Leaving Authorize.net is not hard. Leaving it badly is: a developer swaps the plugin on a Friday, recurring customers get declined on Monday, and stored cards are gone because nobody requested the export. This page is the sequence we use. It is written for a business owner, not a developer, and it is the page we send when someone calls us mid-switch.
What changes and what does not
| Stays the same | Changes |
|---|---|
| Your website, cart, checkout page design | The gateway plugin or API keys behind the checkout |
| Your invoicing software and QuickBooks | The payment connection inside it |
| Your customer list and order history | Where stored card tokens live |
| Your bank account and deposit schedule | The processor depositing into it |
| Your prices | Your effective rate |
If your platform is WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, Ecwid, OpenCart, Volusion, or a mainstream billing or practice-management system, the gateway change is configuration, not development. If it is custom code written against Authorize.net’s API, it is a small development task, and some gateways can accept Authorize.net-style requests directly. We check before you commit to anything.
The sequence
1. Get the numbers first
Pull your Authorize.net statement and your processor’s statement for the same month. Total them. That is your current all-in cost. Everything after this step is measured against it. If you do not know who your processor is, the deposit descriptor on your bank statement usually names them. Our Authorize.net fees breakdown explains what to look for.
2. Confirm platform compatibility
We check your cart or software against the new gateway’s integration list. For accept.blue and NMI that covers the major carts and most billing tools. If there is no native integration, we look at an Authorize.net-compatible endpoint or a small custom change, and we tell you the cost before going further.
3. Board the new merchant account and gateway
Application, underwriting, approval. Typically two to five business days. The new gateway is provisioned in test mode. Nothing on Authorize.net changes.
4. Request the stored-card export from Authorize.net
This is the step people skip. Authorize.net will export Customer Information Manager profiles, and recurring billing subscriptions, to another PCI DSS compliant gateway. As of 2026 the process, per Authorize.net’s support documentation:
- The request comes from the Authorize.net account owner, with a signed waiver from an officer of the company.
- You supply the receiving gateway’s PGP public key. The export file is encrypted to it, so only the new gateway can read the card data.
- Exports run on a fixed weekly schedule, not on demand. Authorize.net limits accounts to two extractions in a rolling year with 30 days between them.
- Customer profile exports have historically been free; CIM and ARB (recurring) extractions have carried a fee, quoted at request time. We confirm the fee before submitting.
We prepare the request with you, supply the receiving key, and track it.
5. Import into the new vault and map IDs
The new gateway imports the file and returns a mapping of old customer profile IDs to new tokens. Your platform is updated so each customer record points to the new token. For most carts this is a plugin function or a CSV import; for custom code it is a script we help specify.
6. Test with live transactions
Switch the platform to the new gateway in live mode for a short window and run a handful of real low-value transactions: a sale, a refund, a stored-card charge, a recurring charge if applicable. Verify deposits arrive. Then switch back or leave it live, depending on whether the migration is complete.
7. Cut over
Change the platform’s active gateway. Update recurring billing schedules to bill from the new vault, timed after the last Authorize.net billing run. Watch the first two days of settlements.
8. Close Authorize.net
Only after two clean settlement cycles on the new gateway and after the last recurring run. Authorize.net has no early termination fee for the gateway. Cancel the processing account behind it per that agreement’s terms, which is the one place a termination fee can exist.
Timeline
| Week | Work |
|---|---|
| 1 | Statements, compatibility check, application, export request submitted |
| 2 | Approval, test-mode setup, export file received |
| 3 | Vault import, ID mapping, live tests |
| 4 | Cutover, recurring schedules moved, monitoring |
Businesses without stored cards or recurring billing can compress this to about a week.
Who should not switch the gateway
If your integration is Authorize.net-only and re-integrating would cost more than a year of savings, keep the gateway. Ask us to re-price the processing behind it instead. That is the bigger number in almost every case, and it does not require touching your website at all. We say this on the first call when it applies.