ApprovalMesh Checkout Orchestrator
10/10
Demand Score
Orders are blocked or require manual workarounds when approvals, budgets, or compliance checks can’t be expressed in native checkout, causing lost revenue and audit risk.
8/10
Blue Ocean
Competition Level
$800-5k
Price/Month
Predicted customer spend
8 days
Time to MVP
Difficulty: Hard
The Problem
A durable, stateful checkout policy and approval engine for B2B/B2C that overlays existing platform checkout. Model approval chains by spend, sku category, budget center, payment method, or compliance
Competitor Landscape
- Shopify Flow + B2B
- BigCommerce B2B Edition
- TradeCentric
- Tipalti Approvals
- Checkout.com Workflows
Must-Have Features for MVP
Visual policy builder with versioning and test simulator
Stateful orchestration (Temporal) with SLAs and retries
Pre-auth hold management and dynamic capture/void
Slack/Teams interactive approvals + email fallback
DocuSign/Adobe Sign for PO/terms acknowledgement
ERP/tax/KYC/credit check connectors
Granular audit trail and evidence bundle for compliance
Graceful fallback paths and customer messaging components
⚠️ Potential Challenges
- Payment authorization hold duration limits by gateway
- Platform extension limitations for gating steps
- Regional legal/compliance nuances (e.g., e-invoicing)
- Idempotency and retry correctness under failure
Risk Level: Moderate
🎯 Keys to Success
- Out-of-the-box templates for common B2B patterns (PO, split-ship, partial approvals)
- Guaranteed idempotency and observability
- Under-2-week time-to-value with minimal theme changes
- Security certifications and payment best-practice guides
Ready to Build This?
This hard-difficulty project could be your next micro-SaaS success.