Hosted Payment Page

A hosted payment page (HPP) is a payment collection interface that is served and managed by a payment provider, a PSP, Payment Gateway, or Payments Orchestration Platform, rather than by the merchant. When a customer is ready to pay, they are redirected from the merchant's website or app to the payment provider's hosted page to enter their card details. After payment is complete, they are returned to the merchant's site.

The primary benefit of a hosted payment page is PCI DSS scope reduction. Because the cardholder enters their payment data directly on the payment provider's infrastructure, that sensitive data never touches the merchant's servers or network. The merchant never sees the raw card number. This dramatically simplifies the merchant's compliance obligations, they may qualify for a much simpler SAQ (Self-Assessment Questionnaire) than they would if they were collecting card data directly.

The tradeoff is control over the user experience. A fully hosted payment page means the merchant is redirected away from their own checkout, which can interrupt the flow and introduce branding inconsistencies. Most payment providers offer customization options, allowing merchants to apply their own branding, colors, and some layout preferences, but the degree of customization is inherently limited compared to a self-hosted checkout built on a gateway API.

For businesses where checkout experience is a critical competitive differentiator, alternatives like iFrame-based collection (where PCI-sensitive fields are hosted by the provider but embedded within the merchant's own page) provide a middle path: PCI scope reduction without the redirect.