Yes, and safely, if you never handle raw card details yourself. Use an established processor like Stripe or a hosted checkout, so card numbers go straight to them and never touch your app or database. Your app only ever sees a token and a result. That keeps you off the hook for the hardest, riskiest part of payments.
Information current as at 5 July 2026
Taking money is often the whole point, and it is a step people are right to be nervous about, because card details are the most sensitive data most apps ever touch. The reassuring news is that the safe way is also the easy way: you let a specialist handle the dangerous part. This article explains how that works and where the real risks actually sit.
The single most important principle of taking payments is that raw card numbers should never enter your app, your database, or your logs. The moment you store or even handle card details, you take on the full weight of card-industry security rules and the enormous risk of holding that data. The way around this is not to be clever, it is to hand the job to a specialist. Established processors are built so the card details go directly from the customer to them, encrypted, without passing through your system at all. Your app never sees the number. This one decision removes the hardest and most dangerous part of payments entirely, and it is available to anyone.
The simplest safe pattern is a hosted checkout. When a customer is ready to pay, your app sends them to a payment page run by the processor, or embeds a payment field that belongs to the processor rather than to you. The customer enters their card there, in the processor's domain, and it goes straight to the processor. The processor charges the card and sends your app back a result: succeeded or failed, plus a token, a harmless reference you can store to identify the payment. Your app orchestrates the flow but never holds the sensitive data. From the customer's side it feels smooth enough to trust; from your side, the risky material simply never arrives.
If you have made something and it needs to become real, send it over. We will tell you honestly what it needs to be live, safe and yours, whether that is a quick fix you can do or a proper build. No obligation.
PCI DSS is the security standard the card industry requires of anyone handling card data. It sounds daunting, and it is, if you handle cards directly. The point of using a hosted checkout is that you offload almost all of it to the processor. You still have a light-touch obligation, usually a short self-assessment confirming you use a compliant provider and do not store card numbers, but you avoid the heavy technical requirements that come with touching card data yourself. This is general information and not legal or compliance advice, but the practical takeaway is clear: the more the processor handles, the less of the standard lands on you, which is a strong reason to keep card details out of your app.
Handing cards to a processor removes the card-data risk, but payments still touch the rest of your app, so some responsibility remains with you. Your keys to the processor must be kept secret and server-side, because an exposed payment key is among the worst to leak. The result your app receives should be verified server-side, not trusted from the browser, because a check done only in the browser can be faked to fake a successful payment. The records you do store, like order history and the payment token, still deserve a locked-down database. And you still owe customers a privacy policy and honest handling of their information. The card numbers are the processor's problem now; the app around them is still yours to secure.
If you have made something and it needs to become real, send it over. We will tell you honestly what it needs to be live, safe and yours, whether that is a quick fix you can do or a proper build. No obligation.
Whether you can name exactly what you want built, or you just know something is leaking, the next step is the same conversation.