Summary: B2B SaaS platforms can diversify revenue with payments by embedding card issuing and capturing interchange fees on transactions already flowing through their software. Instead of earning only on subscription seats, platforms that own the payment layer through partnerships with modern card issuing providers, unlock new revenue streams, gain transaction data for better underwriting and cross-sell, and increase customer stickiness. This approach doesn't require becoming a fintech company; program management partners help handle compliance, fraud infrastructure, and network relationships while the platform retains the economics.
Most B2B software platforms are built to charge for seats. But there is a valuable thing moving through or adjacent to the platform each day, and that’s money. Right now, many platforms are not benefiting from the very activity their platform sets in motion.
Every time a customer pays a vendor, runs payroll, or settles an invoice through a platform, that transaction passes through a payment rail the software platform doesn't control. The platform made the transaction possible but gets no benefit from it.
It's a bit like building a city. You laid the roads, residents moved in, the whole place exists because you built it. An entire economy now runs through it because of what you built. And out of all of it, the only thing you charge for is parking. The commerce, the traffic, the sheer volume of activity you made possible flows through your streets, and you're collecting on the least valuable square meter of the whole thing.
Translated out of the metaphor: this isn't a hypothetical revenue stream. It's revenue that already exists, moving through the product every single day, but going to someone else.
The economy running through your streets
For B2B software platforms serving SMBs, it isn't just margin flowing past. It's data too. Owning the payment layer means owning the transaction data: the underwriting signals, the spend patterns, the insight that drives better cross-sell and smarter product decisions. Right now, all of that belongs to whoever processes the payment, instead of the platform that made the transaction happen in the first place.
And it isn't only about what you earn. When a platform handles payments, it becomes operationally embedded in a customer's business in a way pure software never can. A customer can cancel a subscription in a few clicks. They can't as easily move their payment operations. Money is sticky in a way software seats simply aren't.
The platforms that started charging for more
The biggest platform companies of the last decade didn't get there by charging for software. Shopify's real business isn't subscriptions. Toast doesn't make its money on restaurant management tools. Square's business was never really the point-of-sale hardware.
The pattern repeats every time. The platform that owns the payment layer owns the economics. The ones that don't are still competing on features and pricing, fighting for margin in a market that keeps compressing both.
Why this isn't a fintech problem
The instinct is to assume that capturing this means becoming a fintech company, standing up compliance teams, and taking on years of regulatory work. That instinct is exactly what has kept some platforms from acting.
It doesn't have to work that way. Modern card issuing platforms let B2B software companies own the payment layer without building the infrastructure underneath it. The platform keeps building the product. A partner helps carry the regulatory work, the fraud infrastructure, and the network relationships. The revenue is the platform's. The heavy lifting isn't.
How embedded card issuing works for B2B platforms:
- Partner banks/ BIN sponsorship: A sponsor bank provides access to card network rails (Visa, Mastercard) through its Bank Identification Number, allowing the platform to issue cards without obtaining a bank charter.
- Program management: The issuer-processor partner helps to handle compliance, KYC/KYB requirements, transaction authorization, and fraud monitoring.
- Interchange revenue: The platform earns a share of interchange fees on every payment its customers make.
- Platform control: The software company retains control over card design, spend rules, and user experience while the partner helps manages regulatory obligations.
This has already happened across B2B software. Ramp built a corporate card program this way from the start. Bill.com used the same model to bring virtual commercial cards to many of their small business customers. Neither company became a payments company. They just stopped charging for parking and started earning on the city they'd built.
To find out more about how we help our customers to diversify revenue, and embed financial services, get in touch here: https://www.marqeta.com/contact-us
