PayFac Alternatives for Platforms

Why Platforms Look for PayFac Alternatives

Becoming a payment facilitator is the most powerful way to control payment economics on your platform. You set merchant pricing, own the underwriting relationship, and capture the full payment margin.

But "most powerful" and "most practical" are different things. Platforms explore alternatives when the PayFac path creates more problems than it solves:

Compliance Burden

A registered PayFac must maintain PCI DSS Level 1 compliance, implement KYC/AML programmes, perform merchant underwriting and due diligence, and run ongoing transaction monitoring. Each of these is a specialised discipline. Together, they require a dedicated compliance team — or an expensive outsourced equivalent. And the obligations don't stop at go-live. Every regulatory update, every new jurisdiction, every policy change from the card networks adds to your compliance surface area.

Regulatory Risk

Payment regulation varies by jurisdiction and changes frequently. A PayFac operating across the US, UK, and EU faces three distinct regulatory frameworks — each with its own licensing requirements, consumer protection rules, and data residency expectations. Getting it wrong isn't just expensive. It's existential. Card network fines, regulatory enforcement actions, and reputational damage can threaten the entire platform, not just the payments business.

Time and Cost

Building PayFac infrastructure from scratch takes 12–18 months and requires significant investment in technology, compliance, and operational capabilities. PayFac-as-a-Service providers reduce this, but even managed PayFac solutions take months to implement and require ongoing operational investment. Meanwhile, your competitors ship features while you build payment plumbing.

Single-PSP Limitation

Most PayFac and PFaaS solutions process through a single acquirer. That means every merchant on your platform routes through the same processor — regardless of whether that processor offers the best rates, geographic coverage, or authorisation performance for that merchant. Enterprise customers with existing PSP relationships and negotiated interchange rates can't bring their own gateway.

Distraction from Core Product

You're a SaaS company, not a payments company. Every engineering hour spent on payment compliance, merchant underwriting workflows, and risk monitoring is an hour not spent on your core product. The PayFac path turns your platform into two businesses — and both need to be run well.

What to Evaluate in an Alternative

Before comparing specific approaches, clarify what matters for your platform:

Revenue model: How much payment revenue do you need? Full PayFac margin (but with full PayFac cost) — or meaningful revenue share without the operational overhead?

Compliance appetite: Do you want to own compliance, share it, or eliminate it entirely from your scope?

PSP flexibility: Do your merchants need to use specific gateways? Enterprise customers often mandate their own PSP.

Channel coverage: Do you need voice payments, payment links, or AI agent payments — or just online checkout?

Time to revenue: Are deals waiting on payment capabilities? Months-long implementations have opportunity costs.

White-label: How important is it that payments look like your platform, not someone else's?

The Alternatives

1. Stripe Connect

What it is: Stripe's marketplace and platform payment product. Platforms onboard merchants as "Connected Accounts" and process all transactions through Stripe.

Strengths:

• Exceptionally well-documented APIs and SDKs

• Fast to integrate for standard marketplace use cases

• Stripe handles most compliance for Standard and Express accounts

• Large developer community and ecosystem

Limitations:

• Stripe-only processing. Every merchant routes through Stripe. No PSP flexibility.

• Custom accounts push significant compliance responsibility back to the platform — you're effectively operating as a PayFac-lite without the margin benefits

• No native voice payments, AI agent payments, or advanced payment link capabilities

• Enterprise customers with existing PSP contracts can't bring their own gateway

• Geographic coverage gaps in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America

Best for: Platforms with standard marketplace payment flows, no enterprise PSP requirements, and online-only channels.

2. Adyen for Platforms

What it is: Adyen's solution for platforms and marketplaces. Creates dedicated sub-merchant accounts under Adyen's acquiring infrastructure.

Strengths:

• Strong global acquiring coverage, particularly for enterprise

• Unified commerce capabilities (online + in-store)

• Robust multi-currency and local payment method support

• Enterprise-grade risk management and reporting

Limitations:

• Same single-PSP constraint. Adyen for Platforms means Adyen as the processor — you've traded PayFac obligations for Adyen lock-in.

