How to Integrate a Payment Gateway into a Website?

We are living in a world dominated by technology where data security and privacy are big issues. As an e-commerce business owner, you handle many of your customers' personal and financial data daily.

A minute mistake can hamper your brand's reputation, so it becomes absolutely essential to process transactions fast, safely, and flawlessly without any mistakes. Payment gateways save the day here.

Payment Gateways allow you to offer customers various payment methods and accept them securely and easily.

In this article, we will discuss everything about payment gateways and provide you with a step-by-step guide on payment gateway integration so that you can make customer experiences seamless.

What is a Payment Gateway?

A Payment Gateway is an internet service enabling you to accept online payments on your website/app without hassle.

When a customer buys something on your website and provides their payment details, the payment gateway sends this information to the payment network to authenticate the information and complete the payment.

After confirming the information, the payment gateway forwards the response to the merchant's website, informing them whether the transaction has succeeded.

Payment gateways are of two main types:

Hosted Payment Gateways: They redirect the customer to a hosted platform to make the payment and are simpler to integrate.

Integrated Payment Gateways: enable customers to pay from the website but at the cost of greater security.

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How do Payment Gateways Work?

Here is an overview of how a payment gateway functions:

Customer Makes a Purchase

When customers are ready to purchase a product or service on your site, they'll input their payment details on your checkout page. This might be credit card information or details for another form of digital payment.

Data Encryption and Secure Transfer

The payment details are then encrypted and securely transmitted from the website to the payment gateway. This is a crucial step to secure sensitive information.

Transaction Forwarding

The payment gateway receives this encrypted data and forwards it to the payment processor.

Payment Processor and Card Company Communication

The payment processor forwards the transaction details to the card-issuing company or bank for authorization.

Transaction Approval or Denial

The issuing bank approves or rejects the transaction. This is done based on the customer's available funds and other cybersecurity verifications.

Communication Back to the Payment Gateway

The approval or rejection is communicated back through the same sequence from the card company to the payment processor and finally to the payment gateway.

Transaction Completion

If accepted, the transaction is finalized, and the customer is confirmed. If declined, the customer is informed, and the transaction is stopped.

Funds Settlement

The payment gateway forwards all the approved transactions to your acquiring bank for settlement. The bank then credits the total approved funds into your business bank account.

The timing of this credit can depend on your arrangement with your acquiring bank or payment processor.

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Benefits of Using a Payment Gateway

If you still have no idea if you want to implement a payment gateway on your site or not, then maybe the following advantages will decide for you:

Secure Transactions

88.05% of online orders were left behind in March 2020. Many of these abandonments happen because the customers are unsure about the security of their bank details. Given the increasing online fraud cases, this apprehension also makes sense.

As payment gateways encrypt the payment information you and your customers provide, integrating them will enable you to better secure sensitive information.

Faster Transaction Processing

Online consumers are impatient. 57% of consumers who shop online will abandon their shopping cart if they are forced to wait longer than 3 seconds for a page to load. That means even if your customers like your product, you can lose them if the payment process takes too long.

Payment gateways finish a sequence of authorizations within seconds. Payment gateways may also remember and save the necessary details (and not passwords) for subsequent payments. Therefore, integrating a payment gateway into your website can conveniently accelerate transaction processing.

Added Convenience for Customers

A difficult checkout process may cause 26% of the customers to abandon their intention to buy from your site. Payment gateways have complex processes, but these processes are in the background.

Your customers do not have to do anything except type in their card details and confirm the payment request from their cell phones. This makes online payments extremely convenient for them and enhances their overall purchasing experience.

Saves Time and Efforts

Payment gateways for your website can also be integrated with your bookkeeping and invoicing software. This will automatically update the corresponding invoice in your accounting system when an online payment happens. This can decrease the load of updating the payment manually in your accounting system and save you time and effort.

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Types of Payment Gateway Integrations

By category, payment gateways are hosted, integrated, direct post-integration, mobile, and hybrid. This article discusses the first three types because they are the most popular ones in e-commerce.

Hosted

Hosted payment gateways redirect customers to a new page to finish transactions. The transaction and data are stored in the service provider, which means hosted payment integration does not need PCI-DSS compliance.

Best for: Low-to-medium-size small businesses.

