# Get started

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## Payments overview

Our article will cover some foundational understanding of online payment processing. This is a good start, if you're new to the payment industry.

How to accept online payments
An overview of online payment basics.

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## API principles

Before you start integrating, you should make yourself familiar with our [API Principles](/products/reference/api-principles/). This page outlines the standards to work with our APIs. Our design is RESTful meaning our APIs are structured around resources and use standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to interact with those resources.

After reading this, you should have a good understanding of versioning, non-breaking definitions and best practices allowing your integration to be resilient.

## Integration options

We offer four different ways to take payments depending on the control over the payment flow you want to have:

1. [Plugins](https://docs.worldpay.com/plugins/shopify?_gl=1*19c7x3b*_ga*MTI1MzUxMjg2Ny4xNzYyMzUwMDQ4*_ga_G17VZQJPJQ*czE3Njk1MDcxNDckbzEzOCRnMCR0MTc2OTUwNzE0NyRqNjAkbDAkaDA.)
Our pre-built **no-code** option to add payment processing capabilities to your website.
2. [Hosted Payment Pages](/products/hosted-payment-pages)
Our **low-code** redirect integration taking the PCI compliance burden off you.
3. [Payments API](/products/payments)
Our **medium-code** direct integration with the option of using an [SDK](/products/checkout/) to lower PCI compliance burden. This API is an orchestration service combining some of our modular APIs.
4. [Modular APIs](/products/modular)
Our **high-code** direct integration giving you full control over your payment flow by sending individual requests to our APIs. You also have th option to use an [SDK](/products/checkout/) to lower the PCI compliance burden.


To get a more detailed understanding and make the right choice for your business, take a look at our [capability comparison](/products/payments/selection).

## Prerequisites and best practice

* ### Credentials
To authenticate your merchant details, when sending a request to our APIs, you must supply credentials. If you haven't got these already, you can contact your Implementation Manager.
* ### DNS Whitelisting
Whitelist the following URLs:
  * `https://try.access.worldpay.com/`
  * `https://access.worldpay.com/`

Please ensure you use DNS whitelisting not explicit IP whitelisting as we might change our IP addresses.
* ### WP-CorrelationId logging
We return a `WP-CorrelationId` in the headers of service responses. We highly recommend you log this as we can use it to examine individual requests.
* ### Security
Familiarize yourself with our [security best practices](/products/reference/security/).


## Testing and go live

Before you're [going live](/products/reference/go-live/) you should test your integration. Each service has their own testing mechanism and magic values.
You navigate to the respective test pages [here](/products/testing/).



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