Why Every ISV and SaaS Company Should Embed and Monetize Payments (With Tilled)

Plus how to work with a payment processing API to embed payments into your software.

In episodes four and five of our nine-part video series with James Shepherd, we’re tackling some heavier topics – but we’re giving you the key takeaways from each episode upfront:

1. If you have payments running through your software, or you plan to have payments running through your software, you should be making money on the payment processing. No debate.
2. If you’re working with a payment processor, or plan to in the near future, just know that your onboarding documents should NOT be 78 pages long, or anywhere remotely close.

Watch Episode 4
& then
Watch Episode 5

As an ISV or a SaaS company, there’s more value in a payment integration than you might realize, and learning how to monetize the payments flowing through your system really poses no cons to you as a business. In fact, integrating with a payment processor that offers no piece of the payments pie is less advantageous than one that does for a few reasons:

1. You have to integrate either way.
   

   If you intend to embed payments on your platform, it’s inevitable that you’ll have to go through that integration process – regardless of the provider you choose. So, it begs the question: why would you want to work with a provider who doesn’t offer any revenue share on the transactions you process?
   
   PSA: “Easy to use APIs” isn’t an excuse, as a provider like Tilled not only offers easy-to-integrate APIs but also serves up a healthy revenue share. So, even if you don’t aspire to become a payment facilitator yourself, it just doesn’t make sense to embed payments and not leverage a provider that gives you that extra benefit.

2. You’re responsible for the brunt of the merchant reporting, not the payment processor.
   

   Because of the nature of how everything works in payment processing, your software business is the one that is going to be doing the majority of the work when it comes to your merchants and reporting.
   
   For example: when your merchants come to you and ask to see a list of past transactions, who is responsible for building that dashboard? You, not the payment processor.
   
   Given that you have to develop the software regardless, the actual role of the payment processor becomes relatively minimal. They mainly focus on handling the money transfer aspect, while your software company takes on a range of additional responsibilities like initial setup, communicating with merchants, and creating dashboards. In essence, you end up acting as the payment processor yourself. So, it’s only logical to generate revenue from the payments processed through your platform.

As for what you need in order to actually do the payment processing integration? First, it’s crucial to understand the difference between building into an API and the actual Boarding API.

1. Building into an API (to be able to process a payment)

   This is a relatively simple concept and is very well understood by developers in the field. The main idea is to be able to securely accept and store cardholder information, then be able to use the API when it’s time to process a payment or refund.

2. Using an actual Boarding API
   

   Oftentimes, a software company will have a partnership with another payment processing company and utilize their APIs, likely through a 3rd party gateway, to integrate into their software. This typically isn’t a super smooth integration, but it works OK. However, when you’re trying to sign up your merchants to be able to accept payments, there’s even more friction.

For example: let’s say you use a 3rd party to process payments, and one of your merchants finds out you do that and wants to be able to do it on their own. If this happens, you, as the software company, will need to contact the 3rd party processing company for their onboarding agreements, which are typically long – like 80 pages long. At this point, you will forward that small novel of a DocuSign back to the merchant. As you can see, this is a very tedious and *very* outdated legacy provider process. 

That’s where partnering with a provider like Tilled becomes valuable. Technology-focused companies, like Tilled, provide powerful Boarding APIs that allow merchants to sign up by completing a one-page merchant application. One page vs. a short novel… seems like an easy choice to us! And in addition to a seamless integration process, it also shares the revenue with you. This way, you can make the most of your software efforts while delivering a smooth payment experience to your users.

 

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If you’re ready to embrace Tilled’s simple APIs and unlock substantial additional revenue streams, our team can’t wait to hear from you! Contact us using the most appropriate link below: 

1. If you’re an ISV interested in embedding payments into your platform, click here.
2. If you’re an ISO agent looking to refer an ISV, email partners@tilled.com.