Infrastructure
Payment Gateways
A payment gateway is the technology layer that helps move payment information from your checkout or application into the processing flow.
Built to make payment decisions clearer
Independent
Plain-English explanations without a sales pitch.
Practical
Questions, frameworks and cost thinking you can actually use.
Editable
Every section on this page is made from Elementor widgets.
Merchant Atlas
The technology layer behind online checkout
Compare hosted, embedded and API-led approaches alongside platform and back-office integrations.
Key concepts
What to understand
Checkout experience
Consider hosted, embedded and API-led approaches and how they affect user experience.
Integrations
Check ecommerce platform, subscription, accounting and back-office compatibility.
Tokenisation
Understand how credentials are stored or represented for repeat transactions.
Resilience
Review uptime, failure handling, retries, support and operational visibility.
Provider conversation
Questions worth asking
- Which company provides each part of the service?
- Which charges change with volume, ticket size, card type or customer location?
- What would cause pricing, reserves or settlement terms to change?
- How are support, refunds, reporting and disputes handled?
Test the pricing assumptions.
Use the calculator to see how percentage and fixed fees behave at different transaction sizes.
Payment gateways cluster