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For ISVs developing SaaS applications in 2026 and beyond, payments have crossed a rubicon. Gone are the days of payments as a bolt-on feature. What was once an integrated component is now core infrastructure that enables revenue growth, product expansion, and faster market execution.
In fact, smart payments now function as the financial backbone of SaaS. ISVs are prioritizing modernization—reducing technical debt and simplifying their payments stack. Unified, cloud-based payment architectures are becoming the new standard. The trends shaping 2026 are rooted in what gained traction across the ISV ecosystem in 2025.
In this 2026 state of the union, we’ll cover the key forces shaping payments as infrastructure, including the rise of unified APIs and low-code integrations, the acceleration of unattended and autonomous payments, payments and customer interaction converging at the point of service, the increasing demand for flexibility, device optionality, and scalable architecture, why reliability and uptime have become mission-critical, and the modernization wave among legacy payment partners. It’s an important paradigm shift that merits acknowledgment, understanding, and strategic planning.
Here at Payroc, we continue to invest in unified architecture, cloud workflows, device expansion, and developer experience to help ISVs move faster, reduce complexity, and scale confidently into new verticals.
Trend 1: Payments Must Now Be Embedded, Not Just Integrated
Imperative: Payments can no longer feel like an add-on or “supported integration.”
In 2026, your customers and end users expect a fully unified experience. If you’re not already, it’s time to moves away from fragmented, acquisition-stitched payment systems. Instead, you need a unified, cloud-managed approach that reduces complexity and minimizes device-specific development.
- Payments native inside core workflows (checkout, invoicing, subscriptions, disbursements)
- No context switching, redirects, or third-party UX seams
- Zero-certification and low-code CP integrations; less development tied to devices, more centralized processing through cloud workflows
- One contract, one frictionless onboarding, one support path
Implication for ISVs
- API-first and low-code payment models are essential but no longer enough; you need deep UI-level embedding.
- ISVs that still “send users to Stripe / PayPal / terminal setup” will look dated.
- Monetization increasingly depends on owning the payment moment.
Embedded payments simplify development, shorten launch timelines, and eliminate technical debt tied to traditional SDK builds.
How Payroc Aligns
Payroc provides the products and features you need to turn integrated payments into infrastructure, including Payroc Cloud, device abstraction, a revamped Developer Portal, low-code models, and more.
Trend 2: Unattended and Autonomous Payments Are Becoming Growth Engines
Thanks to rising consumer expectations for 24/7 self-service experiences—from kiosks and vending to retail self-service and more—unattended payments saw major acceleration in 2025 and will expand further in 2026.
Unattended and autonomous payments are no longer about convenience or automation. In 2026, they are revenue multipliers, retention drivers, and platform-lock-in mechanisms for ISVs.
Payroc has an insider view of this industry development. We see ISVs increasingly entering unattended verticals to create new revenue streams. We have a front-row seat to market growth across EV, parking, automated retail, micro-markets, and entertainment. And we partner closely with the marquee terminal manufacturers expanding their device support for unattended card-present payments.
Implications for ISVs
- Autonomous payments compress the revenue cycle to near zero; faster cash flow improves your reinvestment capacity.
- Autonomous payments increase retention through “invisible payments;” lower friction leads to reduced churn.
- Autonomous payments reduce support and operational costs.
- Autonomous payments scale better than human-mediated billing, improve unit economics as volume grows, and reinforce platform dependency.
- You can now scale into unattended without major redevelopment.
How Payroc Aligns
In 2025, Payroc added support for the unattended-built PAX IM30 Android terminal as well as a number of ID TECH USB-connected devices designed for unattended payment environments. And to better accommodate these applications and terminals, we also completed Payroc Cloud workflow improvements tailored to unattended use cases.
Trend 3: Payments Are Converging with the Customer Interaction
Payment devices are evolving from simple transaction endpoints into engagement platforms—bridging identity, interaction, and payments in a single moment.
As capabilities such as signature capture, manual entry, on-device data collection, and contextual prompts become standard, the payment moment is no longer the end of the customer journey. It is increasingly the center of the customer relationship.
In many verticals, devices now support workflows that once lived elsewhere: customer verification, service confirmation, tipping, feedback, follow-up, and authorization. As a result, the quality of the payment-step experience directly shapes conversion, retention, and trust.
The implication is clear: payment UX is no longer a backend concern. Customers increasingly expect complete, intuitive workflows at the point of service, and ISVs that treat payment devices as interaction surfaces—not just acceptance tools—will define the next generation of customer experience.
Implications for ISVs
- Payments are UX, not plumbing.
- Payment devices are strategic product surfaces.
- Payments are a retention and conversion lever. ISVs are no longer integrating payments—they’re productizing them.
- Competitive differentiation shifts to payment experience quality.
- In 2026, whoever owns the payment interaction increasingly owns the customer relationship.
How Payroc Aligns
In 2025, we implemented cloud-managed signature capture and input workflows to activate Payroc Cloud as a customer engagement platform. We are strategically aligned with this trend, and our 2026 roadmap includes more essential steps to support ISVs in optimizing this capability.
Trend 4: ISVs with Legacy Payment Infrastructure Are Upgrading Wisely
A large segment of the ISV ecosystem still operates on legacy payment infrastructure. In fact, it’s estimated that 40-60% of ISVs still rely on legacy or partial-legacy payments infrastructure. Think old APIs, non-real-time rails, manual processes, siloed systems, and more.
Hosted checkouts and redirect flows? Lack of payment orchestration? Manual settlement? Multiple systems handling payments? Payment processes reliant on these legacy components tend to be labor-intensive and fragmented. As a result, ISVs dependent upon them—and their clients—tend to suffer integration friction, slow releases, and operational inefficiencies galore.
By upgrading wisely to a unified payment platform that can support multiple devices, environments, and use cases, everything payments can easily be handled in one architecture—card-present and card-not-present, unattended, mobile, and digital wallets. If you’re a multi-vertical ISV, device flexibility and hardware support enable growth. And API-first and cloud workflows allow you to scale without re-integration.
Implications for ISVs
- If you need modernization, look for a process that’s guided and well-supported—not a forced, heavy redevelopment lift.
- White-glove technical transition support from prospective payments partners has become a differentiator.
- 2026 will be a major upgrade year driven by competitive pressure and customer expectations.
How Payroc Aligns
Payroc has built teams and processes that specialize in supporting ISVs with legacy payments infrastructure make the leap to modern, unified embedded payments. We have dedicated partner transition teams and simplified migration paths that require less redevelopment and yield smoother certification and testing flows.
Payments as the Core Engine of SaaS Growth in 2026
Payments have become foundational infrastructure for modern SaaS platforms. And 2026 will reward ISVs who modernize now and upgrade their payment stack.
Unified systems, cloud workflows, unattended expansion, and reliable performance will define the next era of SaaS payments. ISVs who treat payments as a strategic lever—not a maintenance burden—gain the fastest path to growth.
As the payments platform built for partners, Payroc focuses on reducing friction and is invested in long-term enablement, ready to support growth in 2026 and beyond.
To learn more about embedding payments with Payroc, explore our Developer Portal and connect with the Payroc account team.