6 best payment orchestration platforms for UK businesses

Key takeaways

• Payment orchestration platforms can boost your payment success rates by 2-5% through smart routing and automatic retries—that's £200,000 in recovered revenue for every £10 million you process.

• Traditional orchestration adds another technical layer between your checkout and payment providers, increasing complexity and costs, whilst modern approaches build orchestration capabilities directly into your payment infrastructure.

• Airwallex delivers the benefits of orchestration—better resilience, global payment support, unified reporting—without the complexity of managing a separate platform, making it simpler for UK businesses expanding internationally.

Here's a sobering thought: a 2% improvement in payment authorisation rates means £200,000 in recovered revenue if you're processing £10 million annually. Yet most UK businesses stick with a single payment provider and lose this money whilst risking complete downtime when that provider has issues. 

Payment orchestration platforms promise to fix these problems by consolidating multiple providers, optimising routing, and improving resilience. But, here's the catch: the orchestration market ranges from complex platforms requiring serious engineering resources to integrated payment solutions that give you orchestration benefits without the headache.

This guide compares the leading payment orchestration platforms for UK businesses, explaining what orchestration actually does, when you really need it, and how to choose the right approach.

A quick comparison of the top 6 payment orchestration platforms

6 best payment orchestration platforms for UK businesses

1. Airwallex

Airwallex gives you global payment infrastructure with orchestration capabilities built in—optimised routing, multi-provider resilience, unified reporting—without needing a separate orchestration layer.

Key capabilities:

• Global payment acceptance across 200+ countries with local payment methods

• Multi-currency processing and FX optimisation cutting cross-border costs

• Built-in payment routing across local and international rails

• Unified reporting and reconciliation across all payment channels

• Native fraud prevention and compliance for 50+ markets

Why it's included: UK businesses expanding internationally need orchestration benefits but usually don't need standalone platform complexity. Airwallex delivers multi-provider resilience, global payment coverage, and optimised routing through integrated infrastructure.

Strengths: Removes orchestration complexity by building capabilities into payment infrastructure, transparent FX rates save 2-4% on international payments, processes payments rather than just routing them, comprehensive compliance, zero platform fees.

Considerations: Not a pure orchestration platform—if you want to keep using specific legacy PSPs, dedicated orchestrators might fit better, though this adds technical complexity.

Pricing: No platform or setup fees. Transparent per-transaction pricing typically 30-50% lower than maintaining multiple PSPs through separate orchestration.

→ Explore Airwallex's integrated payment infrastructure

2. Primer

Primer offers dedicated payment orchestration with connections to 100+ PSPs and workflow automation tools.

Why it's included: Well-established orchestration platform with solid technical capabilities.

Strengths: Extensive PSP coverage, modern API design, workflow automation features.

Limitations: Adds complexity as another layer, needs engineering resources for setup and maintenance, platform fees on top of PSP costs, doesn't process payments, dependent on underlying PSP performance.

Pricing: Platform fees plus per-transaction costs on top of PSP fees.

3. Gr4vy

Gr4vy provides cloud-native payment orchestration focused on data residency and compliance.

Why it's included: Modern cloud infrastructure with compliance emphasis.

Strengths: Contemporary infrastructure, data residency options, handles PCI compliance.

Limitations: Another vendor in your payment stack, requires ongoing engineering maintenance, platform costs layer on PSP fees, learning curve for routing optimisation.

Pricing: Platform fee plus usage-based pricing on top of PSP costs.

4. Spreedly

Spreedly offers payment orchestration with extensive PSP connections and vault services.

Why it's included: Long-established orchestration provider with wide PSP coverage.

Strengths: Extensive PSP integrations, mature platform, vault services for card storage.

Limitations: Complex setup process, another technical layer adding potential latency, platform + monthly + transaction fees on top of PSP costs, older technology, needs significant engineering resources.

Pricing: Setup fees, monthly platform fees, plus per-transaction costs—all on top of PSP fees.

5. BR-DGE

BR-DGE provides enterprise-focused payment orchestration with customisable routing.

Why it's included: Enterprise-oriented orchestration solution.

Strengths: Customisation capabilities, enterprise support infrastructure.

Limitations: High implementation complexity needing dedicated engineering, significant setup time (3-6 months), enterprise pricing prohibitive for mid-market, another integration layer, doesn't reduce overall payment costs.

Pricing: Custom enterprise pricing. Combined costs typically exceed integrated platforms.

