For decades, software businesses have been stuck with payment processors that weren’t built for them. Legacy players, and even today’s so-called “modern scale” providers, were designed for merchants, not for software platforms.
If you’ve ever tried to integrate one of these providers, you already know the story. Integrations can drag on for nine months or more, feel painfully manual, and once you’re live, you’re mostly left to figure things out on your own. Yes, they may have strong technology and documentation, but they weren’t built for the realities of scaling software.
And let’s talk about economics. Legacy processors are notorious for junk fees and opaque pricing. They take a bigger cut than they should, and platforms are left guessing where their margin went. It’s why we built Forward: to “pay it forward” to software businesses.
We built Forward because we lived the pain ourselves. Our team went through 20 payments integrations, which was 18 too many. Each one was slower, clunkier, and more painful than it needed to be. We built Forward to change that. With best-in-class developer tools and clear documentation, platforms can go live with Forward in as little as a weekend.
Forward was designed for software businesses, not merchants. Every aspect of our model, from our technology to our economics, is architected to help platforms make payments a true revenue driver.
And because every software business is at a different stage, Forward has built three clear paths to growth: Maximize, Rails, and PFAC. Each one is tailored to where you are today, but they’re also designed to work together. That means as your payments business evolves, from experimenting, to scaling adoption, to fully owning the stack, you can seamlessly move between them without ripping out infrastructure or starting over.
With Forward, you don’t have to make a “forever” decision up front. You get the right level of support, economics, and infrastructure for today, with the confidence that when the time is right, you can level up to the next stage without disruption.
Three Paths to Growth with Forward
1. Maximize: Unlocking Payments Potential
Built for platforms already processing $50M+ GPV, but struggling to unlock its full potential. Common signs you’re ready for Maximize:
- Payments attach rate is under 20%
- No dedicated payments employees. You need a fractional GM of Payments to design and optimize your strategy
- You want to outsource risk, compliance, and underwriting
- A white-labeled merchant sales team to drive adoption and increase attach rates
- Access to developer tools and personalized support
- White label merchant software
Impact: Maximize eliminates junk fees, optimizes interchange, and ensures you capture more of the payments spread. But more importantly, it helps you dramatically increase attach and activation rates. By combining better economics with higher adoption, platforms often see ARPU double or triple – not because of spread alone, but because more of their customers are actually using payments.
2. Rails: Best-in-Class Infrastructure
Rails is for platforms with a more mature payments business, where most of your SaaS customers are already using your payments product. What you need now is performance, scalability, and safety.
- Best-in-class white label tech and APIs
- Risk-as-a-Service, underwriting, and compliance baked in
- Enterprise-grade developer tools and support
Impact: Transparent pricing gives you full control of your unit economics, with no black-box margin share or hidden fees. And unlike legacy processors that drag out integrations for months, Forward provides the payments infrastructure to get you live in as little as a weekend.
3. PFAC: Owning the Entire Stack
Once you’ve reached $2B+ in GPV, you’re at the stage where it makes sense to bring some functions in-house. With PFAC, you can:
- Continue to white label our technology
- Take ownership of underwriting, risk, and ongoing compliance
- Gain the economics and control that come with operating at true scale
Impact: PFAC is the final step, giving you the ability to have control over the entire payments stack while still leveraging Forward’s proven infrastructure. At this stage, you take direct control over risk and margin, capturing all of the payments revenue as you continue to scale.
Why It Matters
Legacy processors leave you to your own devices. Forward meets you where you are and seamlessly grows with you. Whether you’re just starting to monetize payments, scaling adoption across your customer base, or preparing to own the stack at true scale, Forward is purpose-built to help you turn payments from a cost center into a growth engine.
