Reviewed by Mayer Hyman, Payments Specialist | Reviewed for accuracy July 2026
Key Takeaways
- US payment-processing revenue flowing through independent software vendors (ISVs) is projected to reach $16 billion in 2025, up from $6.5 billion in 2020, a 20% annual growth rate over five years (McKinsey, 2025).
- ISVs that embed payment solutions see a 30-40% increase in customer retention and can lift annual revenue by up to 20% (McKinsey, 2025).
- The global payment gateway market is valued at roughly $30.58 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at a 12.78% CAGR through 2034 (Fortune Business Insights, 2025).
- Adding a second gateway option, rather than replacing an existing integration, is usually the lower-friction way for a payments provider to expand what a software platform or merchant can support.
Why Payment Companies Add Gateway Partners Instead of Building From Scratch
Payment companies add gateway partners, rather than building new capability from scratch, because it lets existing customers do something they couldn’t do before without forcing them to rebuild their checkout or reconciliation flow. That’s the standard worth applying to any partnership announcement, including gateway expansions in the merchant and ISV space.
The market context helps explain why these partnerships keep happening. US payment-processing revenue moving through independent software vendors has grown roughly 20% a year for five years running, on pace to hit $16 billion in 2025, up from $6.5 billion in 2020 (McKinsey, 2025). Software platforms are handling more of the payment relationship than they used to, and that means the processors and gateways sitting underneath them need to support a wider range of billing models, checkout flows, and integration paths than a single gateway typically covers.
What a Gateway Partnership Is Supposed to Solve
A gateway handles the technical exchange between a checkout page and the processor or acquiring bank: tokenizing card data, routing the authorization request, and returning an approval or decline. Different gateways specialize in different things, recurring billing, high-risk verticals, specific shopping cart integrations, regional payment methods, so a processor that only supports one gateway is implicitly limiting which merchants and software platforms it can serve well.
Adding a second or third gateway option doesn’t change the processing infrastructure underneath it. It changes what a merchant’s developer can build against, and how quickly. That distinction matters because merchants and platforms increasingly expect this kind of flexibility: the global payment gateway market is projected to grow from roughly $30.58 billion in 2025 to $90.28 billion by 2034 (Fortune Business Insights, 2025), a pace driven largely by demand for more integration options, not fewer.
What Merchants and ISVs Should Actually Ask About a New Gateway Option
A gateway partnership announcement is marketing copy until it’s tested against a real integration. Before assuming a new gateway option solves a problem, it’s worth checking a few things directly, ideally before signing anything or migrating a live checkout flow.
This matters more for software platforms than it might first appear. A growing share of merchants now get their payment processing through the software they already use, rather than shopping for a processor directly, which is part of why ISV-driven payment revenue has climbed so quickly. When the underlying software adds a gateway partner, that decision flows down to every merchant on the platform whether they asked for it or not, so it’s worth understanding what’s actually changing.
Does Fraud Protection and Chargeback Handling Carry Over?
Some gateway integrations only cover authorization and capture, leaving fraud screening and chargeback response as separate tools bolted on afterward. That’s a meaningful gap: ISVs that embed a fuller payment stack, not just checkout, see measurably better retention and revenue outcomes than those offering processing alone (McKinsey, 2025). A gateway addition that doesn’t carry fraud and dispute handling with it is only solving part of the problem.
Does It Reduce or Add Reconciliation Work?
Every additional payment rail is only worth adding if the reporting stays unified. If a new gateway option means a second settlement report, a second batch file, or a second place to check for declines, the integration has moved the complexity rather than removed it. The better test is whether transactions from every supported gateway land in the same reconciliation view.
Is It Actually a New Capability, or a Rebrand of an Existing One?
Recurring billing, tokenized vaulting, and specific shopping cart plugins are the kinds of things a new gateway partnership should genuinely unlock. If the new option supports the same payment methods and the same integration pattern as what a merchant already had, the partnership is closer to a marketing update than a functional one.
How This Plays Out for Cartis Payments Customers
Cartis Payments is a payment processing provider working with merchants and ISVs, pairing card processing and merchant services with fraud protection and chargeback management delivered through a single API rather than a stack of disconnected tools. Gateway partnerships fit into that model when they expand what a specific integration can do, for example, supporting a shopping cart or billing platform that wasn’t previously covered, without requiring a merchant to change processors or duplicate their reconciliation work. The test described above (does fraud and dispute handling carry over, does reporting stay unified, is the capability genuinely new) is the same test any merchant evaluating a payments partner’s gateway options should apply, regardless of which processor they’re using.
FAQ
What does a payment gateway actually do?
It handles the technical exchange between a checkout page and the processor or acquiring bank, tokenizing card details, routing the authorization request, and returning an approval or decline in real time.
Why would a payments provider add a new gateway partner instead of just using one gateway?
Different gateways specialize in different things, recurring billing, specific shopping cart platforms, regional payment methods, so supporting more than one expands which merchants and integration types a processor can serve without merchants having to switch processors.
Does adding a gateway partnership mean fraud protection and chargeback management are included?
Not automatically. Some gateway integrations only cover authorization and capture. Merchants should confirm directly whether fraud screening and dispute handling run through the same integration or require a separate tool.
How do I know if a new gateway option is worth switching to?
Check whether it consolidates reporting with your existing setup or creates a second settlement report to reconcile, and confirm it supports a payment method, billing model, or platform integration you didn’t have access to before.