6. Paydock

Paydock offers payment orchestration focused on Australian and Asia-Pacific markets.

Why it's included: Orchestration option for businesses with APAC presence.

Strengths: APAC market focus, basic orchestration functionality.

Limitations: Limited PSP integrations versus larger platforms, basic routing, additional costs on top of PSP fees, smaller vendor, implementation needs technical resources.

Pricing: Monthly platform fees plus transaction costs in addition to PSP fees.

What is a payment orchestration platform?

Think of a payment orchestration platform as a smart control centre between your checkout and multiple payment providers. Instead of connecting directly to each provider—meaning separate integrations, compliance, and reconciliation—you integrate once with the orchestration platform, and it handles all provider connections.

The orchestration layer makes routing decisions (which provider should handle this transaction?), manages failovers (if Provider A is down, route to Provider B), consolidates reporting, and optimises performance.

Payment orchestration emerged because businesses realised: relying on a single PSP creates risk, whilst maintaining multiple direct PSP integrations creates unsustainable engineering overhead.

What payment orchestration helps you do

Improve authorisation rates through routing and retries

Smart routing sends transactions to the PSP most likely to approve them based on card type, issuing bank, transaction amount, or historical performance. Automated retries attempt failed payments through alternative providers, recovering 1-3% of initially declined transactions.

For a business processing £5 million annually with 5% declines, recovering just 20% of failed transactions through retry logic equals £50,000 in recovered revenue.

Reduce costs by optimising your PSP mix

Different payment providers charge different fees for different transaction types, card schemes, or markets. Orchestration lets you route transactions to the most cost-effective provider whilst maintaining approval rates, potentially cutting overall processing costs by 10-20%.

Increase resilience with multi-provider backup

When a PSP goes down, orchestration automatically routes transactions to backup providers, preventing complete payment failure. Given PSPs average 2-4 significant disruptions yearly, multi-provider resilience protects your revenue during outages.

Add payment methods without major rebuilds

Supporting international payment methods typically means integrating new PSPs. Orchestration platforms often have pre-built connections to providers supporting local methods, letting you expand into new markets faster.

Consolidate reporting and reconciliation

Managing multiple PSPs creates reporting chaos—different dashboards, data formats, timing. Orchestration consolidates payment data, transaction reporting, and reconciliation into unified dashboards.

→ See how Airwallex unifies global payment operations

Why choosing the right platform matters

Your orchestration choice directly impacts payment performance, operational efficiency, and total costs.

Authorisation rates and revenue: A platform improving rates by 2% delivers £200,000 annually for a £10 million business. However, poorly configured orchestration adding latency can decrease conversion, offsetting routing benefits.

Uptime and resilience: Orchestration provides resilience against PSP outages, but the platform itself becomes critical infrastructure. Platform reliability determines whether orchestration improves or complicates your uptime.

Total costs: Whilst orchestration can optimise routing for lower fees, platform costs (setup, monthly, per-transaction) layer on top of PSP costs. Your total cost of payments—PSP fees + orchestration costs + engineering overhead—needs comparing against integrated payment platforms delivering orchestration benefits without separate platform fees.

Speed to market: Platforms vary massively in how quickly you can add payment methods or markets. Understanding how cross-border payments work helps evaluate whether orchestration or integrated international platforms better serve your needs.

Key challenges orchestration should solve

Businesses typically adopt orchestration to address specific problems:

Provider outages: Single PSP dependence means any outage stops payment acceptance. Orchestration enables automatic failover to backup providers.

Integration overhead: Each PSP integration requires initial development, ongoing API maintenance, compliance updates, and reconciliation. Orchestration consolidates this, though the platform itself requires maintenance.

Optimisation difficulty: Authorisation rates vary by card type, issuing bank, market, and acquirer. Without orchestration, optimising these variables requires manual routing or separate PSP relationships per market.

Visibility gaps: Multiple PSPs mean fragmented reporting. Finance teams struggle to understand total payment performance or reconcile settlement. Effective orchestration consolidates visibility.

Reconciliation complexity: Settlement timing differs across PSPs, creating finance team overhead and error risks. Orchestration simplifies reconciliation through unified reporting.

→ Discover how Airwallex simplifies payment operations

Payment orchestration vs alternatives

Orchestration vs direct PSP integrations

Direct integrations give control but require maintaining separate technical work, reconciliation, compliance, and manual routing. Orchestration consolidates these but adds platform costs and another dependency.

