Partnerships are essential for businesses because they fuel faster innovation, boost revenue, and create new growth opportunities. Software companies that initially grew organically are constantly looking for new ways to deliver better services to customers. Strategic partnerships with complementary businesses bring unique expertise and perspective and drive the company to be more successful.
Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) can leverage these benefits by engaging in these partnerships. Offering the best SaaS partner programs makes providing seamless and innovative services easier.
If you are a software vendor, you need a partnership to improve your payment processing. Here’s the ultimate guide to SaaS payment partnerships to get you started.
What are SaaS Payments Partnerships?
Most successful SaaS companies are built on partnerships; statistics show that 54% of companies generate about 20% of their total revenue from partner programs. These partner programs can vary depending on the goal of the business. For instance, if you want to offer your clients multiple payment options, you’ll need to get into a channel partner program with a reliable payment processor.
SaaS payment partnerships come with tons of benefits for your business, including:
- Better customer service
- Improved payment security
- Simplified sales process
Types of SaaS Payments Partnerships
There are several types of SaaS payment partnerships in the industry. You need to choose the right one according to your business needs.
Payment Gateway Integration
An integration partnership involves working with a non-competing company offering products that integrate with your own. A hosted payment gateway is one good example of this. It’s highly customizable and integrates easily with the company’s website. You can incorporate all your branding elements on the payment page for a seamless customer experience.
Subscription Management
If your SaaS is subscription based, you can get into a referral partnership. This type of partnership brings in new sales.
Recurring Billing
Businesses that handle recurring payments need a payment gateway that makes it easier to process bill payments. If your company works with such clients, you need a payment processing partner that can allow you to set up recurring billing on the same platform.
Benefits of SaaS Payments Partnerships
Building a partner program for your software company is more than increased revenue; here’s the importance of getting into this form of partnership:
- Expanded Network: By working with partners, you boost your presence in the market. For instance, the payment processor can introduce you to more clients.
- Accelerated Growth: Partnerships add value to your business by increasing your reach to new customers. This increases subscriptions and, in turn, overall revenue.
- Improved Revenue: Whether you are using integration or referral partnerships, you can increase user signup and customer base, which brings in more revenue.
- Access to an Integrated Payment Platform: ISVs can access the benefits of an integrated payment platform that’s more secure and accommodates multiple payment methods.
Best Practices for Integrating SaaS Payment Partnerships
Before getting into a SaaS payment partnership, you must consider some key factors:
- Security: Cyberattacks and fraud cases have increased, therefore, you must partner with processors with advanced security features.
- Customer Experience: The best channel partner programs should meet your customer requirements.
- Compliance: To ensure payment security, you must partner with a PCI-compliant gateway that offers services like check verification.
What Payment Methods and Technologies are Available for SaaS Payments Partnerships?
Once you get into these partnerships, you can access these payment methods:
- ACH Payments: ACH direct payments are processed much faster and are more secure.
- Credit Card Processing: You can help your clients accept credit card transactions on one single platform.
- Virtual Terminal: With the virtual terminal, it becomes easier to accept credit card and ACH payments using an internet-based computer.
- SMS Payments: Text invoicing accelerates cash flow and instantly notifies customers of recurring bills.
- Mobile Payments: The mobile payments app securely accepts credit cards, ACH, and remote deposit capture (RDC).
Fraud Prevention in SaaS Payments Partnerships
Financial institutions reported 703 cyberattack attempts weekly in Q4 2021. Software vendors must partner with secure processors to protect their clients from losing sensitive financial information. Working with Nacha Certified payment processors decreases risk on payments.
Additionally, this kind of partnership helps prevent unnecessary chargebacks and friendly fraud. Software vendors can access solutions like a virtual terminal that creates a digital record of transactions, easing dispute handling.
The Impact of SaaS Payments Partnerships
Customer Retention and Lifetime Value
SaaS payment partnerships come in handy if your goal is to retain customers. For instance, a company like NetSuite has built a referral program where customers apply to become referral partners to promote the software.
Customers receive a 10% commission for the referral. Additionally, Clients get exclusive access to brand development, new releases, and co-branded promotions. This type of referral partnership keeps clients loyal.
Customer Acquisition and Overall ROI
The more you acquire new customers, the better your revenue. If you are looking to improve your ROI, consider getting a SaaS payment partnership. More consumers are looking for platforms that allow them to accept multiple payment methods. Therefore, if you have these services available, you can recruit more businesses to use your products.
The HubSpot partner program is one of the most successful ones, with a reported 100% revenue growth for businesses.
The Future of SaaS Payments Partnerships
To succeed in the payments sector, you’ll need to adopt technologies that make it easy to process customer transactions. Customers are increasingly demanding for frictionless, contactless, and real-time payments; therefore, you need to be aware of the digital payment trends and innovative ACH payment technologies that your business should have.
Additionally, you should keep up with the latest payment automation technologies of 2023. You can only achieve this by partnering with a reliable and safe payment processor that takes the load off of technology and compliance issues.
Get Started with a Payments Partnership with iCG
Payment processing becomes much easier if your company uses an omnichannel payment solution like iCheckGateway.com. Partnering with a Nacha Preferred Partner simplifies your payment system and offers more services to your customers.
As a software vendor, you can increase the number of clients in your roster by using iCG. Our payment gateway accepts different types of payments, including ACH payments, credit cards, SMS payments, email invoicing, recurring billing, and mobile payments. It’s also an opportunity to grow your overall revenue.
To get started with iCG:
- Click on the "Become a Partner" button.
- One of the iCG Partner managers will reach out to you.
- You’ll receive a call to discuss the details of the partnership
- Once you come to an agreement, we’ll sign a contract to help you provide your clients with the latest payment technologies.
Ready to get started? Become a partner today! You can schedule a 30-minute discovery call with our team to discuss more.
