the absence of Interac Online support. Interac Online allows Canadian shoppers to pay directly from their bank account through their online banking interface — a payment method that a segment of Canadian consumers strongly prefers, particularly for higher-value purchases. If your Ontario customer base includes a significant proportion of shoppers who prefer debit over credit, this gap matters. Stripe does support Visa Debit and Mastercard Debit cards processed as credit transactions, which covers most debit card cases — but not the Interac-specific flow.
Moneris: The Canadian Banking Relationship Option
Moneris is Canada's largest payment processor and offers interchange-plus pricing for volume retailers, Interac Online support, and Canadian customer service.
Moneris is a joint venture between RBC and BMO, and it's the most widely used payment processor among established Canadian retailers. Its pricing structure is more complex than Stripe's flat rate — Moneris's standard ecommerce gateway starts at approximately $24.95/month plus per-transaction fees (typically 2.85% + $0.15 for Moneris eSELECTplus). At lower volumes, this monthly fee makes Moneris more expensive than Stripe; at higher volumes ($40,000+/month), interchange-plus pricing arrangements become available that can produce effective rates well below Stripe's flat 2.9%.
Moneris's key advantages for Canadian retailers: it supports Interac Online (enabling bank account payment for Canadian shoppers), it has Canadian phone support during business hours (an advantage for non-technical merchants who want a local contact for payment issues), and it has deep integration history with Canadian enterprise platforms. For Ontario retailers in categories where Interac is common — grocery, pharmacy, everyday consumer goods — Interac Online support can meaningfully improve checkout completion rates.
The integration experience with Moneris has historically been more friction than Stripe — older API documentation, more configuration steps, and less active community extensions for Magento. This has improved in recent years, but for a development team implementing a new ecommerce store, Stripe remains faster to integrate cleanly.
PayPal and Braintree: When the Brand Matters to Your Customers
PayPal's consumer recognition adds legitimacy to checkout — but its redirect flow adds friction; Braintree (owned by PayPal since 2013) provides developer-grade integration.
PayPal remains the most recognised payment brand among Canadian consumers, and for certain ecommerce categories — marketplace-style businesses, digital goods, lower-trust categories — offering PayPal checkout increases conversion. Studies consistently show a portion of online shoppers specifically look for the PayPal option and abandon if it's absent. Adding PayPal as a secondary payment option (alongside your primary gateway) captures this segment without replacing your main payment flow.
Braintree, acquired by PayPal in 2013, is PayPal's developer-grade gateway — it supports full card processing within your own checkout (no redirect to PayPal's website), has a clean API comparable to Stripe's, and includes PayPal as a payment method option natively. Braintree's Canadian availability and pricing (also 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, no monthly fees) makes it a genuine Stripe alternative with the added advantage of PayPal wallet payments included.
The main reason to choose Stripe over Braintree is ecosystem maturity: Stripe has more community extensions for Magento, more Stack Overflow answers, and more development documentation than Braintree in the Canadian market specifically. Both are valid choices; Stripe has a slight practical edge for Magento-based Ontario stores in 2016.
- PayPal as secondary option: add alongside your primary gateway to capture PayPal-preferring shoppers
- Braintree: developer-grade, includes PayPal payments, competitive rates, no monthly fees
- PayPal Express Checkout: allows PayPal customers to check out without entering card details — highest-friction reduction for that segment
- PayPal Payments Standard: redirects to PayPal website for payment — adds friction, reduces conversion for non-PayPal-preferring shoppers
Experience Signal
We've integrated all four of the major Canadian-available gateways on client projects — Stripe, Moneris, PayPal/Braintree, and Beanstream. For new Magento builds, we default to recommending Stripe for clients under $30,000/month in volume, and have Moneris conversations with clients above that threshold where the interchange-plus math starts to favour them. The consistent recommendation for any client regardless of gateway choice: add PayPal Express Checkout as a secondary option. We've seen checkout completion rates improve 4–8% with that single addition, because there's always a segment of shoppers who trust PayPal more than an unfamiliar brand's card form.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — Stripe launched in Canada in 2012 and supports CAD transactions, Canadian bank accounts, and direct integration with Magento, WooCommerce, and other major platforms. Stripe's fee structure is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful card charge with no monthly fees, which is competitive for lower-volume stores. For high-volume Canadian retailers processing significant monthly volumes, Moneris's interchange-plus pricing may produce lower effective rates.
A payment gateway is the technology that securely transmits card data from your checkout page to the payment network — it's the digital equivalent of a point-of-sale terminal. A payment processor is the financial institution that actually moves money between the cardholder's bank and your merchant account. Some providers (Stripe, Square, PayPal) handle both functions under one product. Traditional arrangements (like Moneris through your bank) separate them — you have a gateway contract and a merchant account contract, sometimes with separate fees.
For most small-to-medium Ontario ecommerce stores launching in 2016, Stripe is the better starting point: no monthly fees, excellent API documentation, clean Magento integration, and competitive rates up to moderate volumes. Moneris becomes more cost-competitive for higher-volume stores where interchange-plus pricing produces lower effective rates, and it has advantages for businesses that want a Canadian banking relationship and local phone support. Moneris also supports Interac Online for shoppers who prefer debit — a meaningful advantage for Canadian consumer retail.
Sources
Building or Upgrading an Ontario eCommerce Store?
Webnixon develops Magento and Shopify ecommerce stores for Ontario retailers — including payment gateway integration, checkout optimisation, and ongoing technical support.
Talk to Us About Your eCommerce ProjectAbout the author
Marcus Lee
Senior Ecommerce Developer
Marcus leads ecommerce development at Webnixon, with deep expertise in Shopify Plus and Adobe Commerce (Magento). He has shipped 40+ scalable ecommerce builds for retailers and B2B manufacturers, leading complex technical integrations with payment gateways, ERP systems, and third-party fulfillment platforms. He writes about ecommerce architecture, platform selection, and the technical decisions that separate high-performing online stores from average ones.
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