How to integrate: Adding hosted payment methods to your site requires generating a form in HTML with all required fields and setting the redirection path for submitting transactions and order confirmation.

Integrated

With integrated payments, you handle all the payment information on your website.

The customer remains on the same page to finalize the order. This approach generally involves more development work than hosted payment gateway integration. Strict security and PCI-DSS compliance are not a choice but a requirement.

Best for: Custom checkout experience for businesses of all sizes with strict PCI compliance.

How to integrate: You must include their API or SDK on your site, depending on your chosen provider. The integration is typically easy and involves pasting blocks of HTML code as guided by official documentation.

Every time a customer clicks on the purchase button, your site will call the provider's API to authenticate, log, and transmit payment information via a gateway.

Direct Post

The Direct Post integration type allows you to merge the concepts of hosted and integrated approaches.

The customer remains at your site while processing the payment, but the information is posted directly to the payment gateway. It allows you to personalize the checkout experience but limits the overhead with PCI-DSS compliance.

Best for: Custom checkout experience, enterprise businesses with moderate PCI compliance.

How to integrate: Direct post-integration is more challenging and labor-intensive. In addition, you will have to install an SSL certificate on your site to encrypt data transmission. When setting up your HTML form, ensure it posts data directly to the payment gateway's endpoint and configure your server to process the payment gateway's response.

A sole consideration when selecting between the types is the simplicity of payment gateway integration.

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How to Integrate a Payment Gateway into Your Website?

Adding a payment gateway to a website is a multi-step, usually easy process.

The actual process may differ based on the specific payment gateway that you're utilizing and the platform your website is hosted on, but here's a general step-by-step procedure:

Choose a Payment Gateway

The first is to choose a payment gateway that best suits your business requirements.

You can look at a fuller guide to picking a payment gateway here, but broadly speaking, when you choose a payment gateway provider to do business with, you will want to think about transaction charges, the payments that you accept, security, and how compatible the gateway is with your e-commerce website features.

Set up a Merchant Account

After selecting the provider, you must register at their website to open your merchant account. The merchant account transfers customer payments to your business bank account.

The accounts are FDIC-insured and include fraud protection. You also control payment transactions between your site and the merchant account.

The signup process is simple, but be prepared to enter your business and personal details.

• Business information: Name, address, phone number, type, industry, and business website URL.
• Personal data: Date of birth and home address of the business owner or primary contact, bank account information, and Social Security Number (for US residents).

Obtain API Keys

Once you've registered your account with the payment gateway, you will usually have to acquire API keys, which are special codes to identify an online business's site or application and link it to its services.

They are part of the mechanism that enables safe communication between the business's platform and the payment gateway. The keys will enable your site to communicate with the gateway's server.

Integrate the Payment Gateway Into Your Website

This may differ greatly depending on your website's payment gateway and platform. Some e-commerce sites, like Shopify or WooCommerce, have plugins and extensions that integrate easily. Otherwise, you may need to add code manually to your website to integrate the gateway.

Test the Payment Gateway

Testing your payment gateway integration before going live is the standard one should use. Most gateways have a "sandbox" or test environment where you can make test purchases to verify that everything is functioning properly.

Depending on the complexity level of your integration, you might execute various test scenarios and types.

For straightforward integration and small websites, manual testing will typically suffice. For sites under heavy load, you might prefer automated testing to ensure stable site operation during peak hours.

Go Live

When you have tested the payment gateway, and everything seems good, go live. The customers should then be able to make payments and purchases on your website.

Don't forget to maintain the integrity of your customers' information along the way. Use reliable, encrypted connections and follow the PCI DSS requirements when dealing with credit card data.

Monitor and Track Your Integration

Keeping tabs on your payment processing is important because it allows you to identify and correct possible problems and loopholes. This monitoring allows for smooth transaction streams, ensures security levels are upheld, and reduces the chances of fraud or technical faults.

You can track your payment processing through automated software and ecommerce integrations that monitor volumes of transactions, identify irregularities, and produce real-time notifications for suspicious behavior.

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Factors Affecting the Cost of Website Payment Gateway Integration

The integration cost of a payment gateway includes initial setup charges and recurring monthly charges per transaction. These charges depend greatly on the payment gateway vendor and your business's needs.

