Myven Subscription Billing Integration: Portone & KPN PG Review Journey

Recurring subscription payment integration for Myven membership is officially live!

For processing domestic KRW payments, we selected Portone as our unified billing infrastructure and integrated Korean Payment Network (KPN) as our primary Payment Gateway (PG), completing all production setups.

In this post, I wanted to share why we chose Portone, along with an honest review of our month-long PG audit and approval journey.

1. Why We Chose ‘Portone’ (Unified Billing Solution)

As a solo developer or early-stage startup, contracting and integrating directly with individual Payment Gateways can introduce massive overhead. Portone is a unified billing API and payment orchestrator that lets you manage multiple PGs under a single integration layer.

Here are the key advantages that made Portone a no-brainer for us:

1. Unified Multi-PG Management: Easily swap or add PGs in the future with minimal code changes.
2. PG Sign-Up Fee Waivers: We took advantage of Portone’s promotional campaign, waiving initial PG registration fees and significantly reducing setup costs.
3. AWS Startup Credits ($5,000 USD): Startups joining Portone can apply for $5,000 in AWS Startup Credits. Saving on initial infrastructure costs while setting up payments was a huge win-win.

2. Integration Order & Timeline (~1 Month)

Our integration workflow proceeded in four distinct steps:

Portone Sign-up → PG Selection → SDK & API Implementation → PG & Credit Card Audits

Here is our actual project timeline:

• June 25: Signed up on Portone and submitted the initial PG audit application.
• July 8: Credit card company audits were completed for all but one provider.
• July 29: Final approvals cleared, and Production API Keys were officially issued.

From initial submission to receiving our production credentials, the whole process took just over a month.

Although most credit card companies cleared our audit by July 8th, there was a gap in communication as I pivoted to fixing internal service bugs and resolving Meta Instagram API review issues. I am not entirely sure if early-stage startups without existing revenue naturally face longer approval timelines, or if our communication lull delayed the final steps, but what matters is that we successfully reached the finish line.

3. PG Selection Story (KG Inicis vs. KPN)

During setup, we initially applied to both KG Inicis and Korean Payment Network (KPN), which were recommended as a package deal by Portone.

However, after the initial application, we received zero follow-up or feedback from Inicis. On the other hand, KPN proceeded smoothly without friction.

Since there is no compelling reason to maintain multiple PG vendors and double our operational overhead at this stage, we decided to proceed exclusively with KPN for domestic payments.

4. Payment Infrastructure Strategy Moving Forward

Myven’s payment architecture is divided into two distinct channels:

• Domestic (KRW) Payments: Portone + Korean Payment Network (KPN) (Fully operational with production keys)
• International (USD / Global) Payments: Dodo Payments (Integration planned)

Now that our domestic subscription infrastructure is solid, our next step will be setting up Dodo Payments to onboard international users seamlessly.

If you are a founder or developer looking to integrate subscription billing via Portone, I hope this breakdown proves helpful!