TSG names top payment gateway APIs for 2026

TSG named Adyen, Elavon, Global Payments, JPMorgan Chase, North and Nuvei among the leaders in its 2026 API Best of Breed awards, as developer experience becomes an increasingly important measure of payment gateway performance.

The awards are based on TSG's annual API Best of Breed Report, powered by its Global Experience Monitoring, or GEM, platform. TSG said it independently reviewed publicly available API documentation and evaluated the integration experience from the perspectives of both novice and experienced developers.

Factors considered include API design, documentation, security, onboarding, software development kits, sandbox environments, testing resources, fraud tools and emerging technologies.

Adyen takes top award

Adyen received the Best Overall API award, with Global Payments and JPMorgan Chase Commerce Platform named runners-up.

JPMorgan Chase Commerce Platform took two categories: API Excellence & Innovation and Best Dev Stack. Global Payments was recognized for Best Developer Experience and Best Emerging Technology.

Nuvei received the Fraud Prevention & Risk Decisioning award, while Elavon Payment Gateway was named Best B2B API. North appeared among the runners-up in the B2B category.

"An API is where strategy meets execution," said Darren Adelgren, senior head of payment technology, development and enablement at TSG. He said documentation, the maturity of development tools and the time required to move from initial exploration to a transaction increasingly distinguish leading gateways.

TSG also pointed to artificial intelligence as a factor changing how developers discover, test and integrate payment technology. Global Payments' emerging technology recognition cited AI-native integrations, Model Context Protocol support and readiness for real-time payment rails.

Jon Lennon, TSG's chief revenue officer, connected developer experience to commercial performance, noting that faster, more predictable integrations can help merchants launch sooner and allow partners to commit more volume.

Two decades of payments analytics

The awards come during TSG's 20th year. The Omaha, Nebraska-based company was founded in 2006 by payments industry veterans Kurt Strawhecker and Jamie Savant and has grown from a two-person operation into an analytics, intelligence and consulting firm serving the global payments ecosystem. TSG said it has worked with more than 1,000 clients, including fintechs, software providers and Fortune 500 companies.

Over the years, TSG has developed tools intended to bring data-driven benchmarking to areas that had been difficult to measure. Its Acquiring Industry Metrics platform grew out of questions about merchant attrition and portfolio performance, while GEM was developed to benchmark gateway transaction performance and the payment experience.

TSG mentioned it has served more than 40 of the top 50 merchant acquirers and completed hundreds of analyses of the global payments landscape.

The API awards extend that benchmarking approach to an increasingly important part of payments infrastructure: how easily developers can turn a gateway's technology into a working payment experience.

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