Some of these common charges can assist you in determining the payment gateway integration cost:

Account Setup Fee

The payment gateway provider charges a setup fee one time to establish your merchant account. Most providers are free to join; however, some charge you, e.g., Authorize.Net, if you join directly, not through resellers.

Gateway Setup Fee

A charge for the initial setup and integration of the payment gateway with your site. Varies from $50 to $250.

Merchant Account Application Fee

Some processors will charge you to process and approve your merchant account application. Between $0 and $100.

API Integration Fee

When you need special API integration, you may have to pay for potential fees to access the APIs and use them for the gateway. Depending on complexity, the charges can be between $100 and $500 or more.

SSL Certificate

A secure socket layer (SSL) certificate must be used to encrypt data in case of transactions. Not a fee directly charged from the payment gateway but a mandated security requirement. The charges vary from $10 to $200 annually, depending on the certificate type.

Plugin or Module Fees

For e-commerce sites such as Magento, WooCommerce, or Shopify, you can buy particular plugins or modules to enable integration. The cost is between $0 and $200 per plugin/module.

Custom Ecommerce Development

If you need custom website development for e-commerce business to enable payment gateway integration, you might need to pay for developer services. The cost varies depending on the work involved, ranging from $500 to $5,000.

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Charges Estimate By The Payment Gateway Integration Providers

How to Select Payment Gateway for Your Website

Payment gateways handle your and your customer's personal and financial data. Therefore, choosing a good payment gateway for your website requires careful thought.

Below are a few things that you can remember when you choose a payment gateway for your website:

Check Platform Compatibility

You must possess a payment gateway for your website which integrates easily with your invoicing and accounts management software. This can guarantee that when a client buys a product, it is automatically updated in your accounting system.

Studies suggest that out of every three Indians, one buys products online through a smartphone. So, the payment gateway website needs to accept mobile payments, too. This will allow your customers to pay from their preferred device.

Calculate the Costs of Using Payment Gateway

One of the most critical considerations before selecting a payment gateway is its overall cost. The integration costs of a website payment gateway are the set-up fee, monthly fees, and transaction fee. You must always seek the most affordable website payment gateway because high transaction and monthly fees can significantly drive up your costs.

Evaluate Security Controls

Online payments may threaten you and your customers as payment gateways hold sensitive financial data. Therefore, your website payment gateway must always adhere to the best security practices. The payment gateway you opt for should ideally be level -1 PCI DSS compliant and must also have fraud detection software and other filtering tools available to safeguard you and your customers from fraud.

In Conclusion

You need to be mindful of the need to invest in a payment gateway that is trustworthy when you operate an online store.

It can assist you in securely processing transactions, providing customers with multiple payment options, and automating payment processing to avoid errors and delays.

In addition, Payment Gateway's APIs, plugins, and libraries for every big platform and language support seamless integrations so that you can concentrate on expanding your business.

Furthermore, Arramton Infotech can provide you with top-notch website development services in Delhi, and integrate all the required features from payment gateways integration to effective user-experience.

You can connect with our team to know more about the web development services today!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q. What is an API payment gateway?

Ans: A Payment Gateway API is a collection of protocols and tools that enable a merchant website or application to securely link to a payment processor. This enables companies to accept and authorize payments directly from their platform instead of sending customers to a distinct banking window. It is, in essence, a bridge, enabling the passing of payment details between the payment gateway and the merchant.

Q. How do you create a payment gateway link?

Ans: Build your payment gateway infrastructure. You must host your gateway on a server, either your own or through a third party.

• Choose a payment processor.
• Create a customer relationship management (CRM) system. 
• Implement security features.
• Obtain required certifications.

Q. What is the difference between API and API gateway?

Ans: An API (Application Programming Interface) is a collection of rules and specifications by which various software systems can interact and exchange data. An API gateway, in contrast, is a dedicated service or software module that resides in front of APIs, serving as a single point of entry for client requests and handling interactions with the backend services.

Q. How do I integrate a payment gateway into my website?

Ans: To put a payment gateway on your website, select the payment processor (online payment apps like Stripe, Paypal, Amazon Payments, etc.), sign up for an account, and get their API integration code. Insert the code on the front end of your checkout page (e.g., checkout. html).