What is payment orchestration? How it works and top platforms

Growing a business across multiple markets means dealing with different payment providers in each region. Each local payment provider has different APIs, authentication requirements, and reporting systems. Managing this gets expensive and complex fast.

Payment orchestration solves this by consolidating multiple payment service providers, payment methods, and processors into a single platform. Instead of building separate integrations to each provider, you connect once to an orchestration layer that handles all the downstream connections. The platform routes each transaction to the optimal provider based on rules you define.

When a payment fails, the orchestration platform automatically retries it through a different processor. All your transaction data flows into one dashboard where you can monitor performance across providers, compare approval rates, and adjust routing without writing code. You get unified payment management instead of fragmented systems.

How does payment orchestration work?

Payment orchestration operates through a series of automated decisions that happen in milliseconds. Payment orchestration platforms evaluate each transaction, route it to the optimal provider, and handle failures intelligently—all without manual intervention. Here's how the process works from transaction to settlement.

Transaction evaluation and routing: When a customer initiates payment, the orchestration platform receives the transaction and evaluates it against your routing rules to select the optimal processor. The platform considers payment method type, customer country, transaction currency, card brand, issuer bank, and real-time data about provider performance.

Technical abstraction: The orchestration platform abstracts away these differences in authentication flows, data formats, and other technical requirements. It translates your transaction into the format required by the selected provider, handles authentication, and manages communication.

Success or intelligent retry: If the transaction succeeds, the platform confirms payment and returns a unified response to your system. If it fails, the platform evaluates if the failure is permanent (insufficient funds, invalid card number) or warrants a retry (temporary system issues, soft declines that might succeed with a different processor). When retry makes sense, the platform automatically routes the transaction to a backup provider based on your fallback rules, without customer intervention.

Analytics and optimization: All transaction data—successes, failures, retries—flows into a unified analytics layer. You see which providers perform best for which transaction types. These insights inform how you adjust routing rules over time.

Configuration without code: The platform provides a dashboard or API for adding new providers, modifying routing logic, adjusting fallback sequences, and monitoring performance without deploying code. When you want to launch a new payment method or enter a new market, you enable the relevant connections through the platform rather than building custom integrations.

Payment orchestration platforms

Payment orchestration platforms fall into two categories: standalone tools that sit on top of your payment stack, and integrated solutions that bundle orchestration with merchant of record services. 

Primer and Solidgate

Primer and Solidgate are standalone orchestration platforms that reduce the engineering effort required to manage multiple payment providers. Primer calls itself an automation platform for payments, built around a visual workflow builder. Payment teams can create complex routing rules through drag-and-drop interfaces without engineering resources. Solidgate offers similar orchestration with smart routing and integrated fraud tools. 

Key capabilities include:

• Single API integration to hundreds of payment service providers, payment methods, and fraud detection tools
• Intelligent routing based on payment type, customer location, transaction amount, card characteristics, and real-time provider performance
• Automated fallback logic that retries failed transactions through alternative processors based on configured sequences
• Consolidated reporting across all providers with unified transaction data and analytics
• No-code configuration to launch new payment methods
• Fraud and authentication management with integrated 3D Secure and risk tools built into the routing layer

These platforms are valuable for businesses that want flexibility to mix best-of-breed providers across different regions or need granular control over payment infrastructure without building everything in-house. The limitation is that these platforms don't handle merchant of record responsibilities, including tax compliance, chargeback liability, and regulatory requirements. 

Paddle

When you integrate with Paddle, you're connecting to a merchant of record solution that includes orchestration capabilities across the payment lifecycle. Paddle maintains merchant accounts across different regions and integrates with multiple payment service providers. The platform automatically routes transactions through the optimal provider based on customer location, payment method, and performance data. You don't configure routing rules or manage provider relationships. 

Key capabilities include:

• Local acquiring with merchant accounts in different regions, so transactions process domestically rather than internationally, improving approval rates and reducing network fees
• Automatic smart routing that evaluates each transaction and selects the best PSP and merchant account combination based on payment method, location, and performance data
• Local payment methods presented automatically based on customer location—no configuration required
• Merchant of record services, including tax compliance across 200+ countries and territories, chargeback management, and regulatory compliance
• Continuous optimization based on data from millions of transactions processed across the platform

When Motion VFX A/B tested Paddle against their previous payment solution, checkout conversions increased 12%. The improvement came from both optimized routing and the streamlined experience of having one system handle payments, tax, and compliance together.

Benefits of using a payment orchestration platform

Payment orchestration directly impacts revenue, and the magnitude depends on your current payment setup and geographic reach.

Improve checkout conversion rate by showing more local payment methods

Many customers will abandon a purchase if their preferred payment option isn't available. This problem compounds internationally: US customers expect cards and PayPal, Brazilian customers prefer PIX and Boleto Bancário, Chinese customers use Alipay and WeChat Pay, and European customers want SEPA direct debit.

