Embedded payments are often presented as a natural growth engine for software providers (ISVs), and they’ve spent years embedding payments directly into workflows that merchants already use for invoicing, scheduling, reporting, inventory, and customer management. The assumption is straightforward: if you integrate payments into the workflow, merchants will naturally adopt them. That happened in some cases, but for most ISVs, adoption has not materialised at the scale they expected.
Wind River Payments’ recent survey found that for 65% of software providers, fewer than half of their customer base have adopted their integrated payments offering. Today, embedded payments have evolved from an add-on feature to a major revenue driver tied to retention and long-term platform revenue. For software providers that have driven merchant adoption successfully, the payoff can be significant. Forty-one percent now generate more than half of their total revenue from payments. Making payments technically available inside the platform is no longer the hard part. The challenge is driving merchant adoption.
The market underestimated the operational side of payments
Unlike other technology solutions that can be implemented independently, payment systems play an integral role in day-to-day business operations. A migration impacts reconciliation, reporting, cash flow visibility, employee workflows, customer experience, refunds and chargeback management. Even when the integrated experience is better, many merchants may be reluctant to move away from systems they already know and trust.
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The friction rarely shows up during integration. It appears later, when a merchant who likes the economics of an embedded offering still balks at making a change because they are not sure how the transition will affect their team, their reporting, or their customers. For most merchants, that hesitation is less about the technology and more about the operational reality of change: whether the transition will work for their business, not just whether the product is capable.
Pricing and service quality are also part of the equation. Merchants want to know whether fees are transparent and competitive, whether they’ll get a quick response when something goes wrong, and whether the platform has the functionality their vertical requires. If any of those pieces feel unclear or misaligned, they may opt out.
The problem is that many providers still view adoption as the end stage in implementation. But that’s when the real operational evaluation starts for merchants.
What the strongest platforms do differently
The ISVs seeing the highest adoption rates share a common approach: they recognise payments as a lifecycle program, not a one-time launch.
Education and merchant engagement matter far more than many platforms initially expect. Embedding payments into a product doesn’t convince merchants they are ready to change payment workflows they use every day. The platforms that bridge this gap help merchants understand how the transition will affect day-to-day workflows, where the value comes from and what support will look like after go-live, before they get cold feet.
They invest heavily in migration support, merchant communication, onboarding and continued customer engagement. They also ensure pricing remains competitive, deliver the functionality merchants need and communicate why making the switch is worth the move for their business long-term. They recognise that functionality, pricing, stability and responsive support all shape the merchant experience. A strong feature set matters, but so does the speed of resolving problems when something goes wrong.
It also means being intentional about who owns the customer experience after implementation. A persistent gap across ISV programs is ensuring that the experience remains positive after go-live and that the roadmap, feature set, pricing and service model continue to meet current market needs. When no one owns that part of the process, adoption efforts can stall and payment revenue can plateau with it. Platforms that avoid this designate clear ownership internally and treat adoption as an ongoing responsibility, not a handoff.
Support structure matters too. Whether a platform operates under a white-label model or a referral arrangement with its payments partner, merchants need to know who to contact when something goes wrong and trust that the response will be fast.
Embedded payments is a growth strategy
The ISVs that are building sustainable payments revenue are the ones that bring the same discipline to adoption as they bring to the rest of their product. That means a clear sales strategy that positions payments as something that genuinely improves merchant operations. It means transparent, competitive pricing and vertical-specific functionality that fits how merchants actually work. And it means reinforcing value and strengthening the customer experience throughout the full merchant relationship, not just at launch.
Embedded payments only work as a growth engine when paired with a deliberate adoption strategy. The technology creates the opportunity, but onboarding, communication, and ongoing merchant engagement are what convert that opportunity into consistent revenue.
For years, the focus was on getting payments embedded into the platform. That problem is largely solved. The next competitive advantage in embedded payments will come from providers that pair that foundation with clear internal ownership, consistent merchant communication strategies and onboarding processes that turn embedded payments from a platform feature into something merchants embrace and trust.
Pete Uselman, Director of Partner Experience at Wind River Payments
