Adyen for Platforms Alternatives

Why Platforms Look for Adyen for Platforms Alternatives

Adyen for Platforms is a serious product. It's built for scale, backed by strong global acquiring, and handles complex multi-party payment flows for some of the world's largest marketplaces. For enterprise platforms committed to Adyen as their sole processor, it delivers.

But commitment to a single processor is exactly where the problems start. Platforms look for alternatives when they hit one or more of these walls:

PSP Lock-In

Every merchant on Adyen for Platforms processes through Adyen. If a large customer has a negotiated Worldpay contract with interchange-plus rates they've spent months optimising, you can't support them. If you want to route domestic UK transactions through a local acquirer for better authorisation rates, you can't. Adyen is both the infrastructure and the processor — and like Stripe Connect, they have no incentive to support alternatives.

Complexity and Time to Market

Adyen's integration is enterprise-heavy. The documentation is thorough but dense, the onboarding flow requires significant custom development, and the path from signed contract to live integration typically takes months — not weeks. For platforms with deals waiting, that timeline costs real revenue.

No Multi-Channel

Adyen for Platforms covers online checkout and in-store POS. It doesn't natively support voice payments, IVR payment capture, payment links with platform branding, or AI agent payment flows. Platforms needing these channels must integrate third-party solutions alongside Adyen — creating separate PCI surfaces, additional engineering complexity, and fragmented reporting.

Sales-Led, Enterprise-Only

Adyen doesn't offer self-serve access. There's no sandbox you can spin up in five minutes. The process starts with a sales call, moves through commercial negotiation, and requires minimum volume commitments. Mid-market platforms — processing millions, not billions — often find themselves outside Adyen's sweet spot.

Limited White-Label

Adyen's merchant dashboard is Adyen-branded. The onboarding experience is functional but not designed to disappear behind your platform's brand. For platforms that want payments to feel like a native feature — not a redirect to a third-party portal — this creates friction with merchants who expect a unified experience.

What to Evaluate in an Alternative

Before comparing specific alternatives, clarify what you need:

PSP flexibility: Do your merchants need to use specific gateways? If yes, you need PSP-neutral infrastructure — not another single-PSP solution.

Channel coverage: Do you need voice, payment links, or AI agent payments — or just checkout? This filters out many alternatives immediately.

White-label: How important is it that payments look and feel like your product, not a third party's?

Speed to market: Are deals waiting? If you need to be live in weeks, not months, pre-built components matter.

Compliance: Do you want to carry PCI compliance or have a provider handle it?

Accessibility: Do you need self-serve access and fast iteration, or are you comfortable with a sales-led, enterprise procurement cycle?

The Alternatives

1. Stripe Connect

What it is: Stripe's platform payments solution. An aggregator model where the platform acts as the master account, with Connected Accounts for each sub-merchant. Well-documented, developer-friendly, and the most common starting point for platform payments.

Strengths:

• Best-in-class developer experience and documentation

• Fast time to market — sandbox in minutes, live in days to weeks

• Large ecosystem of tools, plugins, and integrations

• Self-serve access and transparent pricing

• Strong no-code options (Express accounts, hosted onboarding)

Limitations:

• Same single-PSP problem. Stripe Connect means using Stripe as the processor. You've swapped Adyen lock-in for Stripe lock-in.

• Merchants can't bring their own PSP

• No voice payments, IVR, or AI agent payment infrastructure

• Geographic gaps in some markets (Southeast Asia, Africa, parts of Latin America)

• Pricing pressure at high volume

Best for: Platforms that need fast time to market and strong DX — and are comfortable with single-PSP lock-in, just with Stripe instead of Adyen.

2. Payment Orchestration (Primer, Spreedly)

What it is: Middleware that routes transactions across multiple PSPs. Gives you multi-PSP connectivity, failover, and tokenisation through a single integration.

Strengths:

• Multi-PSP routing and failover

• PSP-agnostic tokenisation (especially Spreedly's vault)

• Smart routing for authorisation rate optimisation

• Primer: visual workflow builder, no-code routing rules

• Spreedly: deep vault infrastructure, 120+ connections

Limitations:

• Merchant-facing, not platform-facing. These are tools for merchants to optimise their own payment stack — not tools for platforms to embed payments for their merchants.

• No white-label merchant onboarding or portal

• No voice payments, payment links, or AI agent infrastructure

• Heavy engineering lift — Spreedly in particular is flagged by users as complex to integrate

• You still need to build checkout, onboarding, reporting, and merchant management yourself

Best for: Large enterprises that already have PSP relationships and want to optimise routing between them. Not a like-for-like Adyen for Platforms replacement for platforms.

3. PayFac-as-a-Service (Payrix, Finix)

What it is: Platforms that give you PayFac-like capabilities without building everything from scratch. You get merchant onboarding, underwriting, and revenue share — but through a managed service rather than building your own PayFac.

