Imagine you’ve built a vertical SaaS platform that’s the go-to operating system for your industry. Your merchants rely on you for everything from onboarding to day-to-day operations, but when it comes to payments, you’re stuck working within the limits of a provider that doesn’t quite fit.

You’ve tried to make it work. You’ve customized where you can, absorbed the extra costs, and put up with clunky workflows. But over time, the cracks start to show:

• Your prices can’t stay competitive in an already slim-margin market.
• The industry-standard “one-size-fits-all” payment solution can’t meet your industry-specific compliance and regulatory needs.
• Payments feel like an afterthought. Merchants are pushed to a third-party app, creating friction and slowing adoption.
• Your provider isn’t a strategic partner. You’re left making payment decisions without their expertise or guidance.

In our experience, embedded payments are the best fit for vertical SaaS. In this piece, we’ll explain why, show how it solves these challenges, and help you decide whether it’s the right payments solution for your business.

This article will cover:

• What are embedded payments
• Common payment challenges for vertical SaaS companies
• The benefits of embedded payments for vertical SaaS
• Why Fiska is a great fit for vertical SaaS

Would you prefer to talk to a payments expert to see if embedded payments are right for you? Get in touch with our CEO.

What are embedded payments?

Firstly, it’s worth briefly explaining what we mean by embedded payments.

Embedded payments are payment solutions that are built directly into your SaaS platform’s interface, so merchants can take payments without ever leaving your product. Unlike hosted payment gateways or redirected checkouts, the entire payment experience happens inside your platform, making it feel like a native feature of your software.

With the right embedded payments partner, you can offer this capability without taking on the heavy operational burdens yourself. It enables you to own your payment flow, so you can adapt pricing to suit your business model and even generate additional revenue from transactions by setting your own processing rates.

Owning your payment flow means you can adapt pricing to suit your business model and generate additional revenue from payments.

Are you currently using a mass-market payment provider and considering a change? You might like this article: When is it time to move away from Stripe?

Common payment challenges for vertical SaaS companies

While every vertical faces its specific hurdles, many payment challenges are common across vertical SaaS, no matter the industry.

Merchants could be frustrated with your platform because:

Your onboarding experience isn’t customized

Rigid onboarding flows create friction for merchants. At best, inflexible processes lead to data gaps and bottlenecks that delay activation. At worst, they cause merchants to abandon the process and choose a competitor that’s easier to work with.

Take a property management SaaS without customizable onboarding: landlords can’t add co-owners, automate rent splits, or include property-specific details like parking or security system information. They’re asked for data they don’t have or that isn’t relevant to their use case, and even if they complete onboarding, incomplete profiles make it harder for you to cross-sell or upsell later.

How embedded payments help

With embedded payments, you control your onboarding flow. You’re not stuck waiting months for a generic provider to adapt their system when regulations change. You can tailor every step to your vertical, ensuring merchants only answer relevant questions while capturing the data that matters most. Complete, up-to-date profiles make it easier to spot upsell opportunities that generate ongoing revenue for your platform.

You don’t offer omnichannel payments (in-person and online)

In many verticals — retail, hospitality, field service — supporting in-person payments is just as important as processing online transactions. That brings extra complexity: integrating with hardware, managing refunds and tips, enabling recurring payments, and ensuring a consistent, branded experience across every channel.

If your payments solution doesn’t support true omnichannel payments, you risk shutting out large segments of your target market. While some out-of-the-box providers claim to cover both in-person and online payments, they rarely deliver a seamless experience. You may be forced to choose between clunky third-party terminals or lengthy custom integrations, and many don’t support mobile point-of-sale (POS) for merchants who need to take payments on the go, such as at client locations.

How embedded payments help

For online transactions, embedded payments can integrate directly into your platform, enabling merchants to send payment links or invoices, accept online bookings, process subscriptions or recurring payments, and take payments via mobile, web, or QR code, depending on the capabilities of your provider.

For in-person payments, some embedded providers offer pre-certified POS terminals, tap-to-pay, and mobile terminals, all of which can be integrated with your SaaS platform for a consistent experience.

Your platform isn’t convenient enough for merchants to adopt

Many verticals are still dominated by manual payments. In legal services, for instance, it’s common for law firms to send invoices by email and ask clients to pay via bank transfer. This is because debit and credit card processing fees feel too high, and traditional billing workflows are deeply ingrained. As a result, law firms might ignore the payment options on your platform.

Even if using your platform is more efficient, many merchants are hesitant to switch to modern payments technology due to perceived complexity or cost.

How embedded payments help

Merchants might be skeptical about card fees, but they’re not against getting paid faster (and with less hassle).

Embedded payments let you meet them where they are. By integrating billing and payments seamlessly into your platform, you eliminate the need for extra tools or manual processes. Invoices are auto-generated, payment links are included by default, and clients can pay instantly using cards, bank transfers, or even mobile wallets.

