Payment Routers

A payment router is the key to maximizing your payment processing success. Instead of being locked into a single payment processor that becomes a critical point of failure, a payment router gives you the power to distribute transactions across multiple merchant accounts with intelligent, automated logic.

This means when one processor goes down, experiences issues, or starts declining more transactions than usual, your business keeps running. The router allows you to shift traffic to healthy processors, protects you from hitting processing caps, and gives you the flexibility to optimize approval rates by testing and routing to the best-performing merchants for each transaction type.

Whether you're processing high volumes, need multi-currency support, want to protect against downtime, or simply want to maximize every sale—a payment router transforms payment processing from a single point of failure into a intelligent, resilient system that works for you 24/7.

Why Use a Payment Router

Redundancy & Failover

Eliminate single point of failure
Automatic handling of merchant downtime
Continue processing when one merchant has issues

Optimization

Maximize approval rates across processors
Balance transaction volume automatically
Route based on card type, items, or customer

Flexibility

Support multiple currencies through different merchants
Configure complex rules without code changes
Adapt to changing business needs in real-time

Best for:

Need redundancy/failover protection
Multiple currencies
High transaction volumes
Complex routing requirements
Optimizing approval rates
Item-based or customer-based routing needs

Activating a Payment Router

After you create your payment router, you will need to assign it to your campaign:

Go to your campaign settings
Set the campaign's Payment Type to Router
Select your router from the dropdown
All transactions will route through the selected router using the router's currency

Understanding Routing Methods

When you create a router, you choose how transactions are distributed across merchants:

Round Robin - Rotates transactions evenly across all merchants in sequence

Weighted - Distributes transactions by percentage across merchants

Volume - Routes based on remaining monthly processing capacity

Custom - Use API overrides to implement your own routing logic, or contact support for custom algorithms

Learn more: Router Setup Guide

How Router Logic Works

When a transaction comes through, the router evaluates multiple rules in a specific order to determine which merchant should process it. This includes checking merchant groups, BIN restrictions, item routing rules, caps, priorities, and more before applying the routing method.

Every transaction logs its routing decision in the Route Log tab on the order. Use this to debug routing issues, verify logic is working correctly, and understand which rules were applied to each transaction.

Learn more: Router Logic & Decision Flow

Learn more: Payment Router Troubleshooting

Testing Your Router

Vrio provides a testing tool to simulate routing without processing real transactions:

Go to Settings → Payment Routers
Select your router
Click Test Router or Simulate

What to test:

Different card types
Different payment methods
Multiple test runs to see distribution pattern
Specific items (if using item-based routing)
BIN restrictions

What you'll see:

Which merchant would be selected
Why that merchant was chosen
Routing method used
Any rules applied

After testing with the simulator, process test transactions through your campaign and check the route log on each order to verify routing decisions.

Advanced Features

Once your basic router is working, you can enable advanced features:

Priorities & Caps

Force merchants to get minimum volume before others
Limit merchants to maximum volume
Learn more: Priorities and Caps

Initial Decline Reattempts (IDR)

Automatically retry declined transactions on different merchant
Configure reattempt restrictions by gateway, processor, or category
Learn more: Initial Decline Reattempts

Auto-Deactivation

Automatically disable merchants with consecutive declines
Set threshold and get alerts when triggered
Learn more: Auto-Deactivation

Item-Based Routing

Route based on items in cart
Restrict certain items to specific merchants
Learn more: Item-Based Routing

Max Attempts

Limit maximum payment attempts per order
Fraud prevention and risk management
Learn more: Max Attempts

Merchant Groups

Assign customers to specific merchants
Include or exclude merchants for specific customers

BIN Routing

Block specific card BINs from certain merchants
Priority routing for specific BINs to preferred merchants
Learn more: BIN Routing

Troubleshooting

Payment Router Troubleshooting Guide

FAQ