Launch secure online checkout without building payments from scratch

Who this solution is for

• Counter businesses adding e-commerce

  The card is no longer present, which changes interchange, fraud exposure and who carries liability on a disputed order.

• Service businesses collecting deposits

  A quote accepted online, a deposit collected before work starts, a balance taken later.

• Teams choosing an integration path

  Hosted, embedded or API: three different amounts of work, and three different compliance positions.

Common challenges

• PCI scope follows the card data

  A checkout that touches the card number puts your servers in scope. Hosted pages and embedded fields keep the entry surface on RapidCents, which is what keeps the assessment small.

• Card-not-present disputes land on you

  Without authentication, fraud liability for an online order generally sits with the business. That is what 3-D Secure changes, and only where its rules apply.

• Order state driven by the browser

  A customer who closes the tab after paying never returns to your success page. If the order only updates on redirect, that payment is invisible.

The RapidCents approach

Recommended capabilities

• Hosted checkout

  A RapidCents-hosted payment page carrying your logo, accent colour and receipt footer, with wallet buttons on supported browsers and session expiry on abandoned carts.

• Payment links

  A pay-by-link URL sent by email or SMS, with partial amounts for deposits, custom references for reconciliation and deactivation once paid.

• Gateway API

  Authorize and capture as separate steps for ship-later orders, customer tokens for repeat purchases, idempotency keys and signed webhooks.

• 3-D Secure

  Issuer authentication triggered by rule. Most authentications complete without a challenge screen, and where one succeeds and network rules apply, fraud chargeback liability moves to the issuer.

• Tokenization

  The card number is replaced by a token at capture, so your systems hold a reference that cannot be used anywhere else.

Implementation approach

• Integration planning

  Map your checkout experience to a hosted, embedded or API approach. The decision is mostly about how much of the interface you need to own.

• Sandbox certification

  Complete the test cases for the flows you will run, refunds and the authentication challenge included.

• Webhook setup

  Configure and verify the events that drive order state, and confirm your endpoint rejects an unsigned request.

• Go-live checklist

  Authentication rules, receipt content and support contacts confirmed, then live traffic monitored through the first settlement cycle.

What does not change

• Your storefront

  Hosted checkout is a step in the flow, not a replacement for your site. Customers return to your pages afterwards.

• Your in-person setup

  Adding online acceptance does not change the terminals at the counter. Both channels report into the same dashboard.

• Your PCI responsibility

  Hosted pages and embedded fields reduce what is in scope. Annual validation on the questionnaire matching your integration remains yours.

For businesses in the USA

A direct answer for a business in the USA: the workflow, the limit, and what to confirm next.

• The payment workflow

  Make this the implementation and payment-flow decision page: compare hosted checkout, embedded fields and API work for a U.S. Merchant's existing website. Confirm eligibility, presentment currency, settlement currency and the enabled payment methods on the USA merchant account before quoting them. An illustrative amount is an example, not a fee or a funding promise. Accept payments online does not, by itself, prove delivery or win a dispute.

• The problem and the limit

  In practice, authorization, capture, order confirmation and webhook handling with approved examples. Do not promise a fixed conversion effect from enabling or disabling 3DS. Confirm eligibility, presentment currency, settlement currency and the enabled payment methods on the USA merchant account before quoting them. An illustrative amount is an example, not a fee or a funding promise. Accept payments online does not, by itself, prove delivery or win a dispute.

• What to confirm

  In practice, U.S. Currency, funding conditions and the responsibility shared between merchant, developer and provider. Link to the narrower product pages for implementation detail. Confirm eligibility, presentment currency, settlement currency and the enabled payment methods on the USA merchant account before quoting them. An illustrative amount is an example, not a fee or a funding promise. Accept payments online does not, by itself, prove delivery or win a dispute.