6 Questions for Choosing the Right Payments Partner

Finding the best payments partner is one of the most important goals for ISVs as they develop merchant solutions. Since most ISVs aren’t payments experts, your ISV payments solution partner can help enable a flexible and streamlined payments process that includes every method you choose to deliver.

As you think about what your merchants need from a payments perspective, there are a number of questions to answer that can help you make your decision. In this blog, we’ve covered the top six questions clients should ask. 

Which Hardware Does Your Platform Support and Certify?

Look for a payments partner that is agnostic and can support virtually any type of hardware devices, and make sure those devices are pre-certified so you don’t have to do that work. Integration with those devices should be easy.

While many payments processors have a limited offering of certified card-present devices that work well, they offer little flexibility. That means any future growth will require finding one or more other payment processors. 

Payroc offers more than 30 different devices for attended and unattended transactions. They are pre-certified with our SDK solution, facilitating plug-and-play integration. ISVs simply have to select which devices will work for their specific use cases.

What Operating Systems Does Your Platform Support?

ISVs have to accommodate virtually every operating system, including iOS, Windows, Android, and solutions without middleware. Your payments platform should be able to support all of them. When evaluating payment partners, look for one that offers plug-and-play and customizable options.

For example, at Payroc we leverage our SDK, which allows ISVs to plug-and-play most of the payment processors and solutions on the market. It’s simple and easy to implement. For a more complex implementation and solutions without middleware, our REST API is another option.

But sometimes ISVs need even more flexibility – either because they have legacy components and/or they’ve built a system with customizations that are specific to a particular industry. In those cases, we offer a websocket solution.

We see this quite a bit in low-powered environments, such as parking companies with meters. They usually have a mix of no operating system, a custom operating system, or a low-power system. The same applies to laundromats. In both situations, the websocket solution offers a custom workaround that can function just as well as a system that utilizes REST API and an SDK.

How Much Control Can I Have Over My Payments and Revenue?

A great payments partner will offer ISVs a pathway for managing their own payments. The trajectory should look something like this:

You start out as a referral partner where you send leads to your payments partner. Your partner does all of the sales-related heavy lifting, as well as onboarding and integration, and they give ISVs a share of the revenue. That revenue share tends to be smaller, but the payments partner assumes all of the risk.

On the other end of the spectrum, ISVs should be able to work their way up to being a full payfac where they take on the risk associated with underwriting and the staffing to manage onboarding and integration. Of course, the revenue share is significantly greater. 

Payroc offers that range of options.

Affiliate Relationship

This option offers minimal risk and investment and limited customization. Merchants benefit from:

• Accepting all payment types
• A dedicated support team and staff
• Personal account management and client strategies
• Plug-and-play sales and application process and simplified compliance

Managed Relationship

This option is for enterprise players that want to balance monetization and customer experience. It offers:

• White-label options
• Less risk than a full-fledged payment facilitator
• Improved user experience with end-to-end boarding controls
• No underwriting, risk compliance, or annual audits
• No upfront costs and annual registration fees
• Private account management

Full Relationship

This option is for software companies with payments expertise, significant capital, and a high risk tolerance. If offers the following:

• Completely customized solution tailored to your software
• Total control over user experience and brand
• Compliance and regulatory resource intensive
• Responsible for any fraud or chargebacks
• Leverage all Payroc assets under your control

What Type of Support Do You Provide?

ISVs should look for a payments partner that offers dedicated support throughout each step of the onboarding and integration process, as well as post-implementation. And that support shouldn’t involve five contacts. A superior support model will involve a single point of contact to answer every payment question.

Payroc has dedicated support teams at every turn who all coordinate through a single channel. We hold weekly calls with ISVs during the onboarding and integration process, and a dedicated Slack channel gives clients a single place to ask virtually any question at any time. This includes questions about the various payment processors and hardware vendors they’ve chosen for their solution.

How Does Your Solution Help Me Reduce Payment Costs?

One of the biggest challenges ISVs and merchants deal with on a daily basis is the interchange cost related to every transaction. Any payments partner you’re considering should offer some sort of program to help reduce these costs.

These options should include one or more of the following:

• Surcharging that allows businesses to add a credit card processing fee to the final price customers pay for an item.
• Dual pricing at checkout, where consumers can choose from paying cash or using a credit card with processing costs included.
• Cash discounting that offsets processing costs by offering a discount to any customer paying with a cash or check.

Download, Checklist for Choosing the Best Payments Partner, to get started with your payment partner evaluation.