# What is universal checkout?

> One checkout that works out the customer’s network, country and gateway from their phone number, so you integrate once and reach everyone.

Category: Accepting payments · Last updated: 2026-09-16 · Source: https://ultraner.com/resources/payments/universal-checkout

Universal checkout is a single payment page, and a single API call, that accepts every payment method Ultraner is connected to. The customer gives a phone number or picks a card, and everything after that is worked out for them.

The alternative, which is what most businesses in Africa end up doing, is integrating each mobile money network separately: separate paperwork, separate credentials, separate quirks, multiplied by every country you want to sell into.

## What it decides for you

- The network, from the phone number. 0754 is Vodacom in Tanzania; 0700 is a different network in a different country.
- The country, and therefore the currency the payment settles in.
- The gateway, because several of them can carry the same network, and one may be faster or cheaper on the day.
- The fallback, when a gateway is having a bad morning and another one carries the same network.

None of those decisions reach your code. Adding a new market later is a new option in your own dropdown, not a new integration.

## What the customer sees

A page with your name and logo on it, the methods that make sense where they are, and an amount. On mobile money they enter their number, approve a prompt on their phone, and the page updates itself when the money arrives.

The prompt is the part people find surprising if they have only used cards. You do not charge a mobile money customer. You ask their phone to approve a payment, and they say yes on the handset. That takes seconds, or occasionally a minute if the network is busy.

**Worth knowing**

Because approval happens on the customer’s phone, a payment can be pending for a short while. Anything you do when a payment succeeds, sending a ticket, unlocking an account, should happen when the confirmation arrives, not when the customer clicks pay.

## When to use something else

Use a payment link when you have no website to put a checkout on. Use an invoice when the amount is negotiated and needs a document. Use a direct gateway call only when you have a specific reason to pin one rail, such as a settlement arrangement with that provider.

For everything else, universal checkout is the one that ages best, because the list of networks behind it grows without you.

## Read next

- How a mobile money payment actually works: https://ultraner.com/resources/payments/how-a-mobile-money-payment-works
- Exchange rates: how ours are set: https://ultraner.com/resources/fx/exchange-rates
- Receipts: what they are, and why they matter: https://ultraner.com/resources/billing/receipts

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Ultraner is the payment layer for Africa. https://ultraner.com