That kind of functionality and convenience is hard to turn down and is a strong selling point for getting your merchants to adopt your embedded payment solution. Even the most fee-conscious merchants start to see the value when payments are streamlined, cash flow improves, and clients stop complaining about clunky PDF invoices or insecure email threads.

By offering a seamless, embedded experience—where payments are just part of how your software works—you remove adoption barriers.

Learn more: Best practices for embedding payments in SaaS apps: What you need to know

The benefits of embedded payments for SaaS

As well as solving common payment challenges, embedded payments open the door to new opportunities: from unlocking additional revenue streams to deepening merchant relationships and turning payments into a core driver of growth.

Here are the benefits of using embedded payments as a vertical SaaS:

It boosts your customer acquisition and retention

When you embed payments, you turn your SaaS into a true one-stop shop for your merchants.

Take this example: a plumbing company might use one platform for workload management, another for invoicing, and separate tools for payment processing, payroll, and outreach. Without embedded payments, they’re forced to juggle multiple systems: frustrating, inefficient, and unsustainable in the long run.

Now imagine that your SaaS brings all of this together, including seamless, integrated payments. You instantly become the most convenient and reliable option in their tech stack, and the platform they’ll keep coming back to.

Even if your current payment adoption rates are low, embedding payments can lock your platform into your merchants’ daily operations. That makes it significantly harder for competitors to displace you and can have a direct, positive impact on retention.

It expands your Total Addressable Market (TAM)

The TAM for vertical SaaS is naturally smaller than that of generalist platforms. However, when you integrate payments, you open your business up to new market segments that may have previously avoided your platform. For these platforms, embedded payment services are essential, which means by offering them, you’re making your SaaS more competitive.

Your customers no longer need to set up separate merchant accounts, manage payment gateways, or navigate PCI compliance. This eliminates the complexity and perceived risk of handling payments by themselves, and as a result, your SaaS becomes more appealing for them. Now, not only do they get access to your software, but they also have their payments taken care of.

Once you own the payment flow, you can easily expand into adjacent offerings, such as invoicing, billing, and virtual cards. Toast is a strong example of how effective this can be at increasing customer lifetime value: it began as a mobile payments app for restaurants and evolved into a full POS and management platform. By layering on new features and upsells, Toast has grown within its customer base, as reflected in its 111% annual net retention rate in 2023¹.

It allows you to monetize payments

It is often easier to adjust your pricing strategy for payments than to raise your core software fees. When you embed payments, you create a new revenue stream from payment processing without changing the price of your platform itself.

This is typically done by adding a markup on top of base costs such as interchange, scheme fees, and card network fees. In most cases, that markup becomes profit for the embedded payments provider. However, depending on your partner, you may be able to set your own pricing (and keep the additional markup for your platform) or receive a share of the provider’s margin.

For example, at Fiska, we offer a revenue share. If your SaaS processes $ 1 million payments at a 3% processing fee, 2% covers network fees and interchange, leaving a 1% margin. With a 50/50 revenue share, your platform earns 0.5%, or $5K in additional annual revenue. As your user base grows and your payment volume increases, this revenue scales with it. While processing rates are often predetermined, they can sometimes be negotiated based on transaction volume.

Interested in adopting embedded payments? Read our guide on how to choose the right embedded payment solution for your SaaS.

How Fiska helps vertical SaaS with payments

Mass-market solutions like Stripe work for most businesses, but Fiska is built for the 10% of SaaS platforms with complex, niche, or underserved needs.

Our team comes from the SaaS world. We have seen firsthand how rigid payment solutions hinder your operations with complex integrations, limited customization, and minimal support. Fiska was built to fix that: we are an embedded payments solution designed specifically for SaaS SMBs.

Here is what you get when you partner with Fiska:

Embedded onboarding that’s tailored to your vertical

If you serve vertical markets but your onboarding forms don’t ask for the right information, merchants will quickly lose trust. Add the friction of being redirected to a third-party site, and your drop-off rates will climb fast.

Fiska fixes this with fully customizable onboarding built right into your platform. You choose which data fields to collect — from ownership documents and split payment details for property management to certifications and licenses for healthcare. You also control the entire flow, including the steps, order, and conditional logic, so merchants only see what is relevant to your vertical.

We handle the rest. Our system runs KYC and regulatory checks automatically and adapts to local requirements. We set up the entire onboarding process for you and deliver a custom form or unique link you can embed directly into your platform.

A payments partner that helps you monetize payments

At Fiska, we work on a revenue-share model. You set your margin, and we split the processing profits after costs. We only get paid when you do, so we have every reason to make your payments as profitable as possible, while remaining competitive and offering a fair deal to your merchants.

We use transparent interchange-plus pricing so your cost forecasts are simple and predictable. We never charge fixed fees because providers who do get paid whether you succeed or not. This keeps you competitive in tight markets, and in verticals where merchants are new to electronic payments, competitive pricing can make all the difference.

