As a SaaS provider, you understand the need to continuously evolve your platform to effectively adapt to your users’ needs in addition to earning profits and remaining competitive in the market. While you’ve always emphasized customer experience, you’re now wondering if integrating payments into your SaaS platform can help attract new users and create even more value for your existing users.
Here are a few of the key signs that it may be time to integrate payments into your SaaS platform.
1. Downward Pricing Pressure is a Challenge You’re Facing
Right now, you’re likely competing with other software vendors within your industry that are larger and may offer more competitive pricing than your platform can profitably match. You probably don’t want to lower your prices just to compete for customers unless you are able to offset those funds with another revenue opportunity.
By integrating payments into your platform, it will help to alleviate the pressure on your bottom line and limit any changes to your pricing models by increasing the value of each user.
2. Seeking to Expand Your Operations
You’re looking to scale your business and increase your user base, or you’re striving to evolve your platform into a more scalable model. It’s crucial to identify your primary scaling goals to ensure you’re prioritizing the right features and targeting those initiatives.
Integrated payments scale extremely well, as they create an additional revenue stream within your platform while transforming it into an all-in-one experience for your users.
3. Customer Demand for Payment Processing Platforms
Listening to customers about their day-to-day experience within your SaaS platform can help reveal which features are most important to add or optimize. Software companies that are in tune with the merchants they serve have greater visibility into the areas of opportunity outside of their current product offerings.
For instance, merchants struggling to chase down customers and collect payments could benefit highly from a streamlined payment system. By integrating a payments ecosystem into your platform (which they are already using) can significantly increase how quickly your customers are able to get paid and solve those challenges.
As a software company owner, it is imperative that you examine the needs of your customers across their entire business model, not just how they are currently working within your platform.
Through this strategy, you’ll have the opportunity to explore other features and revenue opportunities that you may not have considered.
4. Customers Expect to Make Payments Within SaaS Platforms
Your customers likely use other software providers for different needs in their personal and professional lives, and they are already familiar with the process of making and accepting payments within those platforms. To stay competitive and meet your customers’ needs, you can offer a similar–if not better–user experience. If done effectively, customers will be more likely to stick with your software due to the ease of fulfilling all of their needs within a single location
5. Launch a New Product/Service to the Market
Perhaps it has been a while since you’ve introduced new features into your platform’s product suite, and you believe that integrating payments could serve as a significant offering that would attract more users. While you know your SaaS platform is already the best in the industry, you’re also aware that finding innovative ways to enhance your product, optimize the user experience and market your platform to an even wider audience. Adding payment processing to your suite could give your SaaS platform an even greater edge in the market.
Join the Payments-Led Growth Movement
Sign up to keep up-to-date with the latest trends in payments, vertical SaaS, and technology from industry experts.
Integrating Payments: The Nitty Gritty
Now that you are fully on-board with integrating payments into your SaaS platform, you now have to determine whether you should build the payments integration yourself or hire a third party. And if you do partner with an established payment processor, should you use a white-labeled user experience, or would a co-branded interface help to improve brand equity?
There are a handful of key benefits to utilizing a partner when upgrading your platform to accept payments. If a reliable third-party payment processor handles the payment infrastructure, then you can hone in on the user experience – which is the most important key to your success.
By working alongside a third-party partner, you can integrate faster, utilize even more resources to promote your platform and ensure a smooth user adoption process with hands-on customer service and payment integration specialists.
With a payment integration partner, you’ll be able to quickly begin accepting credit cards and ACH payments, utilize email and text invoicing, automatically update or deactivate expired cards, and securely store all payment methods so there aren’t any security issues.
Whenever there is a problem, you can always turn to your third-party provider for assistance rather than taking time out of your already busy schedule.
It’s a win-win situation that could greatly increase your bottom line.
Signing Up for Stax Connect
Stax Connect offers a fully managed payments facilitation ecosystem for your SaaS platform, allowing you to accept a number of different types of payments with ease. With Stax Connect, you can combine the power of payments monetization with the control and security of your SaaS platform. It offers continued PCI DSS security and compliance at every level so you can have peace of mind that the payments integration is safe and effective.
FAQs about Saving with Integrated Payments
Q: What are the signs that it is time to integrate payments into my SaaS platform?
If downward pricing pressure is becoming a formidable challenge, if your operations are expanding, if your customers voice a demand for payment processing platforms, if customers expect to make payments within the SaaS platforms, and if you plan to launch a new product/service to the market, it could be time to integrate payments into your platform.
Q: How can integrating payments into my SaaS platform help my business?
Integrating payments into your platform can help alleviate the pressure on your bottom line, increase the value of each user, create an additional revenue stream, and transform your platform into an all-in-one experience for your users.
Q: How can integrating a payments ecosystem into my platform benefit my customers?
Integrating a payments ecosystem into your platform can significantly increase how quickly your customers get paid, helping to solve challenges related to chasing down customers and collecting payments.
Q: Should I build the payment integration myself or hire a third party?
Working alongside a third-party partner can help improve brand equity, integrate faster, promote your platform, and ensure a smooth user adoption process with hands-on customer service and payment integration specialists.
Q: What are some benefits of using Stax Connect for implementing payment integration into my SaaS platform?
Stax Connect offers a fully managed payments facilitation ecosystem for your SaaS platform. It allows you to accept a number of different types of payments with ease. Stax Connect also offers continued PCI DSS security and compliance at every level so you can have peace of mind that the payments integration is safe and effective.
Q: How can integrating payments into my SaaS platform give me an edge in the market?
Integrating payments can serve as a significant offering that attracts more users. It provides innovative ways to enhance your product, optimize the user experience, and market your platform to a wider audience.
Q: What are the advantages of partnering with a third-party payment processor to upgrade my platform to accept payments?
A third-party payment processor would enable you to enhance user experience, integrate faster, promote your platform more effectively, and ensure a smoother customer transition. In addition, a capable third-party provider would help handle security concerns, thereby allowing you to focus on improving your platform.
Q: What types of payments can the SaaS platform accept with the integration of payments with Stax Connect?
With Stax Connect, you can accept credit cards and ACH payments, utilize email and text invoicing, automatically update or deactivate expired cards, and securely store all payment methods.
