A payment processor links a business to its customers, and working with the right one is key. The average cart abandonment rate sits at over 70%, and any issues with payment processing are likely to affect your conversions. If you start suspecting your processor is holding you back, it might be time to seek other options. A carefully executed switch can reduce costs, improve authorization rates, and create a more resilient foundation for payments.

Below, we’ll discuss how to switch payment processors, why businesses decide to switch providers, and how to avoid downtime or failed payments during the transition.

What’s in this article?

• How can a business switch payment processors without disruption?
  
• Why do businesses decide to switch payment processors?
  
• What data, contracts, and dependencies should teams assess before switching processors?
  
• What technical changes are required to integrate and test a new payment processor?
  
• What considerations come up during payment processor transitions?
  
• How can organizations validate success after switching payment processors?
  
• How Stripe Payments can help
  

How can a business switch payment processors without disruption?

Switching payment processors works best when broken up into stages. Completing all of the steps at once sets the stakes too high for failure.

Here are some of the stages to keep in mind:

• Set goals: Start by defining the scope, timeline, and success criteria for the switch.

• Time out your migration: Schedule the cutover for a low-volume period. Avoid peak sales windows, major launches, and billing cycles whenever possible.

• Coordinate your departments: Assign process owners across engineering, finance, operations, and support. Everyone should know what’s changing and when, and how issues will be escalated during the transition window.

• Start in a sandbox: Integrate the new processor in a test environment first. Validate core flows (e.g., authorizations, refunds, webhooks, and edge cases) before letting live traffic through.

• Run the systems in parallel: Keep the existing processor online until the new one has proven itself. Parallel processing creates a safety net that can prevent outages and revenue loss.

• Prepare customer-facing teams: Communicate to support, sales, and operations teams about what’s changing and what customers might notice. Clear internal guidance can help prevent confusion and speed up issue resolution.

• Ramp up slowly: Start by routing a small percentage of transactions to the new processor. Increase volume only after approval rates, error levels, and settlement behavior meet expectations.

• Finalize the switch: Once the new processor consistently performs as expected, shift all new transactions over.

• Maintain a rollback option: Remove access to the old system to avoid accidental double-processing, but keep it available for refunds, chargebacks, and reconciliation of historical transactions. Only terminate it fully after all loose ends have been resolved.

Why do businesses decide to switch payment processors?

Some businesses switch payment processors when costs go up—whether through fee increases or pricing model changes that end up being unfavorable.

Sometimes, businesses switch because the processor becomes unreliable. This can show up in the form of failed transactions or unanswered support tickets.

Additionally, if a payment processor can’t handle scaling to new markets or sales channels, that capability gap can inspire a switch.

What data, contracts, and dependencies should teams assess before switching processors?

Payment processors anchor a web of contracts, data flows, and downstream systems. An effective switch requires a disciplined, up-front assessment of everything involved.

Contracts and exit terms

Many payment processor exit agreements include early termination fees, auto-renewals, or bundled services such as hardware leases and gateway contracts that also must be canceled. Knowing exactly when and how you can exit (and what exiting will cost) allows you to plan the transition without surprises.

Customer data portability

If you use your payment processor to store customer payment methods or run subscriptions, understand what data you can export and in what form. Some processors allow secure transfer of tokenized card data to a new provider, but others don’t. If tokens can’t be migrated, you’ll need to re-collect payment details without disrupting billing or service.

Technical dependencies

Many systems are involved with transactions (e.g., checkout flows, mobile apps, point-of-sale systems). Map out all of these and make sure they’re accounted for. Even small dependencies, such as webhook listeners or internal dashboards, might break if you overlook them.

What technical changes are required to integrate and test a new payment processor?

Switching to a new payment processor means rewiring the systems that move money without breaking the many other systems that depend on them. It requires several technical steps, outlined below.

• Application programming interface (API) and credential updates: Replace existing API keys, endpoints, authentication methods, and request formats with those of the new processor. Anywhere that your system creates charges, captures payments, issues refunds, or handles disputes needs to be updated and validated.

• Webhook and event handling: Reconfigure webhook endpoints to receive payment events from the new processor. Ensure that signature verification, event parsing, and downstream logic all work correctly to keep payments, retries, and notifications in sync.

• Frontend payment components: Update or replace checkout components, payment forms, or mobile software development kits (SDKs) as needed. Test across devices, browsers, and locales to confirm a consistent customer experience.

• Point-of-sale (POS) and in-person systems: Reconfigure POS software, or deploy new hardware if required. Validate chip, tap, and swipe payments; receipt handling; and offline behavior before going live.

• Token and subscription migration: Securely migrate stored payment tokens and active subscription data where supported. Any disruption to recurring charges can turn into customer churn. Validate migrated records by running controlled billing tests before you move your business’s recurring volume.

• Accounting and reporting integration: Line up the new processor’s reporting outputs with existing reconciliation, finance, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) workflows. Confirm the exports match expectations.

• End-to-end testing: Run full transaction lifecycles in test and staging environments. Make sure to test failures, refunds, partial captures, and disputes.

What considerations come up during payment processor transitions?

Switching payment processors requires keeping track of many details. Small oversights made during the transition period can add up quickly.

Be mindful of the following:

• Security and compliance continuity: Maintain PCI compliance and secure handling of payment data throughout the migration. Clarify the responsibilities of both processors, so that there’s no gap in coverage when they overlap.

• Reconciliation across systems: Expect a temporary split in reporting while both processors are active. Assign ownership for daily reconciliation, so that deposits, fees, refunds, and chargebacks are accounted for.

• Refunds and dispute processes: Ensure refunds and chargebacks go through the processor that handled the original transaction. Mixing systems can create confusion for customers and accounting teams.

• Internal documentation: Update internal playbooks and procedures to account for the new processor. Teams should know right away where data lives and how to resolve issues.

• Historical data access: Export and keep reports, statements, and transaction records from the old processor before access is removed. These records will often remain important to keep long after the switch is complete.

How can organizations validate success after switching payment processors?

A processor switch is finished when the new system proves itself. It needs to show it can run the business consistently, cleanly, and at scale.

Evaluate your new processor on the following:

• Transaction performance: Compare authorization rates, failure patterns, and latency against pre-switch baselines.

• Payout accuracy and timing: Confirm that funds are settling correctly and on schedule.

• Recurring billing stability: Track subscriptions through at least one billing cycle to make sure they renew correctly.

• Dispute and refund workflows: Confirm the new system can handle disputes, refunds, and adjustments.

• Internal and external feedback: A successful switch should be seamless. If customers don’t have negative feedback and internal teams trust the new system, the migration worked.

How Stripe Payments can help

Stripe Payments provides a unified, global payments solution that helps any business – from scaling startups to global enterprises – accept payments online, in person and around the world.

Stripe Payments can help you:

• Optimise your checkout experience: Create a frictionless customer experience and save thousands of engineering hours with prebuilt payment UIs, access to 125+ payment methods and Link, a wallet built by Stripe.

• Expand to new markets faster: Reach customers worldwide and reduce the complexity and cost of multicurrency management with cross-border payment options, available in 195 countries across 135+ currencies.

• Unify payments in person and online: Build a unified commerce experience across online and in-person channels to personalise interactions, reward loyalty and grow revenue.

• Improve payments performance: Increase revenue with a range of customisable, easy-to-configure payment tools, including no-code fraud protection and advanced capabilities to improve authorisation rates.

• Move faster with a flexible, reliable platform for growth: Build on a platform designed to scale with you, with 99.999% historical uptime and industry-leading reliability.

Learn more about how Stripe Payments can power your online and in-person payments or get started today.