Strengths:

• Higher revenue per transaction than revenue-share models

• More control over merchant underwriting and pricing

• Faster than building PayFac from scratch

Limitations:

• Still typically single-PSP. Most PFaaS solutions process through a single acquirer.

• Compliance obligations remain — you're still operating as a PayFac (albeit a managed one)

• Regulatory burden scales with your merchant base

• No multi-channel coverage (voice, links, AI)

• Slower to market than pre-built payment layers

Best for: Platforms where payment revenue is a primary business model and you want maximum margin — and you're willing to accept the compliance overhead.

4. PSP-Neutral Payment Layer (Shuttle)

What it is: A payment layer that embeds multi-PSP payment infrastructure into your platform. White-label checkout, merchant onboarding, management portal, and multi-channel support — all through a single integration.

Strengths:

• PSP-neutral: 40+ gateways. Merchants choose their PSP or you assign one. Enterprise customers bring their Worldpay/Stripe/Checkout.com account without friction.

• Multi-channel: Embedded checkout, voice payments, payment links, chat, and AI agent payments — all through the same integration.

• White-label everything: Checkout, onboarding, merchant portal — branded as your platform, not as Shuttle.

• PCI compliance included: PCI DSS Level 1 + ISO 27001 + SOC 2. Your PCI scope is effectively zero.

• Live in weeks: Pre-built components, not a multi-month enterprise integration project.

• Revenue share: Monetise payments without becoming a PayFac.

Limitations:

• Lower per-transaction margin than full PayFac ownership

• Less transaction-level routing optimisation than dedicated orchestration platforms

• Newer entrant — smaller brand recognition than Stripe or Adyen

Best for: Platforms that need to embed payments for their merchants, support multiple PSPs, and go live quickly — without becoming a payments company.

Comparison Matrix

Making the Decision

Stay with Adyen for Platforms if:

• All merchants are happy processing through Adyen

• No customers require alternative PSPs or have existing gateway contracts

• You only need online checkout and in-store POS (no voice, links, AI)

• Adyen's enterprise sales process and timeline work for your business

• You have the engineering resource for a months-long integration

• Volume justifies Adyen's minimum commitments

Move to an alternative if:

• Enterprise customers mandate their own PSP

• You need voice payments, payment links, or AI agent payment channels

• You want to be live in weeks, not months

• Mid-market deal flow means you can't wait for Adyen's sales cycle

• You need white-label merchant experiences that look like your platform

• You want PSP negotiating leverage — the ability to move volume between processors

FAQ

Can I migrate from Adyen for Platforms without disrupting existing merchants? Yes. Most alternatives (including Shuttle) can connect to Adyen as one of their supported gateways. Existing merchants continue processing through Adyen while new merchants (or those requiring different PSPs) use alternative gateways. The transition is additive, not disruptive.

Is Adyen for Platforms really "locked in"? Yes, architecturally. Every sub-merchant on Adyen for Platforms processes exclusively through Adyen's acquiring network. There's no multi-PSP option within the product. Adyen's business model depends on being the processor, not just the infrastructure.

How does Adyen for Platforms compare to Stripe Connect? Both solve the same problem — platform payments — but with different trade-offs. Stripe Connect has better DX, faster time to market, and self-serve access. Adyen for Platforms has stronger enterprise acquiring, unified commerce (online + POS), and better multi-currency support. Both lock you into a single PSP. The choice between them is often about which processor's strengths matter more — but neither solves PSP flexibility.

What if I only need Adyen plus one other PSP? That's a common starting point. A PSP-neutral payment layer lets you keep Adyen for merchants who prefer it while adding Stripe, Worldpay, or any other gateway for those who require it — all through a single integration and a unified merchant experience.

Related Reading

• Shuttle vs Adyen for Platforms — the detailed feature comparison

• Shuttle vs Stripe Connect — if you're considering Stripe instead

• When Your SaaS Outgrows Stripe Connect — a migration playbook (the same principles apply when outgrowing Adyen)

• How Platforms Monetise Payments Without PSP Lock-In — why PSP-neutral architecture unlocks more revenue

• Shuttle vs Checkout.com for Platforms — if you're considering Checkout.com

• Shuttle vs Worldpay for Platforms — if you're considering Worldpay

• PayFac Alternatives for Platforms — if you're considering the PayFac route

• Payment Orchestration Alternatives — if you're considering Primer, Spreedly, or Gr4vy

Outgrowing Adyen for Platforms? Shuttle gives your platform 40+ PSPs through a single integration — with white-label checkout, voice payments, payment links, and AI agent support. Your enterprise customers bring their own gateway. PCI DSS Level 1 compliance included. Live in weeks, not months.

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