How to Refer Merchants to a Crypto Payment Gateway: Agency Playbook

The merchants most likely to say yes to crypto payments are not the ones interested in crypto. They are the ones with a payments problem: international card decline rates they cannot fix, a processor that holds funds in a rolling reserve, or a product category the card networks keep pushing them out of. Lead with the problem and the conversation is short. Lead with the technology and it goes nowhere.

If you build or maintain e-commerce stores, this is a revenue line you can add without new headcount. This playbook covers who to approach, how to frame it, what objections you will hit, and what the setup actually involves so you can quote it honestly.

Why Payment Referrals Suit Agencies and Developers

You already have the two things a payment gateway cannot buy: an existing trust relationship with merchants, and visibility into their checkout. You know which client’s international conversion rate is bad and which one complained about held funds last quarter. That context converts far better than advertising does, which is why referral introductions from an advisor outperform cold affiliate traffic by a wide margin.

The economics also fit the agency model. Payment referrals produce a small monthly amount per client that continues without further work, which is precisely the shape of revenue that stabilizes a project-based business. One client that processes steadily for four years is worth more than a burst of one-time bounties, provided the program pays for the life of the account rather than for twelve months. That distinction is covered in detail in our breakdown of crypto affiliate commission rates.

Who to Approach First

Go through your client list and score against four signals. Merchants matching two or more are worth a conversation.

They sell internationally and lose orders at checkout

Cross-border card transactions get declined at materially higher rates than domestic ones, and the merchant usually experiences this as unexplained cart abandonment from specific countries. If you have analytics access, look for regions with healthy add-to-cart rates and poor payment completion. That gap is your opening.

They are in a category card processors treat as high risk

Supplements, CBD and hemp, adult content, firearms accessories, nutraceuticals, and several other categories face elevated rates, reserves, and periodic account termination. These merchants are not looking for innovation. They are looking for a payment method that does not disappear. Crypto is a genuinely strong fit here, with the important caveat below.

They have been hit by chargebacks or held funds

A merchant that lost a chargeback dispute they should have won, or had a processor hold six figures for 90 days, needs no education on why irreversible settlement to a wallet they control is appealing. Ask any client whether they have ever had funds held. The answer opens the conversation for you.

They already have crypto-literate customers

Gaming, digital goods, developer tools, trading education, and web3-adjacent products all have buyer bases that hold crypto. For these merchants the pitch is not risk mitigation but a payment option their customers have already asked for.

How to Frame the Conversation

The pitch that works is short and specific to the client’s situation. A version that has held up:

“Your German and Brazilian traffic converts about half as well as your domestic traffic, and the drop is at the payment step, not the cart. Adding crypto checkout gives those buyers a second way to pay that does not touch their card issuer. It sits alongside your existing checkout rather than replacing it, and the transaction fee is lower than what you pay on cards. I can set it up in an afternoon.”

Four things make that work. It cites something the merchant can verify. It positions crypto as an addition rather than a migration. It names a cost comparison. And it makes the commitment small.

Three framings to avoid. Do not open with price appreciation or investment upside, which makes the merchant think about volatility rather than about conversion. Do not describe it as “the future of payments,” which sounds like it can wait. And do not imply the funds automatically become dollars, which is the single most common overpromise in this category and the one that generates the angriest follow-up call.

Always disclose that you earn a commission. In most jurisdictions this is a legal requirement for affiliate relationships, and with a client you advise directly, it is the difference between a partnership and a conflict of interest they discover later.

The Objections You Will Actually Hear

“Crypto is too volatile for my business.”

Accept stablecoins. USDT and USDC track the dollar, so an order priced at $200 settles as roughly 200 units of a dollar-pegged asset. Volatility is a real objection for BTC and ETH and largely not one for stablecoins, which is why most merchant volume runs on them.

“I need dollars in my bank account.”

Answer this one straight, because dodging it costs you the client’s trust later. A non-custodial gateway settles in crypto to the merchant’s wallet. It does not convert to fiat or deposit into a bank account. If the merchant wants dollars, they move funds to an exchange and convert there, and that is a manual step they own. For merchants who need automatic fiat settlement, a custodial processor is the honest recommendation, and you should make it.

“My accountant will hate this.”

Reasonable, and answerable. Crypto received as payment is recorded at its value on the date received, and each transaction leaves a permanent on-chain record that is easier to audit than most card settlement reports. The accounting is different, not harder. Point them at documentation early rather than letting the accountant discover it at year end.

“What about refunds?”

On-chain payments are final, which is the point for chargebacks and the complication for returns. The merchant issues refunds manually by sending funds back, and their refund policy needs updating to say so. Handle this during setup rather than at the first return.

“Is this legal for my category?”

Crypto payments change the payment rail, not the product’s legal status. A CBD merchant still needs to comply with the rules governing CBD sales. Be explicit about this, because merchants in restricted categories sometimes hear “crypto” as “no rules,” and that misunderstanding is how partnerships end badly.

What the Setup Actually Involves

Quote this honestly and you will keep the client. The work is genuinely small on the platforms with native integrations.

