RailShield

Shield your global payments from failures and fees with smart multi-rail failover

Score: 8.2/10AustraliaMedium BuildReady to Spawn
Brand Colors

The Opportunity

Problem

Indie fintech makers lose profitability from unreliable international payment rails and high fees that erode margins in global solo operations.

Solution

RailShield acts as a proxy layer on your payment links, attempting primary rail (Stripe), then failover to alternatives like PayPal or local gateways if fails or fees high. It provides a reliability dashboard with uptime stats and fee comparisons. Solo fintechs get bulletproof international billing without rebuilding stacks.

Target Audience

Solo indie fintech makers with global customer bases billing international clients

Differentiator

Real-time multi-rail failover proxy, built for embedded use in indie apps

Brand Voice

supportive

Features

Failover Proxy

must-have22h

Multi-rail attempt on payment init

Embeddable Links

must-have16h

Custom hosted payment pages

Uptime Dashboard

must-have12h

99%+ success tracking

Fee Comparator

must-have10h

Live fee quotes per rail

Webhook Relay

must-have11h

Unified events to your backend

Geo-Targeting

nice-to-have7h

Route by IP/country

Custom Branding

nice-to-have5h

White-label pages

Analytics API

future9h

Export uptime data

Total Build Time: 92 hours

Database Schema

users

ColumnTypeNullable
iduuidNo
emailtextNo
api_keytextNo

Relationships:

  • one-to-many with transactions

transactions

ColumnTypeNullable
iduuidNo
user_iduuidNo
amountintNo
statustextNo
rails_attemptedtextYes
final_railtextYes

Relationships:

  • foreign key user_id -> users.id

configs

ColumnTypeNullable
iduuidNo
user_iduuidNo
primary_railtextNo
failover_railstextNo
geo_rulestextYes

Relationships:

  • foreign key user_id -> users.id

API Endpoints

POST
/api/proxy/pay

Initiate failover payment

🔒 Auth Required
GET
/api/transactions

List user transactions

🔒 Auth Required
PUT
/api/config

Update rail config

🔒 Auth Required
GET
/api/uptime

Success rate stats

🔒 Auth Required
POST
/api/webhook

Unified webhook

Tech Stack

Frontend
Next.js 14 + Tailwind + Shadcn/ui
Backend
Next.js API + Supabase
Database
Supabase Postgres
Auth
Supabase Auth
Payments
Stripe + PayPal
Hosting
Vercel
Additional Tools
Plausible (analytics)Resend

Build Timeline

Week 1: Auth & proxy base

22h
  • User setup
  • Basic proxy

Week 2: Rail integrations

28h
  • Stripe/PayPal
  • Failover

Week 3: Dashboard

25h
  • Uptime charts
  • Configs

Week 4: Embeds & webhooks

22h
  • Payment pages
  • Relay

Week 5: Testing & geo

18h
  • Geo rules
  • Polish

Week 6: Launch

12h
  • SEO
  • Docs

Week 7: Optimizations

10h
  • Performance
Total Timeline: 7 weeks • 137 hours

Pricing Tiers

Free

$0/mo

Basic dashboard

  • 100 tx/mo
  • 2 rails

Pro

$25/mo
  • Unlimited tx
  • 5 rails
  • Geo

Enterprise

$99/mo
  • All Pro
  • Custom rails
  • SLA

Revenue Projections

MonthUsersConversionMRRARR
Month 1603%$135$1,620
Month 66006%$1,080$12,960

Unit Economics

$45
CAC
$450
LTV
3%
Churn
88%
Margin
LTV:CAC Ratio: 10.0xExcellent!

Landing Page Copy

Never Lose Another International Payment

RailShield's failover proxy ensures success and low fees – embed and forget for your global customers.

Feature Highlights

Multi-rail failover
Embeddable proxy
Uptime 99.9%
Fee comparator
Webhook relay

Social Proof (Placeholders)

"Zero failures now! - Global SaaS"
"Saved my margins - Fintech Solo"

First Three Customers

Target failed payment complaints on Twitter/Reddit; Offer beta to PH fintech products; Personal outreach to 20 indie directories.

Launch Channels

Product Huntr/SaaSIndie HackersTwitter #fintech

SEO Keywords

payment failover stripeinternational payment reliabilitymulti-rail paymentsreduce payment failures globalstripe proxy low fees

Competitive Analysis

2.9% + fixed
Strength

Global reach

Weakness

No auto-failover

Our Advantage

Smart proxy over it

Enterprise
Strength

Routing

Weakness

Not solo-friendly

Our Advantage

Micro-SaaS pricing

🏰 Moat Strategy

Transaction data refines failover logic, improving with scale

⏰ Why Now?

Increasing payment failures from regs + embedded payments trend

Risks & Mitigation

technicalmedium severity

Proxy latency

Mitigation

Edge functions

financiallow severity

Provider changes

Mitigation

Modular rails

Validation Roadmap

pre-build7 days

Test proxy with 5 makers

Success: 95% success lift

launch5 days

Waitlist to 50

Success: 10% convert

Pivot Options

  • Monitoring only
  • Single rail optimizer
  • Compliance checker

Quick Stats

Build Time
137h
Target MRR (6 mo)
$1,200
Market Size
$40.0M
Features
8
Database Tables
3
API Endpoints
5