Is Amazon Pay the best option for a business? Here’s what you need to know

When you sell online, you want to offer your customers the maximum convenience and flexibility so they come back repeatedly, right?

This is especially true when it comes to payments.

The percentage of online shopping carts that are abandoned before checkout is around 70%. Think about that for a moment—only 3 in 10 online orders are actually processed. 

That means a whole lot of online sellers aren't getting paid.

According to Stripe, the reasons for this “basket abandonment” include a complicated checkout process and a lack of payment options.

So, giving your customers easy ways to pay can help make sure their orders go through and that the money hits your bank account.

But which payment solutions are right for your business?

In this guide, we tell you all you need to know about using Amazon Pay for business. We look at how it works and take you through a step-by-step tutorial.

We also introduce you to some alternative payment solutions - including Whop Payments, which offers flexibility and a seamless buying experience your customers will want to repeat.

Amazon Pay: At a glance

To save you time, here's our summary of Amazon Pay.

Amazon Pay has the benefit of high levels of brand trust and recognition, which sellers can harness, even if they don’t sell directly on Amazon. 

Once sellers are approved, integrating Amazon Pay is straightforward and it is compatible with many of the most popular ecommerce platforms, as well as with Stripe.

The company itself also trumpets the increased conversion rates when a merchant offers Amazon Pay as a payment option.

However, there are several drawbacks… 

Topping the list is that only customers who have an Amazon account can use Amazon Pay. Issues that this can lead to include failed transactions if a customer doesn’t update their Amazon account details (such as if a credit card expires).

Plus, sellers who want to offer Amazon Pay as an option also have to go through the hassle of applying to become an approved merchant. This involves navigating the pitfalls of the wide-ranging “acceptable use policy”.

We also have to emphasize the payment times. Sellers who aren’t eligible for Express Payout may have to wait up to 5 days to receive customer payments.

While Amazon Pay can be used for a range of transactions, many of the features suggest it’s really best for physical products.

So, overall, Amazon Pay is a convenient way for sellers to add another payment option for their customers to discourage costly basket abandonment.

However, sellers—especially those who focus on digital products—will need to look beyond Amazon Pay if they want a comprehensive payment solution. They cannot use Amazon Pay alone.

Pros and cons of Amazon Pay

Want to dive deeper into Amazon Pay? Keep reading.

What is Amazon Pay?

Amazon Pay is a payment processing solution that can be embedded into a third-party ecommerce site. This allows customers to pay for items using the details stored in their Amazon account.

For example, if you have a Shopify store, you can add an Amazon Pay button to your product pages. A customer sees this option and can choose to complete their purchase in one click.

The payment method they have on file with Amazon will be charged and the money transferred to the seller (minus any fees). 

Amazon Pay can be used for:

✅ Physical products
✅ Recurring monthly subscriptions
✅ Digital products
✅ One-time payments
✅ Charitable donations
✅ Pre-orders
✅ Cross-border payments (in one of the 12 accepted currencies)
✅ Paying utility bills (only with participating service providers)
✅ Buying goods in selected physical stores (via a QR code)

Another way to use Amazon Pay is to embed it directly in a website checkout page via an integration with Stripe.

We’ll go into more depth about the Amazon Pay partners, as well as the accepted product types and currencies a little later. First, let’s take a closer look at how businesses use Amazon Pay.

How does Amazon Pay work for businesses?

Businesses located in one of the eligible countries can apply to register for Amazon Pay.

Even previously approved Amazon sellers have to register their businesses separately to use Amazon Pay. This is because of the restrictions on certain products - known as the “acceptable use policy” (more on this below). 

At the time of writing, the eligible countries are:

• U.S.
• U.K.
• Austria
• Belgium 
• Cyprus 
• Denmark 
• France 
• Germany
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy 
• Luxembourg 
• Netherlands 
• Portugal
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Japan

Once sellers have been approved for an Amazon Pay merchant account, they can embed the Amazon Pay button on their product pages and checkout or enable the option in their Stripe account.

As well as websites, Amazon Pay works on mobile.

Unlike Amazon Pay, sellers from anywhere are welcome to apply for Whop Payments, it's why we're loved worldwide...

How do customers enable Amazon Pay?

To use Amazon Pay, customers must have an account set up with Amazon. As we said earlier, the details stored in the customer’s account will be used for payment, so they don’t have to fill in their credit card info every time.

Amazon Pay is free for customers to use. We’ll look at sellers’ fees in a later section.

Unlike sellers, customers don’t have to register or sign up separately for Amazon Pay. As long as they have an active Amazon account with at least one approved payment card associated with that account, they can hit the “Amazon Pay” button wherever it’s displayed.

