Payment gateway vs payment processor: what’s the difference?
Last updated 19 October 2026
How gateway, processor, PSP, and orchestration roles differ, and how this radar labels the companies it monitors.
Payment gateway
A gateway is the technical front door: APIs, drop-in checkout, tokenization, and often the path that carries a payment instruction to whoever will acquire or process it. A gateway does not, by itself, tell you who holds the merchant account or which licence covers a country.
Payment processor
Processing (and, where relevant, acquiring) is the work of authorizing with a scheme or local rail and moving funds according to that rail’s rules. Historically this sat with acquirer banks. Many modern “processors” package acquiring plus a gateway so the merchant sees one vendor.
Payment service provider (PSP)
“PSP” or “payment provider” is the umbrella merchants usually mean: one contract, one integration, many methods. Underneath, the PSP still uses network memberships, local partners, or both. Payment Market Radar’s directory uses categories such as global PSP and enterprise PSP for companies watched that way.
- Adyen — Enterprise PSP / acquiring
- Checkout.com — Global PSP / enterprise payments
- Mollie — European PSP / local payment methods
- Nuvei — Global PSP / alternative payments
- PayPal — Wallet / PSP (incl. Braintree)
- Stripe — Global PSP / payments platform
- Worldpay — Enterprise acquiring / global payments
Orchestration is another layer
Orchestration platforms route, retry, and often vault credentials across multiple PSPs. They are closer to a control plane than to a single acquirer. See payment orchestration explained and the orchestration companies on the radar:
- Primer — Payment orchestration
- Spreedly — Payment orchestration / integrations
- Yuno — Payment orchestration / routing
How to use the distinction in a vendor review
- If you need one merchant account and one API, you are usually shopping for a PSP.
- If you already have acquiring and need a technical connection, you may only need a gateway.
- If you need failover across PSPs or a unified token vault, look at orchestration — and still budget for the processors underneath.
Concrete pairs (when published) live under Compare. A typical PSP-to-PSP example is the Adyen vs Stripe comparison when that page exists in the current snapshot.
Explore providers
- Stripe — Global PSP / payments platform
- Adyen — Enterprise PSP / acquiring
- Primer — Payment orchestration
- Worldpay — Enterprise acquiring / global payments
Related comparisons
Frequently asked questions
Can one company be both a gateway and a processor?
Yes. Many PSPs combine a developer-facing gateway (APIs, checkout, tokens) with acquiring or processing. The useful question is which licences and connections you actually get in each country, not the homepage label.
Where does payment orchestration sit?
Orchestration sits above one or more processors: it routes, retries, and often vaults cards while the underlying PSPs still process. Payment Market Radar treats orchestration as its own provider category when that is how a company is monitored.
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