Payment gateway
Also called: payment processor
The service that collects a payment from a buyer and settles it to a business's bank account, handling cards, wallets and local bank methods — Stripe, Razorpay, PayPal and PayU are examples.
The gateway, not the course platform, is what actually holds the payment rails and the compliance behind them. A course platform either integrates with your gateway account, or takes payments into its own and pays you later.
Which of those it is decides three practical things: how quickly the money reaches you, whose name appears on the buyer's statement, and what happens to the money if you leave the platform.
For example
A student pays $100 for a course by card. The gateway authorizes the charge, keeps its own fee — a small percentage plus a fixed amount per charge — and pays the rest out to the academy's bank account on its payout schedule, usually a few business days later. Refunds and chargebacks are handled by the gateway, not the platform.
On Prolaud
Academies connect their own Stripe account, which charges cards in US dollars, or their own Razorpay account, which charges in rupees and is the option for academies in India. Either way, settlement is between the processor and the academy's bank.
Related terms
- UPI Autopay — A feature of UPI, the instant bank-to-bank payment system used in India, that lets a payer approve a recurring debit once, so later installments are collected automatically up to an agreed limit without approving each one.
- GST invoice — A tax invoice issued under India's Goods and Services Tax, carrying the seller's GSTIN, the tax rate and the tax amount shown separately. A business buyer needs one to claim input credit.
- Zero commission — A pricing model where the platform charges a flat subscription and takes no percentage of sales. The payment processor's own fee still applies, because that is charged by the processor, not the platform.