Introducing agnostic in-app payments

Orkhan Abdullayev

CEO / Co-Founder

Accepting payments inside mobile apps has always been constrained by platform rules. Until now.

On April 30, a U.S. court decision confirmed that Apple must allow developers to direct users to external links for alternative payment methods. This creates a new opportunity for businesses: owning the payment experience inside your app — without being tied to a single payment processor.

A chance to rethink mobile payments

In-app payments have traditionally been controlled by the platforms. App publishers had to use built-in payment systems, pay up to 30% fees, and accept limited flexibility.

For payment teams this meant:

No control over approval rates or payment costs
No ability to route payments to preferred PSPs
No flexibility across geographies or currencies

The new ruling changes that. It gives companies an opportunity to take back control and reimagine how payments work in their mobile apps. While the ruling currently applies to Apple’s US operations, it signals a broader shift toward more open, flexible payment ecosystems worldwide.

Built for flexibility

We have upgraded the Payrails’ native SDK to make this easy.

It gives you a simple way to accept payments inside your app, using the payment processor of your choice, in any country or currency. The SDK is agnostic by design — no lock-in, no hidden dependencies.

Some of the things you can do now:

Integrate with any PSP or MoR — global or local
Customize checkout flows by market
Route transactions dynamically to optimize for cost, authorization rate, or risk
Run A/B tests to continuously optimize performance
Unify data across web and app payments for better visibility

All while staying fully PCI-compliant.

Optimizing payment performance globally

We’ve seen finance and payment teams take on more ownership of payment performance - not just tracking costs, but actively shaping how payments work across markets.

Our platform gives you more control over key areas:

Payment costs by routing outside of platform fees and benefiting from localized pricing and alternative payment methods where they make sense
User experience by localizing checkout flows and payment options to each market
Risk and compliance with built-in tokenization and PCI compliance
Cross-platform consistency by creating a unified payment experience across web and mobile

Many publishers were already running into these limitations, they just didn’t have a clear way out. The new reality changed that, and we knew we had to move fast to present a seamless alternative that just works.

This is a real chance for merchants to rethink how in-app payments work - and to design a system that fits their needs.