A payment gateway is a technology that securely authorizes payments for online and in-person transactions. By using multiple payment gateways, businesses make their processing tools more flexible for more customers, expand their reach, and gather detailed insights into their transactions.

We’ll cover the pros and cons of using multiple payment gateways, how to integrate and support them, and features to look for while integrating multiple payment gateways.

What’s in this article?

• The pros of having multiple payment gateways
  
• The cons of having multiple payment gateways
  
• How to integrate payment gateways
  
• How to support multiple payment gateways
  
• Essential features to look for when integrating multiple payment gateways
  

The pros of having multiple payment gateways

Employing multiple payment gateways can help your business expand its global reach, meet different customers’ needs, and mitigate risk. Below is a look at some of the possible pros to having multiple gateways.

• Strategic redundancy: In online transactions, a single point of failure can lead to substantial revenue loss. By integrating multiple payment gateways, businesses create a strong infrastructure where continuity is key. If one gateway fails because of a cyberattack, technical issue, or routine maintenance, another can take over so transactions can continue without interruption. This redundancy both maintains sales and reinforces customers’ trust.

• Global market penetration: Each payment gateway supports different currencies, regions, and local payment methods. For businesses looking to expand internationally, using multiple gateways means they can provide localized shopping experiences across markets. For instance, while one gateway might support SEPA transactions in Europe, another might be able to efficiently handle popular mobile payments in Asian markets. This strategy can greatly improve customer satisfaction and conversion rates in new markets.

• Competitive routing: Transaction fees vary between gateways and across different transaction types and credit card providers. By employing advanced routing algorithms, businesses can dynamically select the most cost-effective gateway for each transaction based on real-time fee assessments. This method, known as least-cost routing, can lead to substantial savings on transaction fees and optimize financial operations at scale.

• Approval ratios: Different payment gateways have different relationships with financial institutions and their underlying technology, which affect transaction approval rates. A gateway with high approval rates for credit transactions in the United States might not perform as well with debit cards in Brazil. By distributing transactions across multiple gateways, businesses can strategically increase their overall approval rates, using the strengths of each gateway according to transaction type and location.

• Consumer preferences: In an era where customer experience often dictates brand loyalty, providing multiple payment options is essential. Different consumers have divergent preferences and trust levels with various payment methods and gateways. By providing multiple options, businesses can meet customers’ preferences, build trust, and professionalize their checkout process.

• Risk mitigation and compliance: Relying on a single gateway puts a business at risk of service disruptions and compliance vulnerabilities. Because different gateways often have varied security features and adhere to regional regulations, such as GDPR in Europe or CCPA in California, using multiple gateways allows businesses to diversify their risk and maintain continuous compliance with regulatory standards across borders.

• Gateway-specific features: Some gateways offer features that are especially useful for certain business models like subscription services, B2B transactions, or selling digital products. Advanced fraud protection, recurring billing support, and detailed data analytics can improve the transaction process and increase business intelligence.

The cons of having multiple payment gateways

While integrating multiple payment gateways is generally advantageous, businesses can face challenges with integrating, managing, and analyzing the insights they provide. Let’s take a closer look.

• Management: Each gateway has its own interface, settings, and integration requirements. Businesses must invest time and resources to manage these systems, make sure they function well together, and continuously monitor their performance.

• Cost: Although using multiple gateways can potentially save money with competitive transaction fees, it can also lead to higher operational costs. Each gateway might involve its own setup fees, monthly charges, and transaction fees. Maintaining several gateways could inflate overall expenses, especially if the volume of transactions processed by each is not enough to result in cost cutting.

• Integration: Integrating multiple payment gateways can be technically challenging. Each gateway might require different integration protocols, and ensuring that all systems work together and with the business’s central systems can require substantial IT expertise and resources.

• Customer experience: Offering multiple payment methods can sometimes lead to a disjointed customer experience. Variations in payment interface, processing times, and available payment options across different gateways might confuse customers or detract from a smooth checkout process.

• Data insights: When transactions are spread across multiple gateways, aggregating and analyzing data can be more difficult. This decentralization can affect your ability to track sales trends, understand customer behavior, and make informed business decisions.

• Customer support: If issues arise, resolving them can be more complicated when multiple gateways are involved. Customers might face difficulties with refunds or chargebacks, and support teams need to be adept at handling inquiries across systems.

