Take My Money

What’s a Payment Gateway and Why Do I Need One?

A payment gateway, such as Stripe,^[12] Braintree,^[13] Authorize.net,^[14] and others, is a service that mediates financial transactions. On one side of the transaction is the entire global financial system in all its complexity. On the other side is me, some clown with a website. The transaction is just slightly asymmetric.

From our point of view, we want to be able to say, “Here’s a customer with a credit card and a transaction,” and have the customer’s money show up in our account. On the other side, a lot of companies and complexities are involved in that transaction. A typical credit card transaction might involve five or more financial organizations:

• The bank where the purchaser keeps their ...