What is payment orchestration?

Payment orchestration is the process of integrating and managing multiple payment service providers, gateways, acquirers, and payment methods through a single unified platform. Instead of building separate connections to each provider, businesses use an orchestration layer that routes transactions to the most effective path based on factors like cost, approval rates, currency, location, and provider uptime.

The global payment orchestration platform market was valued at $1.39 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $6.52 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 24.7%. This growth is driven by the increasing complexity of digital payment ecosystems, the rise of alternative payment methods, and the need for businesses to operate across multiple markets with different payment preferences.

Traditional payment gateways send all transactions to the same processor, creating bottlenecks and single points of failure. Payment orchestration evaluates each transaction in real time and decides the optimal route, then automatically reroutes if the first provider declines or is unavailable.

How does payment orchestration work?

A payment orchestration platform operates as middleware between a business's checkout and the underlying payment infrastructure. The process follows four steps:

• Transaction initiation: When a customer initiates payment, the orchestration platform receives the request and evaluates it against predefined routing rules and real-time data
• Intelligent routing: The platform selects the best provider based on transaction amount, location, currency, historical approval rates, current fees, and provider uptime. For instance, it might route a euro-denominated transaction to a local European acquirer to avoid currency conversion fees and improve approval odds
• Automatic failover: If the first provider cannot process the transaction due to a decline, network timeout, or technical issue, the orchestrator instantly retries through a backup provider without requiring customer intervention
• Consolidated reporting: All transaction data flows into a unified dashboard that aggregates information from all providers and channels, enabling centralized analytics, reconciliation, and reporting

This architecture eliminates the need for businesses to maintain separate integrations for each payment provider, reducing technical complexity and enabling faster expansion into new markets.

What is the difference between payment orchestration and a payment gateway?

A payment gateway is a single connection point that transmits transaction data from a merchant to one payment processor or acquiring bank, then returns the authorization result. Gateways are essential for accepting electronic payments, but they typically connect to only one processor at a time. If that gateway experiences downtime or underperforms, the merchant has limited recourse without building additional custom integrations.

Payment orchestration sits as a layer above gateways and processors, managing relationships with multiple providers simultaneously. Key differences include:

• Provider access: Gateways connect to one processor; orchestration platforms manage multiple providers through a single API
• Routing logic: Gateways send all transactions to the same destination; orchestration platforms intelligently route each transaction based on performance criteria
• Failover capability: Gateways offer no automatic backup; orchestration platforms instantly retry failed transactions through alternative providers
• Optimization: Gateways process transactions as directed; orchestration platforms continuously optimize for cost, approval rates, and reliability

Over 62% of enterprises globally managed five or more payment integrations in 2023, creating demand for orchestration layers that consolidate this complexity into a single interface.

What are the benefits of payment orchestration?

Payment orchestration delivers several operational and financial advantages for businesses managing digital payments:

• Higher approval rates: Connecting to multiple providers enables dynamic routing to the processor most likely to approve each transaction. Merchants using orchestration platforms report 3-5% improvements in authorization rates through multi-processor strategies. Automatic retry logic through backup routes prevents revenue loss from false declines
• Cost optimization: Orchestration platforms can route transactions to the provider offering the lowest fees for each transaction type, currency, or region. Businesses save on unnecessary transaction costs by avoiding expensive processors when cheaper alternatives are available
• Geographic expansion: Adding new markets becomes faster when orchestration platforms provide pre-built connections to local payment methods and regional processors. Support for over 120 localized payment methods allows merchants to accept preferred payment types across markets without building individual integrations
• Operational efficiency: Consolidating payment data from multiple providers into one dashboard simplifies reconciliation, analytics, and reporting. Teams manage all payment operations through a single interface instead of logging into separate systems for each provider
• Resilience and uptime: Automatic failover prevents payment interruptions when a provider experiences downtime. If one processor goes offline, transactions automatically route to backup providers without customer awareness

Payment orchestration platforms now support operations in over 74 countries and handle more than 190 currencies, enabling truly global payment operations through unified infrastructure.

What are the challenges of payment orchestration?

Despite the benefits, payment orchestration introduces several technical and operational complexities:

• Integration complexity: Connecting multiple payment providers, gateways, and processors into one platform requires careful planning and technical expertise. Compatibility issues and data inconsistencies can delay implementation. Different providers use incompatible API standards including REST, SOAP, XML, JSON, and GraphQL
• Vendor dependency: Businesses using payment orchestration platforms depend on their provider's reliability and performance. Technical issues or outages at the orchestration layer can impact the entire payment process. If the relationship ends, migrating to another platform can be difficult
• Data security requirements: Payment orchestration platforms handle sensitive financial data across multiple providers, making them targets for cyberattacks. Strong security measures including encryption, tokenization, and fraud detection are essential. Maintaining PCI DSS compliance across multiple integrations creates additional overhead
• Cost structure: While orchestration can reduce transaction costs through intelligent routing, the platforms themselves require subscription fees or pay-per-transaction pricing that increases with volume. These costs may offset some savings from optimized routing
• Regulatory complexity: Different jurisdictions have conflicting rules on settlement finality, data storage, and consumer protection. Orchestration platforms must ensure compliance across all markets and providers, creating legal and operational complexity

The cost of complying with PCI-DSS, PSD2, and other regional regulations increased 24% since 2022, making compliance management a significant consideration when implementing orchestration platforms.

Payment orchestration and cross-border payments

Payment orchestration addresses several structural problems in cross-border payments by enabling intelligent routing across regional providers and payment methods.

Traditional cross-border transactions route through correspondent banking networks, where each bank performs separate KYC checks, sanctions screening, and reconciliation. This creates delays of 3-5 days and locks up liquidity in nostro accounts. Payment orchestration consolidates these steps by routing directly to local payment processors in each market.

Cross-border transaction volume for orchestration-enabled merchants rose approximately 24% in 2023, with platform support for over 190 currencies. The ability to connect to local payment rails like Pix in Brazil, UPI in India, and SEPA in Europe through one integration eliminates the need for separate partnerships in each corridor.

However, traditional payment orchestration platforms focus exclusively on card networks and bank transfers. They lack access to stablecoin settlement rails that offer instant finality and 24/7 availability. Due's payment infrastructure extends orchestration principles to include both traditional rails (SWIFT, ACH, SEPA, local instant payment systems) and stablecoin networks through a single API, enabling businesses to route transactions across 80+ countries using whichever rail offers optimal speed, cost, and reliability for each payment.