How to integrate payment gateways

There are a number of ways to integrate payment gateways. You can choose between the following options or take a hybrid approach, like using direct integration for certain gateways while opting for a payment orchestration platform or payment service provider (PSP) for others. This strikes a balance between customization and ease of use. Here are the different methods of integration.

Direct integration with each gateway

Direct integration means individually integrating each payment gateway with your website directly using application programming interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs). This gives you the most flexibility to customize and control the payment flow, user interface, and data handling. But this method can be time-consuming and technically challenging and requires ongoing maintenance, as gateway APIs may change.

Payment gateway aggregators

These platforms (e.g., Stripe) provide a single integration point for multiple payment methods and sometimes connect to multiple underlying gateways. This method of integration simplifies the setup process and typically handles security and compliance. But it might limit customization and can be more expensive than direct integration.

Payment orchestration platforms

These platforms act as a middleware layer between your website and multiple payment gateways, offering features like intelligent routing, failover handling, and unified reporting. This makes it easier to integrate and manage multiple gateways and provides more flexibility and control than aggregators. It also often includes features for optimizing conversions and reducing costs. But it can be more expensive than other options and might require some technical expertise to set up and configure.

Ecommerce platform plugins

Many popular ecommerce platforms (e.g., Shopify, WooCommerce) have plugins or extensions that simplify integration with multiple payment gateways. These are easy to install and configure and often provide prebuilt integrations with popular gateways. But they typically have limited customization options compared to direct integration and might not support all your desired gateways or features.

How to support multiple payment gateways

After you’ve decided to use multiple payment gateways for your business, you’ll need to plan, configure, and continue to monitor operations. Here’s a look at the steps to get started.

Evaluate your needs

• Determine which payment methods and geographies you want to support.

• Research different gateways and compare their features, fees, and supported payment methods.

Choose your integration method

• Decide whether to use direct integration, a payment orchestration platform, a PSP, or a hybrid approach. Consider your technical resources, budget, and desired level of control.
  

Implement integration

• Follow the documentation and guidelines provided by each gateway or platform to integrate them with your system.

• Test thoroughly to make sure all integrations are working correctly.

Configure routing rules

• If you’re using a payment orchestration platform or PSP, set up routing rules to determine which gateway to use for each transaction, taking into account factors like payment method, currency, amount, and risk level.
  

Monitor and optimize

• Track transaction success rates, decline rates, and processing fees across gateways.

• Adjust your routing rules and settings to optimize performance and cost efficiency.

Essential features to look for when integrating multiple payment gateways

When integrating multiple payment gateways with your site or application, look for these features to create the best payment process for you and your customers.

• Intelligent routing and load balancing: Dynamically route transactions to the most optimal gateway based on transaction type, amount, currency, card issuer, or gateway performance. This can help improve approval rates, reduce costs, and ensure redundancy in case of outages.

• Failover and retry logic: If a gateway fails or a transaction is declined, automatically retrying the transaction with another gateway can avoid lost sales.

• Unified reporting and reconciliation: Using a centralized dashboard or reporting system that consolidates transaction data from all gateways can simplify tracking, reconciliation, and payment analysis.

• Fraud detection and prevention: Look for features like 3D Secure authentication, address verification, velocity checks, or advanced fraud detection algorithms to protect against fraudulent transactions.

• Security and compliance: Make adherence to industry standards that safeguard sensitive customer data, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a requirement.

• Support for multiple payment methods: The ability to accept a wide range of payment methods, such as credit or debit cards, digital wallets (e.g., Apple Pay, Google Pay), bank transfers, and local payment methods, is essential with multiple gateways. This helps reach a global audience and cater to diverse customer preferences.

• Customizable checkout experience: Seek out flexibility to customize the checkout process with your branding and user experience requirements, with options for creating custom payment forms, adding logos, and localizing languages.

• Scalability and flexibility: Look for a solution that can scale with your business and accommodate future changes or additions to your payment strategy. Consider whether you’ll be able to easily add or remove gateways as needed.

• Developer-friendly APIs and SDKs: Comprehensive and well-documented APIs and SDKs can simplify the integration process and allow for greater customization and control.

• Reliable customer support: Prompt and knowledgeable customer support can prove invaluable. This helps troubleshoot any issues that might arise during integration or ongoing use of the payment gateways.