A lot of things can happen in a year, and that certainly is true in the world of Checkout. This self-learning module is designed to remind you about the most significant releases that took place in 2025, so that you are up-to-date with the latest payment capabilities, integration options, and developer tools available in Checkout.
For a complete view of all releases, visit the Checkout Release Notes section of our documentation.
Prerequisites
To explore these features hands-on, you should have:
- Access to a commercetools project with Checkout enabled
- A Frontend project with Checkout configured
- Familiarity with the Checkout Browser SDK
- Understanding of core payment concepts like authorization, capture, and refund
- For advanced features, knowledge of the commercetools API
Release highlights
2025 brought substantial evolution across all areas of Checkout:
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Payment Only mode reached general availability, graduating from public beta to production-ready status. This mode gained support for multiple shipping methods, making it suitable for enterprise use cases where you want to handle payment collection separately from the full checkout flow.
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Payment methods and connectors: the payment ecosystem expanded significantly with new options for your customers. Venmo, Afterpay, and Clearpay were added through Adyen integration, broadening the payment methods available for different customer preferences and regions. Gift card connectors were introduced in public beta, enabling you to accept gift cards as a payment option alongside traditional methods.
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Event notifications were introduced in public beta, bringing webhook-style notifications for checkout events. This capability allows you to receive real-time updates about payment status changes, order completions, and other critical checkout events, enabling you to build responsive integrations and workflows.
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Automated reversals launched in public beta, introducing intelligent payment handling based on configurable rules. This feature allows you to define predicates that automatically trigger payment reversals when specific conditions are met, reducing manual intervention and streamlining refund workflows.
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Stored payment methods were introduced in public beta, enabling customers to save their payment information securely for faster checkout experiences on return visits. This feature improves convenience for repeat customers while maintaining security standards.
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SDK and API support: Checkout API support was added to the .NET, Java, and TypeScript SDKs, making it easier to integrate Checkout functionality into applications built with these languages. New management APIs were also introduced—the Applications API and Payment Integrations API—enabling programmatic configuration of Checkout settings without manual setup in the Merchant Center.
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Browser SDK enhancements: the Browser SDK received multiple improvements throughout the year, including new configuration properties for greater flexibility, improved error handling to help identify and resolve integration issues, message updates for clearer communication with end users, additional customization variables for styling and branding, and order verification capabilities to ensure payment integrity.
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Payment integration customization was introduced in public beta, giving developers control over the appearance and behavior of payment components. This capability allows you to tailor the payment experience to match your brand and meet specific user experience requirements.
Ready for a closer look? Read on.