# External gateways

External payment gateways let you integrate any payment service that is not available out-of-the-box (even your custom one) and safely process any type of external payment.

To create an external gateway choose a meaningful name that helps you identify it within your organization and specify the endpoints you have configured externally. You need to provide your gateway's **authorize**, **capture**, **void**, **refund**, and **customer token** URLs. Your external endpoint will be responsible for the actual integration with the payment gateway. The payment source associated with the order must be an [external payment](https://docs.commercelayer.io/core-api-reference/external_payments).

External gateways are subject to a [circuit breaker](https://app.gitbook.com/s/-LgByaSP8eKjad-MIuHE/external-resources#circuit-breaker) check: if the call to your external endpoint fails consecutively more than **30** times, the circuit breaker opens and any further request to the resource will be skipped. You can check the circuit breaker current status by fetching the `circuit_state` and `circuit_failure_count` attributes or manually reset it by passing the `_reset_circuit` trigger (the circuit is anyway automatically reset anytime a call to your external endpoint succeeds before reaching the counter's threshold).

External gateways process payments **synchronously** by default. You can use the webhook endpoint URL Commerce Layer exposes to manage [async payments](https://docs.commercelayer.io/developers/external-resources/external-payment-gateways#asynchronous-payments).

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<summary>How-to</summary>

Check the related [guide](https://docs.commercelayer.io/developers/external-resources/external-payment-gateways) for any additional info on how to configure your external payment gateway and integrate it with Commerce Layer.

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