Digital Art Sales in Iran Without Foreign Gateways

The Problem We Were Actually Solving

In our case, the problem wasn't just whether we could accept payments in Iran - it was also how to make our system compliant with the various restrictions imposed by payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe. These gateways have strict guidelines around the types of transactions they can process, the countries they can operate in, and the data they can collect. For us, finding a payment gateway that met these requirements was the top priority.

What We Tried First (And Why It Failed)

We started by looking at alternatives to PayPal and Stripe, like Gumroad and Payhip. These services are designed to make it easy to sell digital goods online, and they both claim to support countries where traditional payment gateways don't work. But as we dug deeper, we realized that these services aren't just payment gateways - they're also e-commerce platforms that require us to structure our digital art sales in a very specific way. For example, Gumroad requires us to set a specific price for our digital art, and we have to provide a clear description of the product being sold. Payhip, on the other hand, requires us to provide a direct link to our digital art so that customers can download it immediately. Neither service really worked for us, as we needed more flexibility in our pricing and sales structure.

The Architecture Decision

After trying out Gumroad and Payhip, we decided to go with a different approach. We chose to use a custom payment gateway that we built in-house, using a combination of stripe and braintree APIs (for the purposes of this article the names are used as examples). This allowed us to bypass the restrictions imposed by traditional payment gateways and create a payment system that was customized to our specific needs. We also made sure to build in robust compliance controls to ensure that our system was PCI-DSS compliant.

What The Numbers Said After

In terms of metrics, our decision to use a custom payment gateway paid off. We saw a 20% increase in sales in the first month, and a corresponding decrease in chargebacks. We also achieved a significant reduction in our overall payment processing costs. From a security perspective, using a custom payment gateway also allowed us to implement additional security controls that we wouldn't have been able to with traditional payment gateways. For example, we were able to implement a strict two-factor authentication system for administrators, which significantly reduced the risk of account takeovers.

What I Would Do Differently

In retrospect, I would have approached the problem differently from the outset. Rather than trying to find a traditional payment gateway that worked with Iran, I would have started by designing a custom payment system that met our specific needs. I would have also done more research into the compliance requirements imposed by payment gateways, and made sure to build in robust compliance controls from the start. And finally, I would have worked more closely with our engineering team to ensure that our payment system was not only secure, but also easy to use and maintain.