What is a payment gateway?
A payment gateway is the technology that securely authorizes online and card-not-present transactions — it passes card details from your website or virtual terminal to the processor and returns an approval or decline. It's the online equivalent of the card reader at your counter.
When a customer pays in person, the terminal captures the card. Online, there's no terminal — so a payment gateway does that job. It encrypts the card details, sends them to the processor and the card networks for authorization, and returns the result in seconds.
Gateways also handle recurring billing, saved cards (tokenization), fraud screening, and payment links or invoices. Velocity most often sets merchants up on Authorize.Net, with a SwipeSimple gateway as an alternative.
You need a gateway if you sell online, bill recurring subscriptions, or take payments by phone. If you only sell in person, a terminal or POS is usually all you need — and we'll tell you honestly which applies to you.
No pressure, just answers