Cybersource vs Authorize.Net: Which Visa Gateway Fits Your Business

Cybersource's about page tells the story in three dates:

• 1994: Cybersource starts as an online payment and fraud management company.
• 2007: Cybersource buys Authorize.Net, which it calls "the leading U.S. small business payment services provider."
• 2010: Visa Inc. buys Cybersource, and Authorize.Net comes with it.

Today both sit in what Cybersource calls the "Visa Acceptance Solutions family of brands," with a shared support center. They are still separate products, with separate accounts, logins, contracts and pricing.

The two are moving closer. As of September 2026, Authorize.Net says it is "now powered by the Visa Acceptance Platform," and has named Canada as one of the first pilot markets. It also says this is "not a forced migration" and that "no formal public timeline has been announced." For existing Authorize.Net merchants, nothing has to change today.

For what Cybersource includes and how it fits with a merchant account, see our overview of Cybersource merchant services.

What each company's own pages said on September 27, 2026. Authorize.Net prices are its direct prices; a provider may price the gateway differently.

On price, the difference is how you find out. Authorize.Net lists every fee on its site. Cybersource builds a quote around the services you turn on. Our guide to Cybersource pricing and fees explains what goes into that quote and what to ask. For the full Authorize.Net fee list, see Authorize.Net pricing.

On checkout, Cybersource set September 30, 2026 as its target date for merchants to finish moving off its older Secure Acceptance pages, and recommends Unified Checkout instead. If your site still uses Secure Acceptance, ask your developer or platform about the move.

On fraud, both tools let you set rules, but Decision Manager is built for teams that review orders every day. For how the Authorize.Net filters work, see our guide to the Authorize.Net Fraud Detection Suite.

For most small and mid-size businesses, the Authorize.Net payment gateway is the simpler choice. It fits when:

• You sell in the U.S. or Canada and one merchant account covers you.
• You want to see the price first. Every gateway fee is on Authorize.Net's pricing page, with no contract on direct plans.
• You use a standard cart or invoicing tool. Authorize.Net connects to the common ones, such as WooCommerce and BigCommerce.
• You bill customers on a schedule. Recurring billing and saved cards are included at $0 a month on direct pricing. See Authorize.Net recurring billing.
• Your team is small. Thirteen rule-based fraud filters are easier to manage than an enterprise fraud platform.

Selling in Canada? See Authorize.Net in Canada.

The Cybersource payment gateway earns its extra complexity when:

• You sell in many countries. You need local acquirers, many currencies or local payment methods such as iDEAL or Bancontact.
• Fraud is a daily job. You have analysts reviewing orders, or you want to hand that work to Cybersource's Managed Risk Services.
• You run an enterprise commerce platform and your developers work with REST APIs and tokenization.
• You sell in person and online and want one token vault behind both, with devices managed from the same dashboard.
• You want more card brands in Account Updater. Cybersource's covers American Express as well as Visa and Mastercard.

If none of that describes you, Cybersource's own small-business page points you back to Authorize.net.

For most businesses in the U.S. and Canada, the practical Cybersource alternative is Authorize.Net, with a merchant account in your own business's name behind it. The harder case is a marketplace or platform that takes payments for other sellers and pays them out. That needs tools for signing sellers up, verifying who they are and splitting payments, which is a different job from either gateway's.

Payment facilitator model. The platform registers as a payment facilitator and signs sellers up as sub-merchants under its own merchant account. It gives the platform the most control, but the platform takes on the underwriting, risk and compliance work itself.

Payment apps such as Stripe are aggregators, not a platform setup you control: every seller sits under the app's own master account, which is why these apps can hold funds or close accounts after a later automated review. See what happens when Stripe or Square shuts an account down.

Whatever setup you look at, ask who carries the risk of your sellers, which countries are covered, how payouts work and what happens to stored cards if you leave. If you sell your own goods or services, a merchant account approved up front, with Authorize.Net or Cybersource as the gateway, keeps the account in your name. Tell us how you sell and we'll tell you how a merchant account through START fits.

Cybersource vs Stripe

These are different kinds of product. Stripe signs you up under its own account and publishes a flat U.S. online rate (2.9% + 30¢ as of September 2026). Cybersource is only the gateway: your merchant account comes from an acquirer that reviews your business before you start, and the gateway price is quoted. So the real comparison is between an account under a payment app's umbrella and a merchant account in your own name. For the Authorize.Net side of that question, see Authorize.Net vs Stripe, PayPal and Square.

Selling something the payment apps restrict? See how a high risk payment gateway works. The gateway doesn't approve you; the bank behind your merchant account does.

Visa owns both, but they're separate accounts. Moving from one to the other is a gateway switch like any other.

1. Open the new gateway account. Authorize.Net sells direct and through resellers. Cybersource sells through its sales team and partners.
2. Ask about saved cards first. Stored cards, tokens and customer profiles don't move on their own. Both card vaults belong to Visa companies, but don't assume that means a migration path exists. Ask both gateways, in writing, whether they can move your stored cards and what format they need.
3. Rebuild subscriptions. Recurring schedules don't come across. Recreate each one with its amount and next billing date, then cancel the old one so no one is charged twice.
4. Run both during the move. Keep the old gateway open until the new one has taken a live sale and a refund, and until refunds on old orders are done.
5. Check your merchant account. It may be able to stay the same if the new gateway supports your processor. Ask your merchant account provider before you start.

That last step is where START comes in. We provide the merchant account, not the gateway. Tell us which gateway you use now and which you're moving to, and we'll tell you how a merchant account through START fits behind it. START has worked with Authorize.Net for more than 20 years and set up over 60,000 Authorize.Net accounts, and START merchant accounts are priced interchange-plus: the card network's cost plus a fixed markup.