Maximizing Reach: Optimizing Payment Method Mix

Optimizing payments isn’t just about processing successful transactions—it’s about making strategic choices in your payments operations to maximize revenue, minimize costs, and delight loyal customers. We're operating in a global economy where customers have nearly limitless choices: in what they buy, who they buy from, and even how they pay. How you manage checkout and payment processing plays an increasingly prominent role in how you attract and retain customers.

One successful way to attract new sales and satisfy buyers it to accept a variety of payment methods: PayPal, Venmo, CashApp, ApplePay, Crypto, and WeChatPay to name a few. That doesn't mean just blindly accepting every possible payment method out there. Instead, you must make strategic decisions around your payment method mix given the known variables—customer demand, processing costs, and fraud risk, to name a few.

You also must continuously evaluate how those methods perform over time and adjust your mix accordingly. Customer preferences shift. Fees fluctuate. Payment methods emerge and evolve. Certain payment methods become more or less relevant as a function of your sales channels. Businesses that treat payment processing as the strategic priority it is—not just a business necessity—need the flexibility to evolve their payment method offerings with market demand.

At Pagos, we help you do exactly that. No matter how many payment methods you support or where you process them, we bring all your payments data into one place—so you can measure performance by payment method, identify problems or wins, and make smart decisions about your own setup.

See Performance Across All Payment Methods

After you connect your payment processors to Pagos, we import all your payments data, harmonize it into a single dataset, and present it back to you in ‌our Visualizations platform. Since we first opened our doors, we’ve ingested over 10 billion transaction events from over 98 payment methods and counting—from cards and wallets to Stripe Link and Trustly. Whether you're launching Pix in Brazil, adding Konbini in Japan, or experimenting with BNPL options like Klarna or Affirm, we can help you establish baseline metrics and identify trends in purchasing behavior across your entire payments stack.

Inside the Pagos Visualizations platform, you’ll find dashboards that let you explore:

1. Approval and decline trends, broken down by payment method, processor, customer country, issuer, and more

2. Cost of acceptance per method, including effective rates and fees

3. Data anomaly alerts, like sudden spikes in declines for a specific payment method or customer segment

4. Customer behavior patterns, such as which methods are linked to higher AOV, better retention, or more fraud

You can view your approval rate side-by-side across all payment methods, drill into the reason codes behind each decline, or hone in on how a new payment method is performing in a specific country. Whether you're focused on cards, wallets, direct debit, or real-time payments, you’ll have the tools to truly understand what's working with each segment of your customer base.

Monitor Changes & Catch Issues Early

When your payment method mix evolves, your data should tell you where you've made the right changes—and where you might have missed the mark. Pagos lets you measure the impact of new payment method launches, including identifying if you're gaining net-new customers or just shifting established customers away from existing ones. Compare approval rates, fraud patterns, and customer loyalty by method, and stay on top of what "normal" looks like for each.

Even better, our anomaly detection engine monitors all your payments data automatically. Using AI, we monitor trends within individual segments of your incoming volume and alert you when anything changes. If your ACH transactions suddenly see a spike in fraud declines, or your iDEAL approval rate starts trending down in the Netherlands, we’ll let you know! You can rest easy knowing you can identify—and fix—any issues with a payment method before it impacts revenue.

Measure Costs

When optimizing your payment method mix, you can't ignore the true cost to your business of accepting any given payment method. Each one comes with a price tag, and the incoming revenue needs to make the associated fees worth it. With Pagos, you can isolate fees by category and payment method, calculate your effective rate, and compare that to revenue performance. It’s one thing to support a high-cost payment method—it’s another to know whether it actually converts enough or increases average order values to justify the expense.

You can also explore indirect costs like refunds or fraud losses by payment method. Combine this data with your own internal metrics for support call volume and negative reviews to grasp the full impact of some payment methods on your business. 

Ask Questions. Get Answers.

With Pagos Copilot, our interactive AI-powered chatbot, you don’t have to hunt for insights. Just ask and we'll guide you to the payments data you need! Curious which payment method is most popular in Germany? Want to compare the decline rate for wallets versus BNPL in Q1? Copilot can analyze your data on the fly and return specific answers in plain language.

Payments Strategy Starts With Visibility

You are going to switch up your payment method mix over time. You're going to expand into new markets or test out new payment technologies. You're looking to optimize payments performance, and that's just part of it. What you can't do is go into any expansion or experiment blind. Your ability to see and understand how every method performs is more than a competitive advantage—it's a true business need.

Pagos gives you the data and tools necessary to do that with confidence. You don’t have to guess whether your new real-time payment option is worth the investment—or wait for support tickets to tell you something’s going wrong. You’ll already know. 

If you’re treating your payments stack as a strategic growth lever, make sure you have the visibility to back it up.