Why one payment provider is a single point of failure
Most stores take every payment through one provider. That works until it doesn't: an API outage, a timeout, an account that gets restricted or put under review, or a provider that starts declining payments it accepted yesterday. While that lasts, buyers who are ready to pay hit an error, and most of them don't come back.
You can't prevent a provider from having a bad hour. What you can do is make sure a second provider that has already approved your business is ready to take over, so a problem at one of them doesn't stop all your sales.
What payment failover actually does
Failover is often called smart routing or payment orchestration. In practice it comes down to a few rules:
- An order of providers: a main one, then one or more backups.
- Failing over when a payment can't be created at the main provider (an error, a timeout, a restricted account).
- Optionally sending a buyer's retry to a backup after their payment was declined.
- Temporarily skipping a provider that keeps failing, instead of sending every new buyer into the same error.
- Making sure one checkout can never be charged twice for one order.
How failover works in the Settl checkout
You need at least two connected providers that take cards, for example Stripe and Mollie. Then you switch on backup providers in your store's dashboard and drag them into order: the first is your main provider, the others are backups. Settl can connect Stripe, Whop, Mollie, Airwallex, Checkout.com, Viva.com, SumUp, Revolut and Oceanpayment for cards, plus PayPal and Tikkie for their own methods.
If a card payment can't be started at your main provider, Settl creates it at the next one in your list, and the buyer just continues paying. You can also back up other methods: iDEAL and PayPal move to another connected provider that offers the same method.
With "retry declined payments through the backup" on, a buyer whose payment failed and who returns to the checkout makes their next attempt through the backup provider.
Pausing a provider that keeps failing
When a provider is having real trouble, trying it first for every buyer only adds delay. So you can set a pause rule: after a number of failures within a number of minutes, new checkouts go to the backup for a while. By default that's 3 failures within 10 minutes, then a 15-minute pause, and you can change all three numbers.
Your dashboard shows when a provider is paused and until what time. After the pause, new checkouts go to your main provider again.
No double charges
Failover must never mean a buyer pays twice. In Settl, a checkout can only be turned into one order: every payment attempt is stored, and the first successful payment claims the checkout. If a second successful payment ever arrives for the same checkout from a different provider, the order still exists once and you are shown that one payment needs a refund.
Limits worth knowing
Failover works across the providers you connect yourself, each paid out into your own account, so each one has to approve your business first. Settl isn't a payment processor and doesn't offer hundreds of gateways like large payment orchestration platforms do.
Whop's and Stripe's card forms can only be swapped before the form is shown. A buyer who is already on a provider's own payment page finishes there.