Traditional orchestration platforms are walled gardens: you adopt their way of working, take bundled services you may not need, and accept switching costs that keep you locked in. CPA inverts this. You pick only the components you need, mix in services from other providers, and keep control of your own payment flows.

The practical difference is portability and control. With a walled garden you adapt to the platform; with CPA the platform adapts to you. When something changes, you swap a single component instead of re-building the whole system – which is why complex, high-volume merchants and platforms favour the model.

→ See how CPA compares to all-in-one platforms