How to Choose and Integrate Payments Into a Mobile App?

6 min readNov 21, 2022

A Story Behind

Take the phone, select, hit checkout, enter payment data, pay. Whether you’re developing an investment app or a mobile marketplace, you need to integrate payment gateway in a mobile app. The less complicated the payment process is, the more sales you get. Here, see the stats:

Fact #1: 73% of people make online purchases with their mobiles in 2021. This number grows every year.
Fact #2: 1 out of 5 customers abandon their online purchases due to the long and complicated checkout process (apart from those who were “just browsing”).

These two facts together have forced retailers to develop mobile apps with built-in payment gateways that run smoothly and ensure a quick, easy, and safe checkout experience.

In this article, we’ll discuss:

What is Mobile Payment Gateway?

A mobile payment gateway is a service that authorizes and processes payments in apps. It uses security protocols and encryption to pass the transaction data safely. Shortly, a gateway serves as an in-between service to facilitate financial operations between customers and you, the merchant.

The whole process takes just a few seconds:

The customer adds products to the cart connected to the payment gateway
It allows the merchant to enter payment information.
When the customer hits checkout, the payment gateway sends a request to the card-issuing bank.
If everything went well, the bank confirms the transaction.

How to Choose a Mobile Payment Gateway: 5 Questions to Answer

1. What is your target audience?

Some payment gateways might be supported in the countries your mobile app users are from. Before selecting a mobile payment gateway provider, make sure it will work in your target locations. For example, Stripe is supported in 25 countries, while PayPal works in over 200 countries. Also, some payment gateways might be more popular in certain countries, just like TSYS in Great Britain or PayPal in the USA.

Important note: if your business is global, then make sure your payment gateway providers support multi-currency payments.

2. What payment methods do your mobile app users prefer?

Different mobile payment gateways support different payment methods. Find out your customer’s preferable payment methods before adding a payment gateway to the mobile app. 40% of mobile app users say they have more confidence with apps that offer >1 payment option.

Well, a mobile store that has one payment option that you’ve never even heard about looks quite shady, right?

3. How much does it cost?

All payment gateways charge fees per transaction. For most payment gateways the fees are somewhere around 2.9% + $0.30 (Stripe, PayPal, Amazon Pay, AuthorizeNet). Some payment gateways might charge higher fees.

Payment gateways might also require monthly fees, as well as setup fees.

4. Is the mobile payment gateway scalable and customizable?

If your business is growing, it is crucial to think ahead when it comes to mobile application payment gateway integration. Check whether your mobile payment gateway provider offers enough customization opportunities before you integrate recurring payments on a mobile app.

5. Does it have security certificates?

When it comes to vulnerable data (for instance, credit card information), you have to make sure that your mobile payment gateway provider is trustworthy. More than 80% of customers feel safer seeing trustworthy payment options on the website.

While selecting a payment gateway, you might also think about securing the payment data with additional database software.

Top Payment Gateways to Integrate With an App

Before we move to the guidance notes for adding a payment gateway to a mobile app, let’s take a look at the most popular service providers.

1. PayPal

PayPal is available in more than 200 countries, making it the largest payment gateway provider. Its coolest functions are split purchase transactions, reporting tools, simple invoicing, and payment procedures. Besides, users have an array of payment methods to choose from and are assisted in steadily proving PCI compliance.

Fee per transaction: 2.9% + $0.30
Availability in countries: 200+
Supported payment methods: PayPal, Venmo, AndroidPay, ApplePay, Bitcoin.
Important note: PayPal is not available in most Eastern European, African, and some Asia countries. See the full list here.

2. Stripe

Stripe supports more than 135 currencies and payment methods. Alongside PayPal, it is one of the biggest payment gateway providers, processing 250m+ API requests every day.

Fee per transaction: 2.9% + $0.30
Availability in countries: 25+
Supported payment methods: AliPay, AndroidPay, ApplePay, Bitcoin, ACH, WeChat, EPS.

3. TSYS

TSYS is a user-friendly payment gateway that generates user reports and gives access to detailed analytics. While it is most suitable for small and medium businesses, enterprises can also benefit from the quite simple interface.

Fee per transaction: 2.5% + $0.20
Availability in countries: 80+

So, how do you know you’ve found “the one” for your mobile app? There’s no standard answer. You need to consider lots of factors: the complexity of your mobile app, future growth plans, budget, etc.

If you are not sure which payment gateway provider to choose, you can contact KindGeek for advice.

Tips to Integrate Payments Into a Mobile App

Now when you got familiar with different payment gateways and selected “the one” for your app, the integration part comes into play. We’ve gathered 5 payment gateway integration Software Development Kits for developers for both IOS and Android.

How to Add Payment Gateway in the Android App

How to Integrate Payment Gateway in IoS App

How much does a mobile payment gateway integration cost?

The cost of the mobile application payment gateway integration depends on the complexity of the project, the time needed for integration, and the developer’s rate.

Including a payment gateway in an app might require adding both basic and advanced features to your mobile application. For example, a database for storing credit card data, refund management modules, or channels for linking the banks to your mobile application and customers.

There are two options for you to consider: hiring a professional web developer or working with a web development company. Working with an agency costs more, however, you get not only the coding service but also the project management, testing, suggestions based on the previous payment gateway integration experience.

Our Client’s Success Stories of Mobile Payment Gateway Integration

Eat an elephant one bite at a time. Mobile app payment gateway integration is a complex task that includes not only the coding activities, but also design thinking, user testing, and good project management.

At KindGeek, we believe in the customer-first approach, especially when it comes to such things as adding payments in an app. Your users’ checkout experience is what makes them come back (or not!). For this reason, we include a discovery phase in each mobile payment gateway integration project to learn more about the customers’ needs and choose the best payment gateway provider.

Here are the stats of our payment gateway integration projects:

One of our PayPal integration customers, Lehrermarktplatz has recently got $25 million of investments. Lehrermarktplatz started as a small e-commerce store for learning resources and grew into a huge e-learning marketplace. Part of this growth was because together we selected a scalable and flexible payment gateway that was suitable for customers.

Read the story of our cooperation with Lehrermarktplatz here.

KindGeek is a full-cycle software outsourcing company with business expertise. Besides providing UI/UX design, software development, and QA services, KindGeek offers discovery phase and business consulting as a part of our Business Analysis proficiency. Using different technology stacks, KindGeek develops Android, iOS, desktop, and web applications; websites, and custom software solutions.