Without orchestration, supporting diverse payment methods means building separate integrations to each provider. That's weeks of engineering work per method. Orchestration platforms provide access to dozens or hundreds of payment methods through a single integration. You enable the methods relevant to your markets through configuration rather than custom development.

The platform presents appropriate payment options dynamically based on customer location and transaction context. Customers see familiar, trusted payment methods, which reduces friction and increases the likelihood they complete the purchase.

Increase speed to market by connecting to new processors in hours rather than weeks

A single payment integration commonly takes four to eight weeks of developer time. Orchestration platforms already have connections to payment providers. When you want to add a new processor, you enable it in the platform, configure your routing preferences, and start sending transactions. What previously required weeks or months of engineering effort now takes hours of configuration work.

This speed becomes critical when circumstances change. Your primary processor experiences extended downtime, and you need a backup immediately. A competitor launches a new product in a market where you need better payment coverage. A local payment method gains rapid adoption, and you need to support it quickly to remain competitive. Orchestration platforms let you respond to these situations without bottlenecking on scarce engineering resources.

Increase payment acceptance rates with multiple processors

Not all payment processors perform identically across different scenarios. Provider A might excel at processing Visa transactions from UK customers but struggle with Mastercard payments from Germany. Provider B might handle European transactions effectively but see lower approval rates in North America. 

With a single processor, you're constrained by its performance characteristics everywhere. Orchestration lets you route each transaction to the processor that performs best for that specific scenario. Send UK Visa transactions to Provider A, route German Mastercard payments to Provider B, and use Provider C for North American transactions.

Orchestration platforms also enable sophisticated fallback logic. When a payment fails at the first processor, the system automatically retries through an alternative provider. Some declines happen due to temporary system issues, conservative fraud rules, or processor-specific quirks. Automated retry through a backup provider can recover a significant portion of initially failed transactions, directly increasing revenue.

Challenges associated with payment orchestration

Payment orchestration solves specific problems but introduces its own complexity:

• Added vendor complexity. You're adding another vendor relationship, another system in your payment flow, another potential point of failure. When issues occur, troubleshooting becomes more complicated because you're working through an abstraction layer rather than directly with the payment processor.
• More involved integration and testing. You need to verify behavior across multiple providers accessed through the orchestration platform. You need to understand how the platform handles edge cases, ensure your routing rules work as intended, and test fallback logic across various failure scenarios. The abstraction that makes orchestration valuable can make it harder to diagnose problems when transactions fail.
• Complex data reconciliation. Money flows through multiple providers, each with their own settlement timelines and reporting formats. While orchestration platforms unify transaction reporting, you still need to reconcile funds that arrive from different providers at different times into different bank accounts. Financial operations need processes to handle this fragmentation.
• Indirect provider relationships. Direct integration with a PSP typically means establishing direct support relationships, having dedicated contacts, and collaborating with them on optimizations tailored to your business. Orchestration creates indirection. You're dependent on the orchestration platform to maintain integrations, implement new features from providers, and resolve issues. If a provider releases a new capability, you can't use it until the orchestration platform supports it.
• Additional cost layer. You pay the orchestration platform, typically a percentage of transaction volume or a per-transaction fee, plus fees to the underlying payment providers. The orchestration platform needs to deliver sufficient value through improved approval rates, faster integrations, or reduced engineering costs to justify the additional expense. For smaller businesses or those with straightforward payment needs, the economics might not work.
• No merchant of record coverage. Most orchestration platforms don't take on merchant of record liability. You get optimized payment routing and consolidated management. You still need to handle tax compliance, calculate and remit sales tax or VAT in every jurisdiction, manage chargebacks and disputes, comply with financial regulations in each market, and potentially establish legal entities in different countries. That means managing those complex responsibilities separately or finding a solution that bundles payment optimization with merchant of record services.

How to set up payments with Paddle

When you integrate Paddle's API, you automatically get optimized routing across Paddle's payment infrastructure and access to local payment methods relevant to your markets. You define your products, set pricing, and configure any custom workflows you need for your business model. Paddle handles payment routing, processor selection, and merchant of record responsibilities without requiring configuration from you.

Most companies complete integration and launch in days following Paddle's go-live checklist. You're not spending weeks configuring an orchestration platform, so you focus on integrating Paddle's API and defining your products. 

Make every transaction count with Paddle

Payment orchestration eliminates complexity and improves payment performance. With Paddle, you get smart routing, local payment methods, and optimized acceptance rates. Plus Paddle handles tax compliance, manages chargebacks and disputes, and takes legal responsibility for transactions. One integration covers payment optimization and merchant of record duties together.

Want to benefit from payment orchestration for your SaaS, AI, gaming, or mobile app? Get started today or speak to an expert, and go live in hours.