Best Embedded Payments & PayFac-as-a-Service Companies for SaaS (2026)

By Michael Seaman
Reviewed by Swipesum’s Payments Team (20+ specialists across acquiring, risk, and integrations)
Updated: January 2026

The engineer & finance leader’s guide to PayFac-as-a-Service

Ten years ago, “embedded payments” was a nice-to-have. Today, boards and investors expect platforms to monetize payments and deliver a first-class checkout and payout experience. The result: software companies are quickly becoming the primary distributors of payments and merchant accounts in their verticals... owning more of the economics while improving UX and retention.

If you’re building a SaaS platform or marketplace, the mandate is clear: launch fast, control margins, and avoid headcount bloat. That’s where PayFac-as-a-Service (PFaaS) and embedded payments come in. Instead of registering and operating as a full PayFac, you can plug in sub-merchant onboarding, risk and compliance tooling, settlement/payouts, and rich developer components, then choose a monetization model (revenue-share or buy-rate / interchange+) that fits your goals.

This guide goes beyond marketing claims and compares six leading PFaaS / embedded payments options on what engineers and finance teams actually need to decide:

• Integration path & developer experience (APIs, components, onboarding flows)
• Monetization & platform fees (rev-share vs buy-rate, per-payout/active-merchant fees)
• Risk, compliance & ops burden (KYC/AML, chargebacks, reserves, PCI scope)
• Payouts & treasury (funding cadence, split payouts, reconciliation)
• Coverage & scale (cards, ACH, terminals, global)
• Best fit by stage (startup speed, customization, enterprise omnichannel, done-for-you)

The industry is mature enough now that you can pick a technical path, a pricing model, and an operating motion, and even build an internal payments function when you’re ready. Below, you’ll find the fastest way to production, the options with the strongest long-term economics, and the partners that minimize operational drag.

TL;DR: Our picks by use case

• Best overall (all sizes, done-for-you): Swipesum
• Best product for monetization & customization: Forward
• Best for startups / fastest launch: Stripe Connect
• Best for quick implementation with buy-rate: Rainforest Payments
• Best for small companies growing into ownership: Finix
• Best for enterprise/omnichannel & risk depth: Worldpay for Platforms (includes Payrix capabilities via acquisition/rebrand)

How we ranked (engineer + finance methodology)

We scored each platform across six dimensions (1–5), with notes your teams can act on:

1. Monetization & Economics: Rev-share vs buy-rate/interchange+, who sets merchant pricing, per-payout/active-account fees, ACH economics, terminal & cross-border costs.
2. Integration & Developer Experience: API completeness, SDKs, embedded components, hosted vs embeddable onboarding, webhooks/logging, sandbox, uptime.
3. Risk, Compliance & Ops Burden: KYC/AML, underwriting, chargebacks, reserves, PCI scope, fraud tooling, needed FTEs.
4. Payouts & Treasury: Funding cadence (T+1/next-day/instant), split payouts, multi-currency settlement, reconciliation exports.
5. Coverage & Scale: Cards, ACH, wallets, in-person/terminals, geo/currency footprint, marketplace features.
6. Support & Vendor Viability: Solutions engineering, migration help, SLAs, roadmap visibility, references.

Shortcut: If you’re optimizing speed, bias toward Integration/DX + Payouts. If you’re optimizing margin, bias toward Monetization + Ops costs.

Swipesum (Best overall, done-for-you)

Highlights

• End-to-end PayFac-as-a-Service and embedded payments consulting and implementation
• Multi-acquirer, multi-gateway setup with buy-rate or revenue-share flexibility
• Ideal for platforms that want to monetize payments without hiring an internal team

Swipesum stands apart because it doesn’t just provide a PayFac-as-a-Service platform, it builds and operates your entire payments infrastructure. Its specialists scope your requirements, recommend the right gateway and acquirer mix, and negotiate the best possible platform economics. You get a managed implementation with sub-merchant onboarding, terminals, ACH integration, and reconciliation exports handled by a project-managed team.

