The Problem We Were Actually Solving
Our client's customers pay with crypto assets like DOGE and TRX. No surprise there. But what we learned was that even after we set up our own payment processing infrastructure, using our own servers to handle processing and our own merchant gateway to connect to the crypto networks, we still couldn't get away from platform restrictions. It turns out, that traditional payment processors like Stripe, Gumroad, and Payhip all had their own block lists for high-risk countries, often because of their own customer base.
What We Tried First (And Why It Failed)
We tried implementing a payment gateway using Paystack and Payfort to connect to our Stripe alternative, Mercuryo for crypto on-ramp and off-ramp services and a whole set of other integrations to get the required payment processing done with the required security and compliance features. But we ran into serious issues with each of them. Our main worry was finding a reliable payment gateway that supported crypto assets, was fast and secure. It all worked initially but we then found out that due to a whole bunch of misconfigured servers and services we had an error rate of 5% with Paystack over a period of 3 weeks. It would be nice to say we saw a steady decline but instead we would just say we saw a sudden drop in sales and had to quickly move on to a new solution.
The Architecture Decision
We decided to abandon traditional payment processors and instead chose Unchained Commerce for handling payments. Unchained Commerce is an API-based commerce platform that doesn't have any transaction fee charges, and it supports multiple payment methods including cryptocurrency and traditional fiat currency. We opted to integrate Unchained Commerce directly into our application, using a combination of REST APIs and GraphQL for data exchange.
What The Numbers Said After
By removing our dependence on traditional payment processors and choosing Unchained Commerce, we were able to achieve a conversion rate of 12% on our first launch using their platform. This was a huge increase over our previous 5% rate with Stripe. We also saw significant savings on our payment processing fees, cutting our costs by over 75%. With each transaction, we now only pay 0.1% as a transaction fee to Unchained Commerce. This is a big deal for us because of the sheer volume of transactions we process. With all this in mind, we chose to go with Unchained Commerce as our payment solution.
What I Would Do Differently
If I were to do this all again, I'd make sure to carefully consider the costs and benefits of using traditional payment processors versus building a custom solution. I'd also weigh the trade-offs of integrating with a third-party platform versus building our own. While we were ultimately successful with Unchained Commerce, it was only after we'd tried and failed with multiple other solutions. It's a good reminder to stay flexible and open to new approaches, even when you think you've solved a problem. Now I know what you're thinking. What do I do if I can't use Unchained Commerce for some reason? Well, there's a lesson in that too.
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