Payment gateway

A payment gateway is the service that takes a guest's card payment online: it authorises the card, runs security checks such as 3-D Secure, moves the money and pays it out to your bank. Stripe is the best-known example in vacation rentals.

For direct bookings a gateway is what turns your website from a brochure into a shop, since guests can pay at the moment they book. It also unlocks the useful patterns around payments: deposits and balance payments on a schedule, pre-authorised security deposits and automatic refunds under your cancellation policy.