“Can a low-cost, transparent merchant acquirer in Canada build a full-stack payments-and-capital platform for SMBs and ISVs across North America?”
Clearly Payments launched as a merchant acquirer and payment processor focused on transparent interchange-plus pricing for Canadian and US businesses, positioning itself against opaque legacy processors. The company has expanded its stack beyond pure acquiring into gateway infrastructure, payment hardware, and merchant lending. More recently it has built an ISV/platform channel to embed payments into third-party software — shifting from a direct merchant model toward a payments-infrastructure-for-platforms posture.
Clearly Payments processes payments through Elavon (US Bancorp Canada Branch) (acquiring).
Clearly Payments integrates with QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Xero, FreshBooks and NetSuite.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 3 layers in Clearly Payments's stack: Payments / PSP (Elavon (US Bancorp Canada Branch) (acquiring)); Lending (Small Business Loans ($5,000–$500,000, no collateral, 24-hour funding, Canadian merchants)); Accounting (QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Xero, FreshBooks and 1 other).
Clearly Payments is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Clearly Payments and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.