What is the Best Crypto Payment Gateway for a SaaS Platform?

What might be the best crypto payment gateway option for your business? Of course, multiple cryptocurrency payment gateway offerings are out there. At the same time, these offerings are mostly merchant-centric. If you are not an ordinary merchant, but a shopping cart or SaaS platform owner, then your choices are much narrower. What works for merchants will not necessarily work for platforms, because a platform’s needs are more complex. If a platform implements a solution, initially intended for merchants, it might cause serious architectural problems in future.

So, let us assume a company is thinking how to create a crypto payment gateway solution. There are two conceptual strategies it can choose from, depending on its business model. The strategies are as follows.

Best crypto payment gateway implementation strategy for a merchant

Think of a merchant, that is selling products or services through an online website and accepts credit card (and other) payments. Now it needs to add cryptocurrency to the list of supported payment methods. What are the basic steps to take? Well, here is the approximate algorithm.

1. Research best crypto payment gateway options, offered by the providers, and choose the most suitable one.
2. Go through background verification (KYC) process with the chosen provider. The merchant has to submit the standard document package, that it already submitted to be able to process credit cards.
3. Integrate the chosen crypto gateway solution with the online website, through either an off-the-shelf plugin, or a custom API. 
4. Organize an independent login for access to reporting data on crypto payments (in addition to login for credit card transactions).

Best crypto payment gateway implementation strategy for a platform

And now think of a shopping cart business, which is, essentially, a platform servicing a bunch of smaller retailers. Like we said, the merchant-centric strategy wouldn’t work for a platform, because it manages a portfolio of merchants simultaneously. For this purpose, it needs smooth underwriting, efficient merchant funding and payment reconciliation, and transparent reporting. These functions are critical for both card and crypto payments.

So, a platform needs an API which would allow it to underwrite merchants, process cryptocurrency payments, and generate consolidated statements. Consequently, the strategy for a platform should include the following steps.

1. Browse the market to choose the best crypto payment gateway solution among available ones. The optimal solution would accommodate the needs of the platform’s customers (i.e. merchants) in the most efficient way.
2. Go through KYC process as a platform that needs to accept crypto payments on behalf of the merchants.
3. Integrate with the chosen solution. Again, custom unified API is a preferrable option for this step.

This conceptual strategy would enable the platform to collect merchant data for onboarding, accept payments, and generate informative consolidated statements.

To summarize

Penetration of major blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, BSC, and others, is increasing. So, if you want to accept crypto payments, you need a plan for Ethereum and Bitcoin payment gateway integration.

The best option would be an integration with a crypto friendly omnichannel solution. It provides crypto and fiat payment gateway functionality all-in-one. It also supports the major payment types and methods, such as ACH, cards, and cryptocurrencies, through a universal API. So, if you are a platform looking for the best crypto payment gateway offering, you should choose among integrated solutions.

You are also welcome to take a look at UniPay Gateway. It is a crypto friendly omnichannel payment gateway technology for PayFacs and SaaS platforms.