• Enterprise-focused — less accessible for mid-market platforms

• Sales-led, complex implementation process

• Developer experience less polished than Stripe's

• No voice payments or AI agent payment channels

Best for: Enterprise platforms committed to Adyen as their sole processor, especially those needing unified commerce (online + POS).

3. PayFac-as-a-Service (Payrix, Finix)

What it is: Managed PayFac platforms that give you PayFac-like capabilities — merchant onboarding, underwriting, and payment margin — without building the full infrastructure yourself.

Strengths:

• Higher per-transaction revenue than revenue-share models

• More control over merchant pricing and underwriting

• Faster than building PayFac from scratch (months instead of 12–18 months)

• White-label merchant onboarding and management

Limitations:

• Compliance obligations remain. You're still operating as a payment facilitator, even if the infrastructure is managed. KYC/AML, merchant monitoring, and regulatory obligations are shared but not eliminated.

• Typically single-PSP. Most PFaaS solutions process through one acquirer — the same limitation as building your own PayFac.

• Regulatory burden scales with your merchant base and geographic expansion

• No multi-channel support (voice payments, AI agent payments)

• Slower to market than pre-built payment layers — onboarding and underwriting setup takes time

• The "managed" part has limits — as your platform grows, compliance complexity still lands on you

**Best for:** Platforms where payment revenue is a primary business model and the margin justifies the compliance overhead. For a detailed breakdown, see our Payrix and Finix comparison.

4. PSP-Neutral Payment Layer (Shuttle)

What it is: A payment layer that embeds multi-PSP payment infrastructure into your platform — without any PayFac obligations. White-label checkout, merchant onboarding, management portal, and multi-channel support through a single integration.

Strengths:

• PSP-neutral: 40+ gateways. Merchants choose their PSP, or you assign one. Enterprise customers bring their Worldpay/Adyen/Checkout.com account without friction.

• Zero PayFac compliance: No KYC/AML programme, no merchant underwriting, no ongoing transaction monitoring. Shuttle handles it. PCI DSS Level 1 + ISO 27001 + SOC 2 included.

• Multi-channel: Embedded checkout, voice payments, payment links, chat, and AI agent payments — all through the same integration.

• White-label everything: Checkout, onboarding, merchant portal — branded as your platform.

• Live in weeks: Pre-built components, not a multi-month compliance and build project.

• Revenue share: Monetise payments without becoming a PayFac. Payment revenue without payment obligations.

Limitations:

• Lower per-transaction margin than full PayFac ownership

• Less granular control over merchant underwriting decisions

• Newer entrant — smaller brand recognition than Stripe or Adyen

Best for: Platforms that want payment revenue and multi-PSP flexibility without PayFac obligations, compliance overhead, or months-long build projects.

The Real Question

Do you actually need to be a PayFac?

For most platforms, the answer is no.

The margin advantage of PayFac ownership only justifies the compliance cost if payment revenue is your primary business model — if you're building a payments company that happens to have a platform, not a platform that happens to need payments.

If payments are a feature of your platform (not the product itself), the PayFac path adds complexity without proportional benefit. You're taking on compliance risk, regulatory exposure, engineering distraction, and operational overhead to capture a margin improvement that may not move the needle relative to your core SaaS revenue.

The maths: a platform processing $50M annually might earn an additional 30–50 basis points by owning the PayFac relationship versus a revenue-share model. That's $150K–$250K per year in incremental revenue. Now subtract the cost of a compliance team (or managed compliance service), ongoing PCI DSS audits, merchant risk monitoring, and the engineering time diverted from your core product. For most platforms, the net impact is negative — and that's before accounting for regulatory risk.

The alternative: earn meaningful payment revenue through a revenue-share model, ship payment capabilities in weeks instead of months, and keep your engineering team focused on what makes your platform valuable.

