From discovery call to go-live in three to five weeks

The seven steps. What we do, what you do.

Each customer is a meaningful relationship, configured to your business. The flow below is what every Cardem deployment goes through. No surprises, no theatre, no data hostage situations.

Timeline

Three to five weeks, end to end.

Configuration is the longest phase by design. It's your team setting up your store the way you need it. Provisioning itself takes minutes.

Onboarding timeline WEEK 0 WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4 WEEK 5 01 DISCOVERY 30-min call 02 CONTRACT MSA and DPA 03 PROVISION Minutes, automated 04 CONFIGURATION Brand, catalogue, payments 05 CUSTOM DEVELOPMENT, IF ANY Parallel, behind a feature toggle 06 ACCEPTANCE TESTING Your team verifies 07 GO LIVE DNS cutover, 48-hour watch
The seven steps in detail

What happens at each stage. Who does what.

01

Discovery

A 30-minute call to understand your markets, currencies, payment providers, compliance posture, and any features beyond standard. We draft a configuration with you on the call. By the end you have an honest read on whether Cardem fits, and we have enough to scope a proposal.

Duration30 min OwnerCardem and your lead
02

Contract

Standard MSA and DPA. Custom-development scope of work for any net-new features. Pricing locked: setup fee, monthly subscription, custom development if any, optional premium support.

Duration3 to 5 days OwnerCardem and your procurement
03

Provisioning

We provision your dedicated store: database, storage, secrets, signing keys, custom hostname. Your Super Admin receives a welcome email with first-login credentials and a two-factor setup link.

Provisioning is automated and takes a few minutes. There's nothing for your team to do at this step.

DurationSame day OwnerCardem (automated)
04

Configuration

Your Super Admin sets up brand assets, products, pricing, payment providers, content, terms and conditions, shipping methods, and customs templates. We provide documentation and a checklist, and we help where needed.

By the end of week one your store is fully populated on a staging hostname. Your team can place internal test orders against real card, crypto, and bank flows.

DurationAbout 1 week OwnerYour team, with our support
05

Custom development If any

Net-new features built into Cardem behind a feature toggle, defaulted on for you. Your custom feature funds the build. Every other customer can opt in over time. This is where the platform compounds.

Custom development runs in parallel with configuration so it doesn't extend your timeline unless the feature is on the critical path. The scope of work spells out which.

DurationVaries OwnerCardem engineering
06

Acceptance testing

Your team tests against the staging hostname end to end: place orders, refund them, run a wholesale credit cycle, generate a customs document, fire the cycle-count flow, hit the audit log, run the data export, run the deletion flow.

Issues are logged in a shared tracker and resolved iteratively. Acceptance testing passes when your team signs off the checklist. We provide a default checklist, and you can extend it.

Duration1 to 2 weeks OwnerYour team and Cardem
07

Go-live

DNS cutover to your custom hostname. We monitor for 48 hours: error rates, response times, payment success rate, customs queue depth, audit chain integrity. You hand over to your team once the watch window closes clean.

Quarterly check-ins after that. Upgrades coordinated by us with you. Feature requests fed into the Cardem roadmap.

Duration48-hour watch OwnerCardem on call
Inputs and outputs

What you'll need. What you'll have.

FROM YOU

What you'll bring

Brand
Logo, palette, typography. We can provide defaults.
Markets
Countries you ship to and currencies you trade in
Catalogue
Product list, HS codes, pricing, batches if applicable
Payments
Card gateway account, crypto provider details, bank info
Shipping
Couriers, lead times by destination, free-ship thresholds
Compliance
Terms and conditions, privacy policy, customs templates
Domain
Your custom hostname. We manage TLS for you.
Team
Super Admin contact, fulfilment lead, finance contact
FROM US

What you'll have at go-live

Live storefront
Customer-facing site at your custom hostname
Live admin
Six admin roles seeded with granular permissions
Live API
Stable, versioned, documented
Audit log
Tamper-evident, with seven-year retention
GDPR portal
Self-service customer export and deletion
Reports
Profit and loss, cost of goods, FIFO margin, aging, statements, GA4
Customs
Auto-generated invoice and packing list per order
Uptime
Global edge with high-availability target
Off-boarding

No data hostage situations.

If you choose to leave Cardem, the path off the platform is clean and documented. We'd rather you stay because Cardem fits, not because leaving is painful.

DAY 0

Notice

Thirty-day notice on either side. A structured hand-off plan covers when each subsystem freezes, who exports what, and who holds final keys.

DAY 0 TO 30

Export

A signed-link archive delivered to your Super Admin. Includes a database dump, CSV export of every table, all media files with a manifest, and the full audit log.

DAY 30 ONWARDS

Decommission

Infrastructure decommissioned cleanly. Backups retained for the legal minimum (typically ninety days for tax and customs traceability), then destroyed with cryptographic proof of erasure.

Start with discovery

A 30-minute call. We draft your configuration together.

You walk away with a real read on fit. We walk away with enough to scope a proposal. Either way you'll know more than when you started.

Book discovery