WooCommerce. Install the official plugin from the WordPress repository, connect the merchant’s account, select which assets to accept, and place a test order. The full sequence is documented in our WooCommerce setup guide. Budget an hour including testing.

Shopify. The integration is created through the merchant’s Shopify Admin as a custom app rather than installed from the public App Store, which means you need collaborator access with the right permissions. Walk through the Shopify custom app setup guide before quoting, since the permission step is where most delays happen.

Other platforms. Native integrations also exist for Ecwid, BigCommerce, PrestaShop, OpenCart, Paid Memberships Pro, and Easy Digital Downloads. Comparable effort in each case.

No platform, or an unusual one. A hosted checkout page or an embeddable payment button covers merchants on custom stacks, and works for one-off and subscription payments. For invoiced B2B clients, a crypto invoice sent by email or SMS is often the entire integration.

Custom builds. If the merchant runs a bespoke checkout, the REST API covers payins, payouts, orders, and invoices, with testnet and mainnet environments and a Postman collection. Scope it against the payment API guide.

A Setup Checklist Worth Reusing

• Merchant controls the receiving wallet, and someone other than you holds the keys and the recovery phrase.
• Assets enabled match what the merchant’s buyers actually hold, which usually means starting with USDT and USDC rather than everything available.
• A test order completed end to end, including the merchant confirming the funds arrived in their wallet.
• Refund policy updated to state that confirmed crypto payments are final and to explain how a refund is issued.
• The merchant’s bookkeeper informed before the first live order, not after the first month closes.
• Checkout copy naming which assets and networks are accepted, so buyers do not send on an unsupported chain.
• Someone assigned to watch the first week of orders.

Setting Up the Partner Side

Register for the partner program before the first client goes live, so the account is attributed from the first transaction rather than reconstructed afterwards. Attribution is the part of affiliate arrangements that fails quietly, and retroactive claims are always more work than they should be.

Aurpay’s program is referral-based: you introduce the merchant, Aurpay handles onboarding and support, and you earn from every transaction that merchant processes for as long as they stay active. The commission rate is flexible rather than fixed, so you decide what to charge, and referred merchants and accrued income are managed in a single partner dashboard. The referral link can be adapted to your own branding. Payouts are in crypto. Signup takes minutes with no paperwork and no commitment.

Two boundaries worth knowing before you build a business on it. There is no white-label or reseller tier, so you cannot sell the gateway under your own brand. And the merchant fee is a flat 0.8 percent per transaction with no volume tiers, which makes the economics easy to model but leaves no wholesale rate to mark up. For the broader comparison of referral against reseller and white-label arrangements, see our guide to B2B crypto partner programs.

Making It Repeatable

The agencies that turn this into real revenue do three unglamorous things.

They add a payments question to onboarding. Asking every new client which regions convert worst and whether they have ever had funds held surfaces candidates without a separate sales motion.

They write the explanation once. A one-page document covering what stablecoin settlement is, what the merchant is responsible for, and how refunds work saves the same conversation being reconstructed every time. Our stablecoin checkout policy template is a reasonable starting point.

They check in at 30 days. A merchant whose first crypto order confused their support team will silently disable the payment method and never mention it. A single follow-up prevents most of that churn, and churn is what determines whether lifetime revenue share means anything.

Common Questions

How much can an agency earn referring merchants to a crypto gateway?

Model it from processing volume rather than from the headline rate. A merchant processing $40,000 a month through a gateway charging 0.8 percent generates $320 of gateway revenue monthly, and your commission is your agreed share of that figure, repeated for as long as the merchant stays active. Payment accounts are sticky, so lifetime value depends far more on account longevity than on the percentage.

Do I need technical skills to refer merchants?

No. Referral requires only the introduction, since the gateway handles onboarding and support. Technical skill matters if you also want to bill for the integration work, which on WooCommerce or Shopify is typically an hour including a test order.

Which merchants are the best candidates for crypto payments?

Merchants losing international orders at the payment step, merchants in categories card processors treat as high risk, merchants who have had funds held or lost chargeback disputes, and merchants whose buyers already hold crypto. Two or more of these signals makes a conversation worth having.

Does a crypto gateway convert payments to dollars automatically?

A non-custodial gateway does not. Funds settle in crypto directly to the merchant’s own wallet, and converting to local currency is a separate step the merchant performs at an exchange. Merchants who require automatic fiat settlement need a custodial processor instead, and telling them so early protects the relationship.

How are refunds handled on crypto payments?

On-chain payments are final, so refunds are issued manually by sending funds back to the customer. The merchant’s refund policy should state this before the first live order rather than after the first return request.

Do I have to disclose that I earn a commission?

Yes. Disclosure is a legal requirement for affiliate relationships in most jurisdictions, and with clients you advise directly it is also the difference between a partnership and a conflict of interest they find out about later.

Start with one client who has a payments problem you can name specifically. Join the Aurpay partner program, set your rate, and run the setup once end to end before you pitch the second one.