PayEngine, a division of Platform Factory, is transforming the way vertical SaaS companies manage and grow the financial capabilities they offer their clients. In this post, we outline the narrative behind our naming. We will discuss both our corporate name, Platform Factory, and our primary brand, PayEngine.
Platform Factory incorporated in 2020. The mission was clear: we would build tools that help vertical SaaS companies grow and expand further into their specific industries. The market had spoken and established that vertical SaaS was here to stay. Eventually every industry, process, and system would be brought online and digitized. Further monetization through payments has become the third rail of vertical SaaS. And, as many early vertical SaaS companies discovered, running a payments business brings with it much more complexity than a first look shows.
Building and running a payments company is hard. As you scale, none of the “easy” integration tools provide the right level of control or offer enough features to handle the myriad of use cases required by the many different merchants. This brings us to the exact problem that Platform Factory wanted to solve. The end goal was to package up the platform tools that were needed into scalable and extensible SaaS products that speed time to market.
This is the genesis of PayEngine, so let’s explore the PayEngine name. As a fusion of "pay" and "engine," the name is a literal embodiment of the platform’s purpose and mission. The term "pay" signifies the sale itself, the business critical, fundamental need to get paid – and the underlying financial work behind the scenes. Meanwhile, "engine" denotes the driving force or mechanism propelling a system or operation. As we know, engines are way more complex than most people notice! Taken together, PayEngine is an all-in-one powerhouse designed to fuel, streamline, and accelerate the payment processing for SaaS companies, enabling them to focus on their core products and services.
Embedded payments have become such a critical component of vertical SaaS. Why? The most commonly cited reason is that it’s another revenue stream, adding extra dollars on top of SaaS fees. Additionally, this revenue stream can scale up as the merchant grows, making LTV expand as well. This is certainly a compelling feature of payment processing.
However, that’s not the only story. We’d like to offer a different reason – alluding to the PayEngine name – the facilitation of the buying of services, making it easier and better for consumers, while also making it simpler for the business to manage (driving repeat sales, tracking operationally, etc.). These features make the SaaS software cornerstone to the end merchant. In this way, the SaaS tool is cemented as a key service and key driver of the business itself.
What does that really mean? Churn goes down. Usage goes up. We often hear that the vertical SaaS software becomes the “operating system” of that business. That is real value to the merchant and a real moat for the software company. That's why payments are so important.
In summary, PayEngine is an embedded payments platform specially tailored to vertical SaaS businesses. But it isn’t just another fintech solution. Instead, it's an essential catalyst that propels businesses toward a future of seamless, simplified, and secure financial transactions. PayEngine eliminates the loss of control and revenue by outsourcing to third-party payment solutions. This puts the vertical SaaS company back in the driver's seat, delivering an unparalleled level of control, security, and scalability.
The PayEngine name is more than just a label; it's an embodiment of a revolution in the fintech world. At this time, it is the primary product of the Platform Factory. Moving forward, we plan to operate almost exclusively under the PayEngine name. Our corporate entity is still Platform Factory (you’ll occasionally see that name on fillings or other corporate notices), and we envision a future where we simplify other tools, too – which could lead to other product brand names. For now, we have a clear market opportunity with PayEngine – and that’s where our focus is! As the narrative unfolds, PayEngine will help shape the future of fintech, driving growth and transformation in the vertical SaaS industry, one transaction at a time.
