Boston · founded 2011
- Payments / PSP
- AdyenToast Payments own
- Payroll
- Toast Payroll own
- Insurance
- NEXT Insurance
What restaurant, salon, clinic, construction and property software actually ships: which financial layers, in what order, and which providers sit behind them.
Vertical software owns the workflow where money changes hands: the bill at the table, the deposit for an appointment, the invoice for a job. That is why payments is usually the first financial product a vertical platform adds, and why at the largest platforms, Toast among them, payments revenue now exceeds subscription revenue.
This guide counts what vertical SaaS companies in the index disclose, layer by layer, and names the companies and providers behind each number, with links to the leaderboards and company profiles they come from.
How much the payments layer is worth, from filings: Toast, Lightspeed, Mews.
The share of vertical SaaS companies whose public disclosures name each financial layer, and the providers named most often. Layer names link to the full leaderboard; provider names link to the provider’s page.
Stripe is named by 281 of the 540 that use a provider, ahead of Adyen and Stripe Connect. One provider holds 52% of the layer. 38 run it on their own licence or in-house.
Stripe Capital is named by 25 of the 175 that use a provider, ahead of Klarna and Affirm.
Plaid is named by 46 of the 154 that use a provider, ahead of Apideck and GoCardless.
Stripe Treasury is named by 11 of the 118 that use a provider, ahead of Thread Bank and Swan. No provider holds more than an eighth of it.
Stripe is named by 17 of the 78 that use a provider, ahead of Persona and TransUnion.
BILL is named by 8 of the 63 that use a provider, ahead of Brex and Findity. 5 run it on their own licence or in-house.
Celtic Bank is named by 9 of the 67 that use a provider, ahead of Evolve Bank & Trust and Thread Bank.
Gusto Embedded is named by 13 of the 56 that use a provider, ahead of Check and Salsa. 3 run it on their own licence or in-house.
Stripe is named by 23 of the 54 that use a provider, ahead of Airwallex and Adyen. One provider holds 43% of the layer.
Stripe Issuing is named by 8 of the 53 that use a provider, ahead of Pliant and Enfuce.
Companies rarely stop at one layer: 32% of vertical SaaS companies run two or more. These are the layers that travel together most strongly, compared with companies that don’t run the first one.
Six vertical SaaS companies with deep public stacks. “Own” marks a layer the company runs itself. Each card links to the full dossier.
Pairs of providers on two different layers, counted across the 1,230 vertical SaaS companies. One company can count towards several pairs.
Most platforms start on a platform-payments product and keep it. Becoming a payment facilitator yourself trades onboarding and risk operations for a larger share of each transaction, and usually only pays once processing volume is large; some, like Toast, end up running their own. The providers below are the ones vertical platforms actually name.
In the data: 45% of vertical SaaS companies disclose payments. Most named: Stripe (281), Adyen (63), Stripe Connect (62). See the layer · full leaderboard
Merchant cash advances and working-capital loans use the payments data the platform already holds. The provider underwrites and funds; the platform supplies the offer placement and often collects repayment from payouts or scheduled debits.
In the data: 14% of vertical SaaS companies disclose lending. Most named: Stripe Capital (25), Klarna (14), Affirm (13). See the layer · full leaderboard
Business accounts and debit cards keep the customer's money inside the product between payout and spend. Behind them sit a partner bank and an account layer, often the payments provider's own treasury product, and the compliance work that goes with both.
In the data: 10% of vertical SaaS companies disclose accounts. Most named: Stripe Treasury (11), Thread Bank (8), Swan (7). See the layer · full leaderboard
Once money moves through the platform, customers want it reconciled in QuickBooks, Xero or their ERP, and lenders want to read their books. Unified APIs and open-banking aggregators carry that data.
In the data: 13% of vertical SaaS companies disclose data connectivity. Most named: Plaid (46), Apideck (26), GoCardless (12). See the layer · full leaderboard
How this is counted: 1,230 vertical SaaS companies in the Embedded Finance Index, each with a dossier built from its own public disclosures. A company counts for a layer when it names a provider for it or runs it in-house; a company that discloses nothing about a layer is not counted, so every share is a floor. Provider spellings are merged. Data as of 2026-11-14. See also embedded finance statistics and every leaderboard.
Of the 1,230 vertical SaaS companies in the Embedded Finance Index, 540 name a payments provider. The most named are Stripe (281), Adyen (63), Stripe Connect (62), PayPal (34), Square (21).
payments (45%), lending (14%), data connectivity (13%), accounts (10%), counted from public disclosures of 1,230 vertical SaaS companies. 32% run two or more layers.
Companies that run payments are 5.7 times as likely to also offer FX and payouts: 8% of them do, against 1% of the vertical SaaS companies that don't run payments.
Each company in the Embedded Finance Index has a dossier built from its own public disclosures: website, documentation, terms, filings and press. A company counts for a layer when it names a provider for it or runs it in-house. Companies that disclose nothing about a layer are not counted for it, so every share is a floor. Data as of 2026-11-14.