Orchestration vs one PSP's optimisation

Major PSPs offer routing optimisation within their own network. This limits routing scope versus orchestration across independent PSPs, but avoids platform costs and complexity.

When orchestration is unnecessary

Businesses with simple stacks—single market, straightforward payment methods, one reliable PSP—often don't need orchestration complexity. Engineering overhead, platform costs, and operational complexity outweigh benefits when payment volumes don't justify optimisation investment.

How to choose the best platform for your business

Questions to ask vendors: What PSPs do you integrate with natively? How does routing logic work? What implementation timeline? What engineering resources needed ongoing? How do you handle compliance across markets? What SLAs for availability? Total costs including setup and fees? What happens when your platform has issues?

What matters by business type: SaaS businesses care about recurring payment optimisation and failed retry logic. Marketplaces need split payments and payout orchestration. International eCommerce requires local payment methods and multi-currency checkout.

Build vs buy: Building in-house gives control but requires substantial engineering investment. Most businesses underestimate ongoing maintenance. Buying orchestration (or using integrated platforms with orchestration capabilities) trades control for faster deployment and predictable costs.

Implementation needs: Timelines range from 2-4 weeks for integrated platforms to 3-6 months for complex standalone orchestrators. Consider resources needed not just for implementation but ongoing maintenance and optimisation.

How Airwallex supports payment orchestration

Airwallex delivers orchestration benefits through integrated global payment infrastructure rather than a separate layer.

Instead of adding another technical layer between your checkout and providers, Airwallex provides native global payment processing with orchestration capabilities built in: automated routing across local and international rails in 200+ countries, multi-currency processing eliminating FX markups, unified reporting across all channels, and native compliance for 50+ markets.

For UK businesses expanding internationally, this delivers orchestration benefits—multi-provider resilience, global payment support, optimised routing—without orchestration complexity. Rather than managing separate platform fees, PSP fees, integration maintenance, and routing optimisation, you get consolidated infrastructure with orchestration included.

The cost advantages are substantial. Where standalone orchestration adds platform fees (often £500-£5,000+ monthly) plus transaction fees on top of PSP costs, Airwallex's integrated approach provides lower total costs. For international payments, transparent FX rates alone typically save 2-4% compared to traditional PSPs.

→ Explore Airwallex's global payment platform

Conclusion

Payment orchestration platforms help UK businesses improve authorisation rates, reduce downtime risk, optimise costs, and consolidate reporting. However, approaches vary significantly—from complex standalone platforms adding layers and costs to integrated solutions delivering orchestration benefits through unified infrastructure.

The right choice depends on your payment complexity, engineering resources, international ambitions, and cost tolerance. Businesses with straightforward needs often don't require orchestration at all, whilst those expanding internationally may find integrated platforms with built-in orchestration more practical than standalone orchestrators.

The businesses optimising payment performance aren't necessarily adopting the most complex orchestration—they're choosing approaches matching operational needs whilst minimising technical overhead and costs.

Ready to optimise your payment infrastructure? Open an Airwallex account to access global payment processing with built-in routing optimisation, multi-currency support, and unified reporting without orchestration platform complexity.

FAQs

When does a business actually need a payment orchestration platform?

You benefit from orchestration when single PSP dependence creates unacceptable downtime risk, expanding to multiple markets requires diverse payment methods, authorisation rate optimisation could meaningfully increase revenue, or managing multiple PSPs directly creates unsustainable engineering overhead. 

Simple, single-market payment stacks often don't need orchestration complexity.

Can payment orchestration improve payment success rates?

Yes, orchestration typically improves authorisation rates by 1-5% through intelligent routing, automated retry logic, and failover during outages. 

However, actual improvement depends on routing sophistication, PSP quality, and implementation effectiveness. Poorly configured orchestration can decrease success rates by adding latency or routing to suboptimal providers.

How long does it take to implement a payment orchestration platform?

Implementation ranges from 2-4 weeks for integrated payment platforms with built-in orchestration to 3-6 months for complex standalone orchestrators requiring extensive integration, routing configuration, and testing. 

Ongoing optimisation and maintenance continue indefinitely as you refine routing logic and add providers.

What are the risks or downsides of using a payment orchestration platform?

Orchestration adds another technical dependency—platform outages can affect all payments. It increases payment stack complexity, creating additional failure points and maintenance requirements. 

Platform costs layer on PSP fees, increasing total costs unless routing optimisation delivers offsetting savings. Some platforms introduce latency, potentially decreasing conversion. Implementation and ongoing optimisation require significant engineering resources.