New research from OPP and Sapio surveyed 225 SaaS decision-makers across the Netherlands, France and Germany. Here's what they found about payments as a growth driver and where the real opportunity sits.

What did the research find? 

OPP and Sapio surveyed 225 decision-makers at SaaS companies across the Netherlands, France, and Germany to understand how platforms are thinking about payments today. The headline finding is an optimistic one: the strategic shift has already happened in most leaders' minds.

That last pair of numbers isn't a contradiction. It's what progress looks like partway through. Platforms have moved past asking whether payments matter, and are now figuring out how far the upside actually goes.

How can payments directly drive new revenue? 

The research points to four concrete ways platforms are turning payments into new revenue, each one already working for some platforms and still available to most:

1. Taking control of transaction fees. 48% of platforms say this is an opportunity they haven't implemented yet, but believe could generate meaningful revenue. Setting and capturing fees directly, instead of accepting a provider's default split, turns every transaction already flowing through the platform into a small, recurring revenue line.

2. Using payment data and insights. 44% see opportunity here. Every transaction carries information about customer behaviour, spending patterns, and merchant performance. Platforms that can see and act on that data make sharper product and pricing decisions than platforms that can't.

3. Deepening platform integration. 44% see revenue upside in making payments feel native to the product, rather than a redirect or bolt-on. A smoother payment experience keeps more of the customer journey, and more of the value, inside the platform.

4. Expanding payment-related features. 43% see opportunity in adding new payment methods, in-person capabilities, or commercial models the current setup doesn't support yet.

None of these require a platform to rebuild its core product. They require a payments setup flexible enough to let the platform act on the opportunity that's already there.

How can payments improve retention and customer experience? 

Revenue isn't the only upside, and for a lot of platforms, it isn't even the biggest one. Among platforms with embedded payments already in place, the most commonly reported benefits are:

• Richer customer data — 54%. Visibility into transaction behaviour that sharpens everything from churn prediction to upsell timing.

• Increased customer retention — 53%. Payments embedded into the daily workflow become part of why a customer stays on the platform at all.

• Faster onboarding — 52%. A shorter path from signup to a merchant's first completed transaction, which is often the moment a new customer decides whether the platform is worth sticking with.

• Improved user experience — 50%.

• New revenue streams — 49%.

• Competitive differentiation — 38%.

These compound on each other. Better data sharpens decisions. Faster onboarding builds early trust. Trust and a good experience drive retention. Retention is the cheapest growth a SaaS platform can buy, because it doesn't require new acquisition spend.

Can payments actually help with international expansion? 

Currently, 25% of SaaS leaders see payments as a barrier to international growth, usually because of differing regulatory requirements, local payment preferences, and onboarding processes between markets. That's worth naming honestly. But it's also worth reframing: this is a solvable infrastructure problem, not a fixed cost of expanding.

A platform with a single KYC process, broad local payment method support, and compliance built in across markets removes most of this friction before it shows up. Expansion stays a go-to-market decision, where it belongs, instead of becoming an unplanned infrastructure project halfway through a deal. For the 64% of leaders who already see payments as a growth lever, getting the international piece right is one of the more direct ways to put that belief into practice.

How fast can a platform innovate once payments are set up right?

One of the clearest signs of a healthy payments setup is speed. 78% of platforms can launch or modify a payments-related feature within four weeks. The remaining 22% typically need one to three months, usually because they're waiting on their provider rather than their own team.

That four-week benchmark matters because it changes what's possible. A platform that can ship a new payment method, a new pricing model, or a new market's compliance requirement in weeks rather than months can treat payments as a genuine product lever, something to experiment with and iterate on, rather than a fixed piece of infrastructure to work around.

What does this look like for a real platform? 

Retaildesk wanted to turn payments into a real part of their product offering across two SaaS labels, Retaildesk and Gastrodesk, covering online invoicing, QR code payments, and Tap on Mobile, with split payouts for franchise structures. Rather than treating payments as a back-office function, OPP gave them one integration with the platforms' Laravel-based backend, one onboarding flow including verification and contract signing, and SoftPOS support for in-person transactions.

As co-founder Rick Bertoen put it:

"OPP not only actively thinks along with us on the technical side, but also on compliance, user onboarding, and payout flows. This makes them a true sparring partner that is also open to developing new possibilities together."

Co-founder of Retaildesk, Rick Bertoen

That's payments functioning as a growth partner, not just a processor.

What should SaaS platforms look for in a growth-ready payments partner? 

Based on what's separating the platforms capturing this upside from the ones still leaving it on the table, four things matter most:

1. A single onboarding and compliance process. One KYC flow covering online, Tap on Mobile , and terminal payments, so growth into new payment types or markets doesn't mean starting from scratch each time.

2. Branded, white-label capability. Payments that feel like a native part of the platform, not a redirect to someone else's checkout, so every transaction reinforces the platform's own brand.

3. Flexible, controllable pricing. Pricing models that can be tailored by merchant type, transaction type, or volume, plus support for splitting payments across multiple parties as the business model gets more complex.

4. Licensing and market coverage that scales with you. A provider holding its own PayFac licence removes the need to obtain one independently when expanding, keeping growth on the platform's own timeline.

What does this mean for your platform?

Depends where you are right now:

If you haven't embedded payments yet: the data is clear that this is no longer optional for competitive SaaS platforms. The question isn't whether to do it, but who you do it with. Start by asking any provider you're evaluating whether they were built for platform business models or ecommerce.

If you have embedded payments but haven't monetised them: run a quick audit. Do you control your own transaction fees? Can you see your transaction data directly? How long would it take to add a new payment method? If the answers are "no," "not really," and "months," you're leaving real revenue on the table.

If you're expanding into new markets: map the payments requirements before the first deal closes in that market, not after. Regulatory requirements, local payment methods, and onboarding processes all differ by country.

If you serve merchants who operate in person: the hardware constraint is gone. Tap on Mobile means you can now offer in-person payments through your platform without procurement cycles or terminal logistics.

Read the full whitepaper

This article draws on findings from "Traditional Payments are Restricting SaaS Growth" based on a survey of 225 SaaS decision-makers across the Netherlands, France, and Germany. The full whitepaper includes the complete country-level data breakdown and more detail on how platforms are turning payments into a strategic growth lever.

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