Introduction
Businesses have gone mobile over the last decade. And this is not going to stop any time soon. Global businesses are joining this potential bandwagon of success in the form of mobility solutions to grab limitless possibilities.Custom mobile application development servicesoffered by top software companies today have created a new world called mCommerce.
Challenges and solutions are two sides of a coin for software developers. When it comes to mobile commerce, aka mCommerce, there also comes a challenge or two. In mobile commerce, especially in payment modules, processing digital transactions in a secure and transparent manner is the top concern for all mobile business owners. Here, the million-dollar question is how to add a payment gateway to the mobile app.
In this article, we will understand the basics of payment gateways before jumping into the steps to integrate payment gateways into React Native apps. Let’s get started, shall we?
What is a mobile payment gateway?
A payment gateway is a service that allows all the users of a mobile application to make secure payments for the digital products or services they purchase within the app ecosystem. On the other hand, app owners or merchants of mCommerce businesses accept payments through the payment gateway.
Long story short, the built-in payment gateway is a secure layer that processes financial transactions within the app related to buying and selling. The gateway’s main function is to receive, process, encrypt, verify and transfer transaction data from the customer to the merchant to buy everything they want in a quick time.
It is a payment gateway that empowers buyers & sellers to commence online or mobile transactions using various payment modes:
You all might be aware of most or all of these, right? Good. Now let us take a look at some of the popular payment gateways:
Which Payment Gateway would suit you perfectly?
Don’t worry if you don’t know it.
This decision of answering the best payment gateway depends on your business requirements and project scope with other specifics. You can hire amobile app development companyto get experts’ advice and share your specifics to get started. There are specific payment gateways integrated especially with online investment businesses and booking websites.
The location of your app also matters greatly as payment gateways have different policies regarding different countries. You are covered for all such things if you havehired mobile app development servicesfrom Bytes Technolab.
Understanding how a payment gateway works
Today, it is just impossible to imagine anynative mobile appor cross-platform mobile app that is offering in-app purchases without payment gateway integration. Here we will talk about React Native apps. Payment gateway integration into React Native applications serves as a medium that gives authority to the transactions and encryption of data for order fulfillment.
In the most common cases, a payment gateway connects the merchant’s application, the user’s shopping cart, the acquiring (merchant’s) bank that usually acts as a payment processor, and the issuing (cardholder’s) bank. To bring clarity on this matter, let me discuss the line of events occurring when a user is making a payment for the items added to an eCommerce mobile app’s shopping cart.
Events that make up the payment gateway-driven online payment process:
Things Mobile App Owners Should Know Before Payment Gateway Integration
High Commission Rates of Google Play & Apple
All those, who really want to know more about payment gateway integration for their next app, need to know a fact.
Appleand Google Play billing solutions exist for selling digital content within the iOS and Android apps. As purchasing modes, they allow users to buy content that is found inside Android and iOS mobile applications. But they take huge commissions (30%) from the merchant’s share. This means that the merchant only gets 70%.
Third-party payment gateways have nothing to do with in-app purchases or digital content that is sold within the app. Instead, they can perform the role of eCommerce apps and other apps that sell services and products outside an Android or iOS app. This calls for atop mobile app development companyto help you foster payment gateway integration into a mobile app.
Components for Payment Gateway Integration into Mobile Apps
Client and Server SDKs
Every payment gateway has its own Software Development Kit (SDK) that can be downloaded by the developers from the provider’s official website. Developers can use this client-side SDK and server-side SDK to connect with existing app functionality to facilitate the collection and handling of payment information in a secure way.
APIs
These payment gateway APIs will help mobile app developers to configure SDKs and libraries for payment gateway integration into React Native mobile apps. APIs will empower the product or service sellers to gain complete control over the payment and checkout experience and define the whole journey.
3rd-party Apps
There are many third-party apps available in the market that helps people with less or no coding experience to facilitate payment gateway integration into mobile apps.
Steps to Integrate Payment Gateway into Mobile Apps
You have to know that to integrate payment gateway on native iOS, native Android,Cross-platform or hybrid apps, the details may vary depending on a couple of choices of mobile app owners:
However, the generic process of developing, integrating, and implementing the payment gateway into a mobile app remains the same. We will take Braintree as an example from the list of popular payment gateways we saw earlier in this article.
So let’s get started straight away now!
The developers will have to download and install Braintree SDK for Android/iOS. The developers will create an account using credentials. This is followed by the Braintree configuration on the app delegate. Then themobile app developerswill create the tokens with the help of Braintree client tokens and complete the setup of callbacks to the server. This process results in generation of an asynchronous request that will be executed and a callback will be invoked.
Till now, the initiation process setup has been done between the payment gateway (using Braintree SDK) and the application server. Now we are about to see the setup for calling the Braintree SDK to process and execute the payment request by a random user.
The complete step-by-step process for developers is shown in the image below:
A callback event is generated to send the status of the payment successfully to the payment gateway dashboard, client-server and to the front-end as a result. These callbacks can be set up using Webhooks.
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About Webhooks
Webhooks are simply user-defined HTTP callbacks (URLs) or simple code snippets linked to a web application. Usually, they work between two APIs and help to receive and provide a small amount of data to other apps. These URLs are promptly triggered when specific events occur. Regarding the payment process, Payment Failure and Payment Success are normal events that are meant to occur. The mobile app front-end automatically gets a response from the payment gateway within a couple of seconds.
But what happens when the payment process is taking much time due to unwanted delays? In this case, the Webhooks come to the scene where they gather every detail about the payment request, payment status, transaction ID, etc., and send it to the server to add the payment details and status to the database.
How Much Would It Cost to Integrate Payment Gateway into Mobile Apps?
Mobile payment gateway integration process, time, and cost differ on a case-to-case basis as every mobile app development project has a unique requirement list. Sometimes the process to integrate a payment gateway is simple and sometimes it could get complex. And based on that mobile app developers may need to integrate basic and advanced features into your app.
However, if youhire professional mobile app developers, any payment integration into a mobile app can be done within 2 days to 1 week. No matter how complex does it gets regarding the implementation of advanced features like storing the card data securely, refund module implementation, creating channels within your mobile app to connect financial institutions, etc., it will be accomplished within 1 week (around 40 hours.)
Based on the final quotation and hourly rate, the cost of integrating a payment gateway into a mobile application will be decided.
Please find the charges of popular payment gateways below:
These charges are subjected to change and that clearly depends on the indi
Takeaways
Apparently, the steps and cost to integrate a payment gateway into a mobile app depend on three primary aspects.
The first two aspects are related and must meet certain compliance and protocols. The cost of similar goods and services with competitors, mobile app’s features, development tasks, monetization strategy, etc. brings clarity on what to choose and why.
Still, Have Doubts and Want to Know More?
If you,
Bytes Technolab, a top mobile software applications development company will definitely help you with the rich experience of our leaders, mentors, and senior mobile app developers.Go through the portfolioand check out what makes us a trusted mobile app development company.
The region/location of conducting your business also influences more than anything. Many times the local payment gateway could offer more benefits than the rest and this is proven as a popular approach too.
The platform on which you may want to launch your next mobile app could have an impact on your revenue and business model. In the mobile app development world, it is believed that Google Play has a more lenient and relaxed policy than Apple.
To summarize in a nutshell, if you plan to sell subscriptions, virtual coins, etc., you will have to integrate in-app purchases via Apple and Google and give away 30% in commission. And if you are an eCommerce business selling physical goods via eCommerce mobile apps on Android & iOS, you can use any payment gateway depending upon your preferences or experts’ recommendations.