With Fiska, you can tailor your pricing to different merchant segments. That means you can maximize income from boutique or high-margin merchants while keeping rates sharp for others. We’ll guide you through it because our success depends on yours.

Want to know what a true payment partnership looks like? Read: How to choose the best ISV payment partner for SaaS

White-label payments that align with the rest of your brand

With Fiska’s white-label option, every payment interaction — from checkout screens to receipts — is presented under your own brand. Merchants stay inside your platform from start to finish, without ever seeing another provider’s name or interface.

When payments are simply part of how your software works, merchants are more likely to use them consistently, and far less likely to seek out a separate solution.

Our white-label setup is designed for scalability. Whether you’re adding new features, testing a new market, or serving merchants who value a polished, branded experience, your payment flow will remain fully aligned with your platform’s look, feel, and user experience.

Omnichannel support for online and in-person payments

With Fiska, your merchants can deliver a consistent, professional payments experience whether customers pay in person or online.

Take field service merchants as an example. This sector is often underserved by SaaS platforms, which is why plumbers and electricians still rely on cash, checks, or bank transfers instead of electronic payments. Yet they still need to get paid both in person and online — often right at the customer’s location — making omnichannel support essential.

Omnichannel flexibility speeds up payments, improves cash flow, and reduces delays in receiving funds. It also makes merchants more likely to adopt and stick with your payment solution long-term. With Fiska, online payments are fully embedded into your platform and can be accepted from any device.

For in-person transactions, we offer pre-certified POS terminals for retail-based verticals and mobile-ready virtual POS for merchants who take payments on-site. Our mobile POS works with cloud or browser-based SaaS, automatically detects connected payment terminals (including mobile ones), and pairs them seamlessly with your POS software.

Looking to implement omnichannel payments as a field service management SaaS? Read more: Payments for field service management platforms: A guide

A dedicated support team that knows your business inside out

Your expertise is SaaS, and you’re not looking to become the next big payments platform.

But without strategic guidance, it can be hard to know if your payment setup is working or delivering the results you expect to enhance your software offering.

With Fiska, you get a dedicated support team that is invested in your success from day one. These will be names and faces you are familiar with: not strangers who have no idea about your operations.

We learn your SaaS inside out so we can advise on strategy, suggest pricing models that fit your market, analyze your user base, benchmark against competitors, and share best practices for optimizing your user experience and payments strategy. We share our SaaS-specific knowledge because your success drives ours. Without that guidance, it is easy to underprice, miss compliance requirements, or leave revenue on the table.

We also provide Level 2 merchant support, stepping in directly when urgent payment issues arise. Imagine your SaaS serves a high-end restaurant and payments stop working during dinner service. They can’t wait to submit a ticket.

In cases like this, Fiska steps in immediately. Our team will speak directly with the merchant if necessary and resolve the issue live. We are reachable by Slack, email, or phone, and because we already understand your business, you don’t waste time bringing us up to speed.

Choose a flexible solution that’s built for SaaS

Fiska is built for vertical software platforms that need more than generic payment tools. With flexible pricing, custom onboarding, and seamless integration, we make payments feel like a native part of your product.

We’re not just a provider: we’re a true payments partner that becomes an extension of your team. We work with you to design a payment experience that matches your usual customer experience expectations: it seamlessly integrates with your platform and is effortless for your merchants to use.

Want to see how embedded payments can drive results? Book a no-obligations call with our team.

FAQ: Finding a vertical SaaS payment solution in 2025

1. What are embedded payments in SaaS?

Embedded payments are payment processing capabilities built directly into your SaaS platform’s interface. With Fiska, merchants can accept payments without leaving your software, creating a seamless, branded experience that feels like a native feature rather than an external add-on.

2. How can embedded payments help my vertical SaaS grow?

Fiska’s embedded payments can boost merchant adoption, improve retention, open new market segments, and create new revenue streams. By controlling the payment experience through Fiska, your platform becomes more competitive and harder to replace.

Embedded payments are one option within a wider monetization strategy. Here are other ways ISVs can diversify revenue when subscription growth alone starts to reach its limits.

3. What is a white-label payment solution?

A white-label payment solution lets you offer payments under your own brand while your provider handles the infrastructure, compliance, and support. Fiska’s white-label option keeps your brand front and center, builds merchant trust, and drives adoption by making payments feel like a core part of your software.

4. How does the revenue-share model work?

With Fiska, you set your processing margin, and we split the profit after base costs like interchange and card network fees. We only earn when you do, so Fiska is invested in helping you make payments as profitable as possible while staying competitive for your merchants.

5. Does the solution support both online and in-person payments?

Yes. Fiska provides fully embedded online payments and integrated in-person solutions, including pre-certified POS terminals, tap-to-pay, and mobile-ready virtual POS for merchants who need to take payments on-site. This ensures a consistent, omnichannel experience for your SaaS across every transaction.