After go-live, Swipesum becomes a long-term payments partner, helping with portfolio migration and sales efforts, monitoring interchange fees, auditing statements, white labeled customer service, and optimizing your margins over time. For SaaS companies that want embedded payments revenue without hiring a payments department, Swipesum offers the most turnkey solution on the market.

Forward (Best for monetization & customization)

Highlights

• Built for software platforms that want embedded payments without building a full payments org
• Clear payments economics with transparent platform revenue statements
• Full control over what your customers pay and what fees show up in your product
• Fast integration support with embeddable widgets, guides, emulators, and sample apps
• Support tooling that reduces the most common payment support tickets: matching payments, releasing funds, and chargebacks

Forward positions itself as embedded payments built by software founders for software builders, with a heavy emphasis on clarity and execution. If your team is tired of confusing pricing, hidden fees, or a provider that changes what merchants pay without your direction, Forward is designed to give you control. Their pricing language is direct: they call out “junk fees,” avoid inflating costs through payout basis points, and focus on transparency in payments economics.

From a developer and product standpoint, Forward leans into speed-to-production without sacrificing long-term flexibility. They claim many clients can code, QA, and release an integration in under two weeks, supported by embeddable widgets, guides, emulators, sample apps, and direct access to engineering help. If you want a partner that will actually help you get embedded payments live and keep it running smoothly, that combination of tooling plus hands-on support is a strong differentiator.

Forward also publishes technical documentation for a managed PayFac flow, including a Payment Intent API and a browser-side Payment Elements SDK to collect and tokenize card data securely, plus support for payment methods like bank payments and digital wallets in their docs navigation. That makes it easier to evaluate what it will feel like to build and operate on their platform, not just buy it.

Best fit

• Vertical SaaS or platforms that want real ownership of pricing and margins
• Teams that care about reducing operational drag, especially support burden and reconciliation friction
• Companies that expect to migrate or upgrade their payments model over time and want lower switching costs

Stripe Connect (Best for startups & global speed)

Highlights

• Stripe is the default path to market for SaaS and marketplaces
• Two models: Stripe-billed or self-billed (set your own pricing)
• Global coverage with SDKs, API components, and instant onboarding

Stripe Connect remains the default option for startups entering the embedded payments space. Its developer experience is second to none, with rich SDKs, low-code onboarding flows, and global compliance coverage. Stripe makes it easy for small teams to go live quickly with scalable APIs for payments, payouts, tax, and terminal devices.

For early-stage companies, Stripe’s speed is unmatched, but it comes with tradeoffs. Support is almost nonexistant. As volume grows beyond roughly $50M in annual processed payments, many SaaS platforms find their margin potential capped by Stripe’s platform and payout fees, and start looking for other options. It’s an entry point for fast launches, but not the long-term solution for maximizing economics and experience.

Rainforest (Best for quick implementation with buy-rate control)

Highlights

• Transparent buy-rate / interchange-plus model (no revenue share)
• Developer-first platform with prebuilt components and next-day funding
• Built for vertical SaaS platforms that need to launch in days, not months

Rainforest Payments focuses on speed and control. Its platform gives SaaS companies a fast track to accepting payments with developer-friendly APIs, no-code onboarding tools, and real-time reporting. By using an interchange-plus (buy-rate) model, platforms keep full ownership of merchant pricing and can easily model their margins.

Unlike revenue-share PFaaS providers, Rainforest emphasizes transparency and fast funding, making it ideal for vertical SaaS products that need to get live quickly but still want to own the economics. It’s a strong balance between simplicity, control, and flexibility for scaling payment-enabled software.

