Astra | The instant payments API

The payments cloud

A gateway processes the transaction. Astra runs all of money movement.

A gateway processes the transaction and leaves the rest to you. Astra is the vertically integrated Payments Cloud that runs the money movement and everything around it, so you integrate against a finished platform instead of building one.

Build the entire infrastructure stack or build your product?

The visible price covers moving the transaction. Everything else you assemble yourself, and each piece is its own contract, integration, and point of failure, so the real cost lands long before your first payment. Astra runs both: the transaction and everything around it, on one platform.

Two ways to buy payments

A gateway and a Payments Cloud both process the transaction. Everything around it is where they diverge. Pick a question your team will hit in year one and compare the answers.

The payments cloud

A finished platform. Ledgering, reconciliation, webhooks, and reporting are already live, so day one is integration, not construction.

Verdict: Already running

Gateway

A way to move a transaction. Ledgering, reconciliation, webhooks, and reporting are yours to build before the first payment clears.

Verdict: You build the rest

The payments cloud

It moves. Just-in-time funding means no pre-funded float, so your capital isn't locked up waiting.

Verdict: No float

Gateway

It waits. Pre-funding float means money sits idle in an account before a customer ever sends a cent.

Verdict: Capital tied up

The payments cloud

A setting you turn on. New rails and new products run on the same core and the same compliance you already cleared.

Verdict: Configuration, not a rebuild

Gateway

A new integration. Every rail is its own contract, its own build, and its own compliance review before you can launch.

Verdict: Your next build

The payments cloud

The platform does. Identity, monitoring, and controls run inside Astra, so you answer from one system of record instead of a patchwork.

Verdict: One system of record

Gateway

You do. KYC, KYB, AML monitoring, and audit evidence are programs your team builds, staffs, and defends.

Verdict: Your program to defend

The payments cloud

The platform catches it. Retries, exceptions, and reconciliation run across every rail, against one shared record.

Verdict: Handled by the platform

Gateway

Whoever you put on call. Retries, exceptions, and reconciliation across every vendor land on the team you staffed to watch them.

Verdict: Your on-call

The payments cloud

As long as it takes to integrate one API. From there you run on a finished platform instead of maintaining one.

Verdict: Integrate, then run

Gateway

However long it takes to build the stack, then you run it indefinitely. The real cost lands after launch, not before.

Verdict: You build, then you run

Six questions. One integration answers all of them.

Platform architecture

One foundation. Every capability.

A gateway is one capability. A Payments Cloud is many, organized around a single foundation and one shared record of every account, transaction, and event. Four layers carry a payment from start to finish. Hover or tap the wheel to explore each one.

SMART EXECUTION Payments INTELLIGENT ROUTING Ledgering Orchestration Settlement DYNAMIC CONTROLS Velocity Limits Risk Mitigation Client Configurations Security Compliance CLOUD SERVICES Analytics Dispute Management Transaction Monitoring Treasury Management Reporting Reconciliation Account Validation Card Authorization Identity Authentication

Astra

The Payments Cloud

A payment starts at the transaction engine, moves through intelligent routing, passes through configurable controls, and surfaces through the cloud services your team touches directly. One API connects all four.

Hover or tap a section of the wheel to explore.

transaction engine

Smart Execution

Authorization, settlement, and rail connectivity live here, where latency and reliability are decided. Every rail runs on one foundation: ACH, RTP, FedNow, Visa Direct, and Mastercard Move, executed in real time.

transaction engine

Intelligent Routing

Selects the optimal rail and path for every transaction, optimizing speed, cost, and success rate in real time rather than by static rules. Astra picks the rail, direction, and speed, so routing is handled instead of hand-built.

The programmable logic layer

Dynamic Controls

A programmable logic layer. Configure rules, limits, thresholds, and flows via API, adapted to your product rather than a shared configuration. A new use case is a setting, not a rebuild.

The managed surface

Cloud Services

The managed surface of the Payments Cloud. Monitoring, reporting, compliance tooling, developer APIs, and integrations, ready to use without building or maintaining them yourself.

Customers

Results from teams building on Astra

\n\nBanking\n\nTill uses Astra to power instant card-to-card funding\n\nRead further](https://astrafi.com/case-studies/till/) \n\nCrypto\n\nGrowing deposits faster and increasing activations with Instant Funding\n\nRead further](https://astrafi.com/case-studies/fold/) \n\nPayroll\n\nTipHaus uses Astra to power instant payouts\n\nRead further](https://astrafi.com/case-studies/tiphaus/)

Build on the Payments Cloud.

Most customers are live in a few weeks.