Payments
Two things that sound alike and are not.
A provider is who processes the money: Stripe, PayPal, Polar and the rest. It is an account you hold somewhere else, connected to the store with a key.
A method is what a shopper picks at checkout. One provider can offer several, and a store can offer a method no provider handles at all, like paying on collection or by bank transfer.
- Payment providers covers the providers KahunaCart ships with, what each needs, and how to connect one.
- Payment methods covers what the shopper sees, how methods are ordered and hidden, and the ones that take no payment at the time.
Start with providers. A method with nothing behind it cannot take money.
Which provider to start with
If you have no account anywhere yet, Stripe or Polar is the shortest road: both are in the box, both take cards worldwide, and both are connected by pasting one key. Polar acts as merchant of record, so it works out and remits sales tax and VAT for you; Stripe leaves tax to you unless you turn on its own tax handling. PayPal is worth adding beside either one for shoppers who prefer it. A store that already sells through Mollie, Square, Paddle or another provider can keep that account and add the matching add-on, so the money keeps landing where it always has.
Whatever you pick, the offline methods (bank transfer, pay on collection) cost nothing and take a minute to switch on, and the test provider lets you place orders end to end before a single real key is entered.