Finix (Best for small companies growing into ownership)

Highlights

• Pathway from PFaaS to full PayFac operation under one vendor
• High uptime and enterprise-level developer reliability
• Ideal for platforms planning to eventually own their payments stack

Finix takes a long-term approach to embedded payments. Start with their PayFac-as-a-Service model and grow into full PayFac ownership over time, all within the same platform. For startups with growing volumes, Finix offers APIs, dashboards, and automation tools for onboarding merchants, managing risk, and reconciling payments at scale.

Finix markets itself as the infrastructure for companies that plan to internalize payments as a core competency. Its reliability, documentation, and scalability make it a great fit for SaaS companies that want to start small but grow into complete ownership of their payment processing stack.

Worldpay for Platforms (Best for enterprise, omnichannel & risk depth)

Highlights

• Enterprise-grade PFaaS with global acquiring and advanced risk management
• Supports card-present and e-commerce with tokenization and global settlement
• Ideal for high-volume, omnichannel, or regulated platforms

Worldpay for Platforms, formerly Payrix, is built for enterprises with complex hierarchies and global operations. It combines omnichannel acquiring, fraud prevention, and compliance infrastructure under a single umbrella. By leveraging Worldpay’s global acquiring network, platforms can process billions in transactions while maintaining control of their user experience.

For large SaaS and marketplace platforms, Worldpay’s strength is in scale, compliance, and risk coverage. It’s built for teams that already have payments expertise but need a provider with deep global capabilities, enterprise-grade reliability, and the backing of one of the most established acquirers in the world.

Pricing & monetization models (with quick math)

• Revenue-share (vendor bills merchants): Lower ops burden; margin ceiling capped by the partner’s pricing.
• Buy-rate / interchange+: You set merchant pricing, capture spread; requires pricing discipline and some ops.
• Add-ons to model: ACH costs, per-payout fees, active-merchant fees, terminals, instant payouts, cross-border.

Example: $10M annual volume, 1.50% platform take-rate target = $150k gross. Subtract platform fees (e.g., $25k) + per-payout/active fees ($10k) → $115k pre-ops margin. Compare across vendors before signing.

Implementation timelines

• Plug & go: Stripe Connect, Rainforest | days → weeks.
• Configurable PFaaS: Zift, Finix | weeks → months.
• Enterprise: Worldpay for Platforms | months.
• Done-for-you: Swipesum | fastest to “live” with minimal hiring.

Engineer & finance workbook (selection checklist)

• Economics: Take-rate goal, card/ACH mix, per-payout & active-account fees, reserve triggers.
• Tech: Hosted vs embedded onboarding, splits/marketplace flows, webhooks, reconciliation detail.
• Risk/Compliance: KYC ownership, PCI scope (tokenization), fraud tools, dispute workflow.
• Ops: Expected ticket volume, SLAs, staffing.
• Future-proofing: In-person terminals, international, migration path.

FAQs

What’s the difference between PayFac, PFaaS, and embedded payments?‍

A PayFac is the payments facilitator (merchant of record for sub-merchants). PFaaS lets you embed PayFac capabilities without operating the full program. Embedded payments means putting payments into your product to monetize transactions (with or without PayFac status).

Rev-share vs buy-rate, which maximizes margin?‍

Rev-share is simpler, but caps margins. Buy-rate gives control over pricing and spread; requires more discipline and some ops.

What are per-payout/active-merchant fees and why do they matter?‍

They’re line items that quietly erode margin, especially at scale. Always model them against your transaction count and payout cadence.

How fast can we go live?‍

Hosted flows: days/weeks. Custom embedded & enterprise: weeks/months. Partner-led programs (Swipesum) accelerate timelines without hiring.

Conclusion & CTA

Pick based on stage and strategy: Stripe for startups, Rainforest for fast buy-rate, Zift for customization, Finix for a path to ownership, Worldpay for enterprise omnichannel. If you want top-tier economics without hiring a payments team, Swipesum is the easiest way to design, implement, and operate embedded payments end-to-end.

Want a free margin model comparing these options for your volumes and payout cadence? Talk to Swipesum’s payments team.