A payment gateway securely transmits payment data between a merchant’s checkout or system and payment-processing services. It may also provide tokenization, routing and fraud features.
How does a gateway work?
It receives payment instructions, protects sensitive data, sends the transaction to a processor or acquirer and returns status information to the merchant.
Gateway versus processor
The gateway is the data and integration layer. The processor handles transaction messaging and processing relationships. One provider may offer both.
Which capabilities matter?
Review supported payment methods, countries, currencies, tokenization, authentication, uptime, retries, webhooks, reporting and checkout options.
What does it cost?
Pricing may include setup, monthly, per-transaction, tokenization and value-added-service fees in addition to processing costs.
What should be reconciled?
Keep gateway attempts, provider references, authorization, capture, settlement, refund and dispute records linked to the order.
