For years, traditional payment aggregators were the simplest way for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to embed payments. They offered fast onboarding, a single integration, and a turnkey way to start monetizing payment volume. But as ISVs have matured—and as embedded payments have become a core revenue engine—aggregators are no longer enough.
Today’s ISVs want control, transparency, scale, and ownership. And that’s exactly what traditional aggregators don’t provide.
The result? A major shift: ISVs are moving away from aggregation models and toward modern acquiring, orchestration, and issuer-connected platforms that offer more revenue and more flexibility.
Here’s why the change is accelerating.
1. Aggregators Limit Revenue Potential
Aggregators typically take a large cut of transaction margin. ISVs receive a small revenue share—if they receive any at all.
Compare that with modern embedded payment models where ISVs can:
- Control their pricing
- Own the merchant relationship
- Capture more of the transaction economics
- Build recurring payment revenue
- Monetize card-present, mobile, and cloud flows
This shift mirrors the “ownership advantage” highlighted in your ISV deck, where true payment ownership leads to true revenue control for the ISV .
Traditional aggregators block that opportunity.
2. Aggregators Restrict Flexibility and Vertical Innovation
Aggregators force a one-size-fits-all payment stack. For ISVs serving specialized verticals—restaurants, healthcare, wellness, field service, logistics—that’s a problem.
Vertical SaaS needs:
- Custom workflows
- Industry-specific reporting
- Specialized hardware support
- Customizable pricing models
- Flexible funding schedules
- Tailored risk and underwriting
Aggregator systems are not built for deep verticalization.
Meanwhile, WAS provides industry-specific payment features, customizable workflows, and vertical-focused integrations designed for ISVs building specialized experiences .
3. Aggregators Don’t Support Card-Present Innovation
Most aggregators are optimized for:
- E-commerce
- Marketplace payouts
- Subscription billing
But today’s ISVs need modern card-present capabilities, including:
- Tap-to-Glass
- Mobile in-store checkout
- Tablet-based POS experiences
- Remote, cloud-mode terminal control
- Multi-device, multi-location support
WAS Cloud offers all three deployment modes—Standalone, Semi-Integrated, and Cloud—powered by a single modular architecture that’s hardware-agnostic and ideal for embedded card-present payments in SaaS and enterprise applications .
Aggregators simply can’t compete with that flexibility.
4. Aggregators Lack Intelligent Transaction Routing
One of the biggest reasons ISVs are leaving traditional aggregators?
Approval rates.
Aggregators typically rely on a single acquirer or gateway, creating:
- Single points of failure
- Generic decline codes
- Limited routing optimization
- Higher false declines
- Lower merchant revenue
Modern platforms with payment orchestration—especially switch-to-issuer orchestration—offer:
- Higher approval rates
- Intelligent failover
- Lower cost rails
- More accurate routing
- Better issuer-level insights
This directly increases merchant revenue and ISV processing volume. Aggregators can’t match this performance.
5. Aggregators Create Friction in Merchant Onboarding
Aggregators often require merchants to:
- Complete aggregator-specific KYC
- Accept aggregator fees
- Use aggregator-held merchant accounts
- Conform to aggregator risk rules
- Live within aggregator support flows
This creates:
- Slow activations
- Inconsistent user experiences
- Friction for vertical SaaS onboarding
- Lost opportunities when merchants abandon the signup flow
Switch-to-issuer models, like the one described in your material, provide faster onboarding with issuer-level underwriting, instant validation, and fewer activation failures—a significant upgrade over aggregator flows .
6. Aggregators Don’t Provide the Data ISVs Need
ISVs today want:
- Unified reporting
- Clean reconciliation
- Transparent metrics
- Access to decline codes
- Omnichannel data consistency
- Full merchant lifecycle visibility
Aggregators abstract this away, limiting the ISV’s understanding of payment performance.
WAS Cloud, on the other hand, delivers a consistent, issuer-connected ledger with synchronized events across transactions, refunds, reversals, and settlements—ensuring cleaner data and fewer operational issues for merchants and ISVs alike .
7. Aggregators Aren’t Future-Proof
ISVs building for the future require a payments infrastructure that supports:
- Mobile-first acceptance
- Cloud-mode card-present integrations
- Multi-rail payment routing
- Tokenization and network-token lifecycle management
- Enterprise-grade security
- International expansion
- Flexible device ecosystems
Traditional aggregators were built for simple e-commerce—not next-generation embedded payments.
WAS provides the building blocks to support modern, scalable, cloud-based payment experiences across all device types, workflows, and verticals.
The Bottom Line: ISVs Are Outgrowing Traditional Aggregators
Modern ISVs demand more:
- More control
- More revenue
- More flexibility
- More innovation
- More scalability
- More data transparency
- More reliability
- More ownership
Traditional aggregators simply can’t deliver it.
ISVs are moving toward issuer-connected, cloud-native, orchestration-driven payment platforms because they offer better economics, better performance, and better merchant experiences.
The future of embedded payments belongs to ISVs who own—not rent—their payment stack.
Ready to Break Free from Aggregators and Own Your Payment Economics?
With WAS, you can upgrade to a modern, issuer-connected payment model that gives you full control, higher approval rates, better revenue share, and a frictionless merchant experience.
Let’s build your payment program on a platform designed for ISVs.
Schedule a partnership consultation today.
