Gateway setup (NMI / cart-native)
For most stores past starter volume: NMI gateway with your processor of choice, integrated to your cart. Lets you change processors later without ever touching your checkout page.
Behind every smooth online checkout is a gateway that's wired correctly, fraud rules that aren't blocking real customers, and a chargeback workflow that doesn't eat margin. Boring on a good day — and a good day is the goal.
Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, custom — each one talks to a specific list of gateways. NMI is a strong neutral choice when you want to keep your cart and your processor separate (so you can switch processors without rebuilding checkout).
Card-not-present chargebacks are the silent margin killer. The right fraud-rule setup blocks the obvious bots without blocking your real Tuesday customer. And a clean dispute-response workflow wins more chargebacks than most stores realize is possible.
Subscription boxes, software, memberships — recurring billing with intelligent retry on declines, dunning emails that don't feel adversarial, and clean cancellation flows that satisfy the regulators.
Stripe is fine. It's also expensive past a certain volume. A traditional merchant account on a gateway like NMI often pays for itself once you're past $30k/month — and gives you actual customer service, not a help-doc search bar.
A gateway that's portable, fraud rules tuned to your actual order pattern, and reporting that maps to how a finance team thinks — not how a developer thinks.
For most stores past starter volume: NMI gateway with your processor of choice, integrated to your cart. Lets you change processors later without ever touching your checkout page.
Velocity rules, blocked countries (only if it makes sense for you), AVS and CVV match thresholds. Tuned to your order pattern, not a vendor's default template that costs you good orders.
Subscription engine that handles trials, mid-cycle upgrades, smart retries, dunning email sequences, and clean cancellations. Card-update emails before expirations.
Automated evidence packets pulled from your cart and shipping data. Win rate on legitimate disputes goes from "we never bother" to actually meaningful.
We were on Stripe doing about $80k a month and the fees were eating us. Switched to a real merchant account on NMI — same checkout experience for customers, dropped our effective rate by almost a full percent. Pays my Friday espresso bar tab.
A founder of a DTC apparel brand · sample composite
Tell me what cart you're on and your monthly volume — I'll show you whether a portable gateway makes sense for you yet.