Another thing to know is that customers located anywhere in the world can use Amazon Pay - the list of countries we referenced above only applies to where the business is established.

The payment methods customers can use are restricted to debit and credit cards, and they can't use their Amazon gift card balance. 

For security, customers’ full payment card details aren't shared with the seller. They are only shared with the payment processor (such as Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, etc.).

The Amazon Pay website includes a list of all the websites and organizations that offer it as a payment option. These cover a range of sites across different product categories.

How popular is Amazon Pay among customers? 

Well, in the U.S. alone, Statista data from 2022 found that a sizable 21% of shoppers who made digital payments used Amazon Pay. This sounds high, but 78% of those asked had heard of Amazon Pay, meaning a whole lot of people had heard of it but didn’t use it to make digital payments.

What is Amazon Pay’s acceptable use policy?

Before we move on to the features of Amazon Pay, let’s take a quick look at the acceptable use policy.

The policy includes a pretty lengthy list of prohibited items, which covers the usual suspects, namely: 

☠️ Sexually explicit material and adult entertainment
☠️ Drugs and drug paraphernalia
☠️ Firearms, ammunition, explosives, and weapons
☠️ Anything illegal or offensive (in Amazon’s judgment)
☠️ Smoking and tobacco products
☠️ Regulated and restricted products (i.e. unlawfully sold alcohol)

However, a few other things on the list are:

❌ Crowdfunding sites
❌ All gambling-related activity and businesses
❌ So-called “miracle cure” products (ones that make unsupported health claims)
❌ Products from (or made in) restricted countries and regions
❌ Certain investment services
❌ Products containing marijuana/cannabidiol (CBD) (even if legal where sold)

The point is that there is quite a wide net of prohibited items which would prevent a seller from enabling Amazon Pay for their customers - even if the goods are being sold legally.

As part of the registration process for an Amazon Pay account, Amazon will look at the seller’s website to ensure it adheres to the accepted use policy.

To be clear, this list relates to what’s sold on external sites, not on Amazon. If you want to sell directly on Amazon, there is a separate list of prohibited items.

Amazon Pay's top features

Now you know how Amazon Pay works, let’s take a closer look at the various features. We start with one of the most important, namely the integrations.

Integrations

Amazon Pay has developed partnerships with a number of ecommerce platforms. The main ones are:

✅ Shopify
✅ WooCommerce
✅ PrestaShop
✅ BigCommerce
✅ Adobe Commerce

Eligible sellers who have built stores on these platforms can integrate Amazon Pay.

Another key integration is Stripe, one of the leading names in the world of online payment services. This opens up Amazon Pay to a range of other sellers, such as online marketplaces and WordPress websites.

Buy with Prime 

Certain online sellers who use Amazon Pay can take advantage of Amazon Prime through a Buy with Prime account. This lets customers who are Prime members enjoy the benefits, such as fast, free delivery on a third-party website.

To offer Buy with Prime, sellers don’t have to sell items directly on Amazon. However, they must open a Multi-Channel Fulfillment account with Amazon and keep goods at Amazon fulfillment centers.

This is to make sure orders are fulfilled on the same terms as all Prime orders. Subscriptions and recurring payments aren’t currently supported on Buy with Prime.

Amazon Pay with Affirm 

Amazon Pay has partnered with buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider Affirm to give sellers the ability to offer their customers the option to pay in installments.

This has limited availability, including that it can only be used for one-time payments to buy physical goods. Sellers also need to have the latest version of the Amazon Pay checkout installed on their site (currently Amazon Pay Checkout V2).

Did you know you can offer BNPL with Whop? It's just another reason thousands of creators trust us.

Other features of Amazon Pay

Sellers who sign up to use Amazon Pay can tap into a range of other features, such as:

• Alternative payment methods: This lets customers shop with their Amazon and Prime Visa and store cards at online retailers that use Amazon Pay.
• Express Payout: U.S. retailers who use Amazon Pay and one of the partner banks can opt into this service to receive their payments from shoppers quickly.
• Pay Invoices with Amazon: This is a WordPress plugin that lets businesses offer Amazon Pay as a payment option to settle invoices.
• Fraud protection: Amazon Pay incorporates fraud protection technology to identify suspicious behavior and high-risk transactions.
• Payment Protection Policy: Under certain conditions, Amazon Pay will protect merchants from charge disputes (or “chargebacks”).

A step-by-step guide to using Amazon Pay

So, let’s take you through the process of signing up for Amazon Pay. 

1. Apply for an Amazon Pay merchant account

This involves filling out a form, which Amazon will review before approving the application. Details to provide include the location of the business to make sure it’s in one of the eligible countries.

