The Typical ISV’s Payments Integration Evolution Journey

You created a clever application for your market. Maybe it replaces paper-based work with digitized processes. Or, it might add functionality or provide insights that your users never had before. Your clients love it, but now that they’ve experienced how technology can help them operate more efficiently and productively, they’re likely to make a request: Is payments integration possible?

The Answer is Yes.

A quick internet search or a call with some people in your network will confirm that you can enable payments for your users. ISVs with little experience with payments may start by looking into plug-ins that allow users to accept credit cards, mobile wallets, P2P platforms like Venmo and PayPal, or buy now, pay later (BNPL) platforms, such as Klarna.

It may be just what your users need and may seem appealing especially if you don’t have a ton of payments expertise yourself, but in many cases, in the long run it won’t.

The Next Step in Your Payments Evolution

To meet user demand for payment functionality while giving users more advanced features and functionality they need as their businesses grow, the next step ISVs take is to investigate integration with a gateway or payments platform. There are many ways to evaluate payment solutions, but, understandably, you may narrow your choices to those that meet your clients’ immediate needs – and are the simplest to integrate.

It’s common at this stage to integrate with a platform such as Stripe, which is designed to eliminate complexity – both for your clients and for your development team. This move will enable your users to accept, for example, payments online. But, unfortunately, fees and functionality associated with such services can become prohibitive. Additionally, you might prefer to brand your company and product rather than use the payment company’s brand. And, of course, if a customer wants to accept payments on other channels (for example, in-store purchases), you’ll need to invest more time in customizations and integrations to give them the capabilities they want.

Evolving into an Omnichannel Provider

As payments become a bigger part of your day, eating into the time you’d prefer to spend on your core product, you’ll reach the point where you know you need to make a change to a full-service payments partner. Instead of continually customizing a solution to meet users’ needs, you see the value in partnering with a payment company that offers a flexible, omnichannel platform – for sales in person, online, via app, or at an unattended kiosk – that can be white-labeled to build your brand.

If you’re like most other developers, you probably approach this step with hesitance. You probably imagine complicated integration processes – maybe even hiring developers who specialize in payments integration for your clients using specific operating systems.

Fortunately, that doesn’t have to be the case. Payment companies such as NMI that value their ISV partnerships and do everything they can to make integrations as simple as possible. For example, NMI offers developers the opportunity to integrate payments with a simple integration.

Reasons to Make the Right Payments Integration Decision Out of the Gate

An ISV’s payments integration evolution from plug-in to full-commerce capabilities may simply be a factor of the learning curve that many developers who aren’t payment specialists navigate. However, it represents months or years spent trying to provide your clients with the payments functionality they need – and then looking for a solution that really works. It also gives your users time to find a different solution that meets their industry, business, and payments needs.

You can minimize the learning curve by partnering with a payments company with experts who can:

• Help you make smart choices about the capabilities your users need.

• Assist you with integration tools and support.

• Keep you apprised of the rapidly changing payments landscape.

If you’re looking for the most straightforward payments integration strategy, talk to NMI about options that make the most sense for your business. It’s the only payments integration you’ll ever need.