SharPay: Your Universal Payment Gateway

Universal Payment Gateway — One API for All Methods
One gateway for cards, bank transfers, wallets and crypto. Smart routing across providers, a single integration and one reconciliation view.

Three providers mean three integrations, three dashboards and three exports that somebody reconciles by hand. A fourth market arrives, and so does a fourth contract.

That is what payment acceptance looks like when it grew as needed. A unified platform solves exactly that: it pulls scattered connections into one layer.

Contents

What a unified payment platform is

It sits between your site and the payment providers. You integrate once with the platform, and it holds the connections to acquirers and payment methods.

Adding a provider becomes configuration rather than a development project. So does removing one.

The approach is called payment orchestration. The point is that routing logic lives in one place instead of being spread through your checkout code.

One integration instead of several

Connecting directly to each provider means a separate API, separate webhooks, a separate report format and a separate support team.

With three providers that is tolerable. With six it becomes continuous work: one updates, another breaks, a third changes its export format.

Through a platform the formats are the same. Reconciliation runs off one report instead of six different ones.

Routing and cascading

The platform decides which acquirer receives the transaction. Rules can be set by country, currency, amount or card type.

If the first acquirer declines, the payment goes to the second before the customer sees an error. That is cascading.

In practice cascading recovers a share of payments that a direct connection would simply have lost.

What it is worth in money

Three effects, and they need counting together.

Approval rate. Local acquiring and cascading lift the share of completed payments. At 100 000 euro a month, one extra point is 1 000 euro.

Negotiating position. With several providers you can compare terms and discuss them. With one there is nothing to compare.

Team time. Maintaining one integration instead of six frees up weeks of development a year.

When you do not need it

If you have one market, one currency and one provider you are happy with, a platform adds a layer without a benefit.

It starts to pay once you grow: a second market, a second acquirer, the need for a fallback if one connection drops.

A rough marker: below 20 000 euro a month a direct connection is simpler and cheaper.

What is included

  • Card acceptance and alternative payment methods
  • Routing and cascading on configurable rules
  • One dashboard: transactions, refunds, disputes, reports
  • Multi-currency settlement and a business IBAN
  • Payouts, one by one or in batches
  • Fraud tooling and chargeback handling

How this differs from an ordinary gateway

An ordinary gateway connects you to one acquirer. A platform connects you to several and decides which one gets a given payment.

The difference shows in three places. A gateway moves data — a platform also picks the route. A gateway gives one report — a platform merges data from every provider. A gateway depends on one bank — a platform survives losing it.

With a single provider you are paying for a layer you do not use. With three or more, the absence of that layer costs your team manual reconciliation.

What to ask before connecting

  • How many acquirers are actually live in your countries, not listed on the website
  • Whether you can bring your own acquirer if you already have one
  • How routing rules are configured: through the interface or through support
  • Whether decline codes are visible per provider
  • What leaving looks like: data export, stored card tokens, notice periods

That last point matters more than it seems. Card tokens are provider-specific, and migrating subscriptions to another platform is a project of its own — worth discussing in advance.

Short answers

Does this replace a merchant account?
No. The platform carries the payments; the money still lands in a merchant account.

Can I keep my own acquirer?
Usually yes. The arrangement is called bring-your-own-acquirer and is agreed separately.

What does it cost?
The platform charges a share of volume or a fixed fee, and the acquirer’s rate sits on top. Ask for both parts broken out.

How connecting works

The technical part starts in a sandbox: you get API access and documentation, build the integration and run through the scenarios.

Document review runs in parallel, and that is what sets the timeline. A complete pack submitted at once is the most reliable way to shorten it.

You can open an account on the merchant accounts page; the technical side is described under payment processing.

Tell us which countries your customers are in and how many providers you run today. We will say plainly whether a platform would pay off in your case.

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