Apple Pay and Google Pay on your website: worth adding?

Key takeaways

Apple Pay on a website, with Google Pay alongside it, lets a mobile shopper pay with a fingerprint or a glance instead of typing card and address details. For most UK shops and booking sites that take payment online, switching wallets on is one of the cheapest improvements available, and most payment providers include it at no extra charge.

• A wallet payment replaces card and address typing with one confirmation.
• Apple and Google do not charge merchants extra to accept their wallets.
• Most payment providers support both with a setting, not a rebuild.
• Wallets suit deposits, bookings and donations as well as shop orders.

What are digital wallets?

A digital wallet is a service on a phone, watch or computer that stores payment cards securely and lets the owner pay online or in person by confirming with a fingerprint, face or passcode. Apple Pay and Google Pay are the two most relevant for UK websites.

On a website, a wallet appears as a button at the basket or checkout. Tapping it opens a payment sheet showing the amount, the saved card and, if needed, the saved delivery address. The shopper confirms and the order is placed. No card number is typed, and the website never sees the full card details.

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Why do wallets matter on mobile?

Wallets matter on mobile because they remove the hardest part of the checkout. Typing sixteen card digits, an expiry date, a security code and an address on a phone is where many orders stall. A wallet turns that into a single confirmation, with details the shopper already saved.

They also help with trust and with bank checks. Shoppers recognise the payment sheet, and the biometric confirmation generally satisfies the bank's authentication requirement in the same step, so there is no detour to a banking app.

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What does it cost to accept wallet payments?

Usually nothing beyond your normal card fees. Apple and Google do not charge merchants an additional fee for wallet transactions. You pay your payment provider's standard card rate, as you would if the customer had typed the card number.

The set-up cost is small on common platforms. Shopify, WooCommerce with a mainstream payment plugin, Squarespace, Wix and most booking tools offer wallets as a setting. A custom-built checkout needs developer time to add the buttons through the payment provider's tools, typically a modest piece of work within an indicative £500 to £3,000 optimisation project.

What do you need to switch them on?

You need a payment provider that supports wallets, a secure site served over HTTPS, and a short verification step. For Apple Pay, the provider registers and verifies your domain with Apple, which most platforms handle for you. Google Pay needs the provider's integration and adherence to Google's brand guidelines for the button.

• Check your payment provider's settings for Apple Pay and Google Pay.
• Confirm your site uses HTTPS on every page.
• Complete domain verification for Apple Pay if prompted.
• Place the wallet buttons above the checkout form, and in the basket.
• Test on an iPhone with Safari and an Android phone with Chrome.
• Check the buttons also appear, or fail gracefully, in in-app browsers.

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Where should wallet buttons go?

Put wallet buttons where a ready buyer first looks: on the basket page and at the top of the checkout, above the manual form. For single-product purchases, deposits and bookings, a wallet button on the product or booking page lets the customer skip the basket entirely.

Only show a wallet to shoppers who can use it. Payment providers' tools detect whether the device has a wallet set up and hide the button otherwise, which avoids a dead button. Keep the standard card form available beneath for everyone else.

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When are wallets not worth adding?

Wallets are not worth adding if you do not take payment online. A lead generation site whose goal is a phone call gains nothing. They add little where orders are large and invoiced, as in most B2B sales, or where customers pay by bank transfer or on account.

There are trade-offs to know about. An express wallet payment can skip steps you rely on, such as choosing a delivery slot, adding a gift note or ticking a required consent, so the flow must be checked end to end. And refunds, disputes and reconciliation still run through your payment provider, exactly as for card payments.

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see on small shop and booking sites: the payment provider has supported wallets for years, and the setting has never been switched on. Mobile shoppers are typing card numbers into a form while the phone in their hand holds the same card, ready to pay with a glance.

Enabling the setting, verifying the domain and testing on two phones is typically an afternoon. Global Bridge Labs (GBL) checks wallet availability early in any e-commerce or booking review, because few changes offer as much for as little effort.

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Wallet payment checklist

• Confirm your provider supports Apple Pay and Google Pay.
• Switch both on and complete any domain verification.
• Place buttons in the basket and above the checkout form.
• Test a real payment on iPhone and Android.
• Check delivery options and consents are still captured.
• Process a refund to confirm it works as expected.
• Track wallet orders as a share of mobile orders.

Next step

Log in to your payment provider or shop platform and look for wallet settings. If they are off, you have found a quick improvement to your mobile checkout.