Accept.blue is a newer entrant in a market full of long-established names, and it competes on the things those names are typically weakest at: a modern API, clearer pricing, and payments that sit inside the software a business already uses rather than beside it.
This page covers what that means in practice for a WordPress site, who it suits, and every integration available.
What integrated payments actually means
The phrase is used loosely, so it is worth being concrete. In a non-integrated setup, a payment happens in one system and the record of it lives somewhere else, and someone reconciles the two. In an integrated one, taking the payment and recording it are the same action.
On WordPress that difference is the whole value of a gateway plugin. The customer pays on your checkout, the order updates itself, the refund you issue in WordPress reaches the processor, and nobody re-keys anything. Where businesses feel pain is usually not the payment failing but the two systems disagreeing afterwards.
Pricing, and why the model matters more than the rate
Card processing is quoted in two broad ways, and the difference outweighs most rate negotiations.
Flat rate charges the same percentage whatever card is presented. It is simple and predictable, and it is what most all-in-one providers offer. You overpay on cheap cards and underpay on expensive ones.
Interchange-plus passes through the card network cost and adds a stated margin. It is less tidy to read on a statement, but you can see what you are actually paying for, and businesses taking mostly standard debit cards usually pay less.
Which is better depends on your card mix and volume, not on which sounds cheaper. At low volume the simplicity of flat rate is often worth the premium. As volume grows, the margin between the two becomes real money and it is worth doing the arithmetic on an actual month of transactions rather than on a headline rate.
Every Accept.blue integration for WordPress
| If you use | Setup guide | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce | Accept.blue for WooCommerce | Online shops and subscriptions. |
| Gravity Forms | Accept.blue for Gravity Forms | Quotes, bookings and conditional pricing. |
| Ninja Forms | Accept.blue for Ninja Forms | Payment and signup forms. |
| Contact Form 7 | Accept.blue for Contact Form 7 | Lightweight forms on an existing site. |
| GiveWP | Accept.blue for GiveWP | Donations and recurring giving. |
| Easy Digital Downloads | Accept.blue for Easy Digital Downloads | Digital products and licence keys. |
Choosing between them
Choose by the plugin already handling your money rather than by preference. If orders live in WooCommerce today, integrating there keeps the record in the place your team already looks. Running payments through a second plugin creates monthly reconciliation work for no benefit.
The exception is a site that has outgrown a general form plugin. Taking payments through Contact Form 7 works, but you get no order records, no stock handling and no customer accounts. If selling is becoming central rather than incidental, move to a commerce plugin first and integrate there.
What to check before committing
- Supported card brands and currencies, against what your customers actually use.
- Settlement timing, in writing. This drives your cash flow more than the rate does.
- Refund handling, including whether refunds issued in WordPress reach the processor.
- Tokenization, if you intend to run subscriptions. Without stored tokens there is no repeat billing.
- Who supports what, so you know whether a given problem is a gateway issue or a merchant account one.
Security and PCI scope
A tokenizing gateway keeps card numbers off your server, which removes the largest part of your PCI scope: your database holds a reference, not a number, so a site compromise does not expose card details.
The rest stays yours. HTTPS site-wide, current WordPress and plugin versions, strong administrator passwords with two-factor authentication, and few admin accounts. Most WordPress breaches start with an outdated plugin or a reused password rather than with payments.
Frequently asked questions
Do customers leave our site to pay?
No. The payment step stays on your own checkout, which generally converts better than handing shoppers to an unfamiliar page mid-purchase.
Can we run subscriptions?
Tokenization makes repeat billing possible. Whether it is available depends on your commerce plugin and any subscription extension, so confirm both before advertising a subscription.
Can we keep a second gateway as backup?
Yes, and it is sensible. If one account is suspended or an outage occurs, sales continue.
Will this slow our checkout?
The gateway call adds a fraction of a second. If checkout feels slow, the cause is almost always page weight, hosting or plugin bloat rather than the payment request.
Moving from another provider
Switching one-off payments is simple: change the gateway and continue. Subscriptions are the difficult part, because stored payment credentials sit with your existing processor and generally cannot just be pointed elsewhere.
Plan for one of two routes. Some providers support a compliant transfer of stored credentials between processors, preserving existing schedules. Where that is unavailable, customers must re-authorize and you should expect to lose a share of them. Run both setups in parallel through the transition rather than switching in a single step, and do not let a launch date force the cutover.
Taking payments in person as well
Businesses that sell both online and face to face often end up with two unconnected payment systems and two sets of reporting. If that describes you, weigh whether a single provider covering both is worth more than a marginally better rate on either one individually. The reconciliation saving is usually larger than the rate difference, and it is a recurring saving rather than a one-off.
Questions worth asking any provider
- What is the effective rate on a real month of my transactions, not the headline rate?
- What is the settlement schedule, and is there a reserve?
- What happens to stored payment credentials if I leave?
- Who do I contact for a gateway problem versus an account problem?
- What are the contract term and the exit terms?
The last two matter most and get asked least. A provider that answers them plainly is telling you something useful about how the relationship will go.
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