Sooner or later, every vertical software company hears the same request from its customers: “Can we just take payments inside your product?” The easy answer is to plug in an outside processor and move on. The catch is what goes with it. The merchant relationship, visibility into fees, control over the experience, and most of the upside all leave the building.
Embedded payments offer a different path. Here is what that path actually looks like, without the jargon.
What “embedded” really means
Embedded payments run inside your software, under your brand. Your customers never feel handed off to a third party. Underneath, a shared platform carries the heavy parts: processing, compliance, underwriting, risk, settlement, payouts, and disputes.
There is more than one way to set this up, depending on how much control and responsibility you want. PayFac as a Service suits companies that want to own the merchant relationship and the economics without building a payment facilitator from scratch. ISV Solutions suits teams that want a clean integration with less operational lift.
Following a payment from start to finish
It helps to picture a single transaction moving through the system.
It starts inside your software, through a hosted form, a custom checkout, point of sale, mobile POS, or Pay By Link. If your customers take payments in person, card present options cover the counter. Online, eCommerce and digital wallets cover the rest.
Next come automated risk and compliance checks before the payment is routed to the card networks or ACH. Approved transactions are batched and settled, typically within one to three business days, and net funds land in the merchant’s bank account on their payout schedule. Finally, everything shows up in one view: transactions, settlements, payouts, refunds, and chargebacks across card and ACH. You can see the full set of tools on the platform features page.
Security is part of the foundation
Payments carry real risk, so security cannot be an afterthought. The platform is PCI DSS Level 1 and backed by a 99.9% uptime SLA. You can read how compliance is handled on the Security and Compliance page, and check live service health anytime on the system status page.
What it looks like in practice
Theory is useful. Proof is better. When Total Service integrated, the hands-on implementation took under two hours, a single developer completed the full integration, and the team rated the migration experience 10 out of 10. The full story is in the Total Service case study.
Built with vertical software in mind
A dental practice, a sports facility, and a retail store all take payments differently. Recurring billing, deposits, in-person checkout, and online invoices each matter more in some industries than others. See how payments fit your market in Healthcare, Retail, Sports and Recreation, and Automotive.
For the developers on your team
If your engineers want to look under the hood first, the developer documentation has the API reference, examples, and integration guides.
Ready to take the next step?
CSIPay brings all of this together for Constellation Software and Jonas operating companies, with 4,000+ merchants on the platform, $40M+ distributed to partners, and coverage across the US and Canada. Have questions first? The FAQs cover the common ones, and there is more reading on our blog. When you are ready to talk, contact the team or email [email protected].