Comparison Matrix

Making the Decision

The PayFac path makes sense if:

• Payment revenue is your primary business model, not a feature

• You have the compliance infrastructure (or budget to build it) for KYC/AML, PCI DSS, and merchant monitoring

• You need granular control over merchant underwriting and pricing

• You're willing to invest 12–18 months (or 3–6 months with PFaaS) before seeing revenue

• You're operating in a single, well-understood regulatory environment

• Your engineering team has payment domain expertise

An alternative makes more sense if:

• Payments are a feature of your platform, not the core product

• Enterprise customers need to bring their own PSP

• You need voice payments, payment links, or AI agent payment channels

• You want payment revenue without compliance obligations

• Speed to market matters — deals are waiting

• You'd rather invest engineering time in your core product

• You're expanding into multiple geographies with different regulatory requirements

FAQ

What's the difference between PayFac and PayFac-as-a-Service? A full PayFac registers directly with the card networks and owns the entire payment facilitation stack — underwriting, compliance, merchant management, and settlement. PayFac-as-a-Service (PFaaS) providers like Payrix and Finix give you PayFac-like capabilities through their infrastructure, so you skip the build phase. But compliance obligations are shared, not eliminated. You still carry KYC/AML responsibilities, merchant monitoring duties, and regulatory exposure. PFaaS reduces the build effort — it doesn't remove the operational burden.

Can I earn payment revenue without being a PayFac? Yes. Revenue-share models let platforms earn meaningful payment revenue without any PayFac registration or compliance obligations. With Shuttle, you earn revenue on every transaction processed through your platform — across 40+ PSPs — without owning compliance, underwriting, or merchant risk. The margin per transaction is lower than full PayFac ownership, but so is your cost, risk, and time to revenue.

What compliance do I avoid by not becoming a PayFac? By choosing a payment layer instead of the PayFac path, you avoid: PCI DSS Level 1 certification as a service provider, building and maintaining a KYC/AML programme, merchant underwriting and due diligence processes, ongoing transaction monitoring and risk management, card network registration and reporting requirements, and jurisdiction-specific regulatory licensing. Your payment layer provider carries these obligations instead.

Can I switch from PayFac to a payment layer later? Yes, but the transition takes planning. Existing merchants need to be migrated, tokenised card data needs to be handled, and settlement flows need to be redirected. It's not a flip-the-switch change — but it's simpler than the reverse. Most platforms that make this transition do it merchant cohort by cohort, running both models in parallel during the migration. The key driver is usually that the compliance cost and operational distraction of PayFac ownership no longer justifies the margin improvement over a revenue-share model.

How does a payment layer handle merchant onboarding without PayFac status? Shuttle provides white-label merchant onboarding that connects merchants to their chosen PSP. The onboarding flow is branded as your platform, but the compliance obligations (KYC, underwriting, merchant agreements) are handled by the PSP and Shuttle — not by you. From your merchant's perspective, it looks like your payment product. From your perspective, it's zero compliance overhead.

Related Reading

• Shuttle vs Payrix & Finix — detailed PFaaS comparison

• How to Get Payments Off Your Product Roadmap — the hidden cost of building and maintaining payment infrastructure

• How Platforms Monetise Payments Without PSP Lock-In — why PSP-neutral architecture unlocks more revenue

• Shuttle vs Stripe Connect — if you're considering Stripe Connect as your alternative

• Shuttle vs Building In-House — the build vs. buy analysis

• Adyen for Platforms Alternatives — alternatives to Adyen's embedded solution

• Stripe Connect Alternatives — alternatives to Stripe's platform offering

• Embedded Payments Without Becoming a PayFac — the complete guide to embedding payments without PayFac obligations

Rethinking the PayFac path? Shuttle gives your platform 40+ PSPs through a single integration — with white-label checkout, voice payments, payment links, and AI agent support. Earn payment revenue without PayFac obligations. PCI DSS Level 1 compliance included. Live in weeks.

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