What are self-service Integrated Payments?

Self-service payment integrations offer a fully autonomous, ‘low-touch’ technology experience.

A software provider’s developer team can complete integrations through a development portal using a payment API.

PROS AND CONS OF SELF-SERVICE PAYMENT APIs

The main appeal of self-service payment APIs are speed and flexibility. Software providers get access to developer libraries and SDKs for fast integration, along with the flexibility and freedom to work on their own timelines, with no requirement for a payment provider to review and certify their integration.

Providers also enjoy high integrated payments adoption rates by delivering a frictionless merchant onboarding experience that today’s software users expect.

Integrating payments without expert guidance can also have its disadvantages. From solutions engineering to partner support, software companies are largely on their own with the self-service model.

This includes defining requirements without counsel from a payments expert, which can – and often does – leave critical gaps in feature functionality. These holes can undermine success by failing to achieve competitive parity or by overlooking important differentiators that can power growth.

Many payment partners offer additional business-boosting services, but by choosing self-service, you won’t have access to benefits such as a dedicated partner to help you fully monetize your payment processing, or sales and marketing support to fuel growth and profitability.

This model traditionally includes flat-rate pricing, which means that merchants know exactly what it will cost to accept digital payments – even as they grow.

While this is ideal for small merchants and in marketplace environments (like Uber or Etsy) the pricing model prohibits larger merchants (with negotiating power) from using your software solution.

Support Models

Ongoing support is typically limited to selfservice documentation, a knowledge base or a ticketing system/email-only, leaving software providers without any human-touch to address additional needs.

Software clients who encounter payment issues will have very limited customer service options – primarily self-service portals or email.

This creates dependencies on software providers to become payment experts and perform payments-related customer service functions to help mitigate client dissatisfaction.