2. Provide the required documentation 

To use Amazon Pay, U.S. merchants must submit documents confirming their business location and identity, including one or more of the following

• U.S.-based phone number 
• credit card issued by a U.S.-based bank
• checking account with a U.S.-based bank 
• business taxpayer ID
• employer identification number
• personal social security number

3. Activate or integrate Amazon Pay

Once approved, you can start adding Amazon Pay to your ecommerce site. The integration process differs slightly depending on the type of payment (one-off, recurring, etc.) and the platform.

The Amazon Pay button can be added to checkout pages and product pages, with customization options available, such as adding the customer’s name.

For Shopify and Stripe users, getting started is as simple as activating Amazon Pay.

4. Keep track of Amazon Pay payments & disbursements

Merchants who use Amazon Pay get access to a Seller Central dashboard, where they keep track of payments, refunds, and other account details.

One important thing to do is set up your account to receive the money from your customer’s orders. This requires setting up an ACH-enabled checking account and submitting details of a valid credit card number.

👉 Good to know: ACH stands for Automated Clearing House. It’s a U.S. network that allows bank-to-bank transfers. Most (but not all) of the country’s banks are ACH-enabled, plus some payment processors, such as PayPal and Stripe. (Payments made via Whop Payments are processed through Stripe so you’ve got no worries about not getting paid.)

You’ll also need to set your “Capture” preferences. This determines when the payment is collected from the buyer. You’ll typically want to capture the full order amount at checkout. However, there will be exceptions.

The Capture process holds the money in your Amazon Pay account. You can then request a payout (disbursement) from Amazon. Payment times range from 1 to 5 days.

Sound like a hassle? Get your money asap with Whop Payment’s flexible payment schedule instead.

How much does Amazon Pay cost businesses?

The fees to use Amazon Pay are charged on a per-transaction basis. They include:

• $0.30 authorization fee
• 2.9% domestic processing fee

So, on a $10 sale where a U.S.-based customer has opted to use Amazon Pay, the seller will be charged a total of $0.59 ($0.30 authorization fee + $0.29 domestic processing fee).

If the customer is based outside the U.S., a cross-border processing fee of 3.9% will apply. 

So, in that same $10 transaction, for a non-U.S. customer, Amazon Pay will charge $0.69 ($0.30 authorization fee + $0.39 cross-border processing fee).

If the customer returns the item to the seller for a refund, Amazon Pay keeps the $0.30 authorization fee.

The fees are country-specific. So, if your business is located outside of the U.S., there will be variations in the processing fee. A look at the list shows that the fees range from 1.9% to 3.4%. There is also a range of applicable cross-border fees, depending on where the buyer and seller are located.

Alternatives to Amazon Pay for businesses

So, if you want to make it as easy as possible for your customers to buy your digital products, what other options are there? Here are just a few Amazon Pay alternatives:

🏆 Whop Payments

As you’ve seen throughout this guide, Whop Payments has lots of benefits, including:

✅ Complete flexibility
✅ No Stripe account needed
✅ Secure
✅ Flexible payout schedules
✅ Competitive fees
✅ Get paid in fiat or crypto
✅ Great for all digital products (including subscriptions and recurring payments)

Even better, when you use Whop Payments in your whop, it becomes the Merchant of Record for your business. That means not only does it handle all payment processes but assumes liability for the transactions. 

Day-to-day, it simply means you get to focus on driving your business forward with the peace of mind that the payment side is covered.

PayPal

One of the most recognizable names in payments, PayPal has become a popular choice for businesses and customers.

PayPal offers credit card processing, as well as the option to pay with a variety of methods including BNPL, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. It integrates with a range of other platforms, including Woo, Wix, and Shopify.

Criticisms of PayPal include the high fees and account suspensions. It’s also been the victim of some security breaches.

Square Payments

Square Payments is another flexible payment solution, which allows customers to pay in person or online. It offers compatibility with a range of ecommerce platforms and websites, including GoDaddy, Woo, and Wix.

Again, Square Payments has faced criticism over account suspensions, as well as limited customization. Another issue flagged is customer support, which has been called out for being slow.

Whop: your all-in-one solution for online success

Payment processing is such an important part of running an online business, it’s important to get right and also keep it simple. That’s where Whop comes in…

Set up your store with Whop and unlock everything you need to sell digital products successfully. From custom storefronts to managing subscriptions, memberships, and courses, Whop makes running your online business seamless.

Plus, with Whop Payments, you’ll enjoy flexible payout schedules, secure transactions, and support for fiat or crypto—wherever you are in the world.