Built For ISVs Who Add Payments to Their Product
You're a software company with merchants who already trust you. Adding payments shouldn't take a year, lock you to an acquirer, force a re-integration every time pricing changes, or put someone else's brand in front of your customers. Surfboard is the platform ISVs use to ship payments fast — under their own brand, on their own economics.
The Payments Platform You Wish Existed When You Started
ISVs are the most demanding customers in payments. You need fast time-to-market, full white-label, flexible monetization, hardware that doesn't suck, and economics that actually work. Surfboard was built from the ground up for the way ISVs want payments to work.
The Billing API monetizes the integration. The Branding API removes us from every customer-facing surface. The Logistics API automates terminal procurement. The Identification, AI, and Gift Cards APIs unlock product features your customers will pay for. And it all composes into a single API surface — not a stack of disconnected services.
Why ISVs are our biggest segment
Most of our partners are POS systems, vertical SaaS, booking platforms, and marketplaces. They picked Surfboard because the economics, the white-label depth, and the time-to-market are different from anything legacy acquirers offer. We built the platform around their constraints, not the other way around.
Why ISVs choose Surfboard
Six reasons partners pick us over legacy acquirers, traditional payment processors, and other PaaS providers.
1. Monetize the Payment Layer
Most payment platforms hide the economics. The Billing API exposes them — define your own pricing, set your own margins, and earn on every transaction your merchants run through the integration.
- Custom pricing per merchant, store, or terminal
- IC++ pricing for transparency-focused buyers
- Usage-based charges for AI, API, or feature billing
- Automated invoicing and settlement deductions
2. Ship Under Your Own Brand
Your merchants are your relationship. Surfboard's White-Label system covers every customer-facing surface — terminals, hosted checkout, merchant portals, receipts, identification prompts, and more.
- Twelve Branding API endpoints across four hierarchical levels
- AI-generated themes from a merchant's URL — onboarding in seconds
- No "powered by Surfboard" anywhere
3. Scale Onboarding Without Scaling Ops
Programmatic merchant onboarding with built-in KYB. Self-serve flow that places terminal orders, runs identity checks, configures branding, and goes live — all without your team touching a ticket.
Our record: 5 hours from signup to first live transaction.
Composes with the Logistics API for automated terminal procurement and the Notifications API for proactive merchant updates.
4. Hardware That Runs Your Software
Surfboard terminals are Android-based and openly programmable. Your POS, journal, or vertical SaaS app can run directly on the device alongside the payment application — no separate ECR, no cabling, no integration friction.
Or use SoftPOS (CheckoutX) to turn any merchant's existing Android device into a payment terminal — for ISVs whose customers don't want dedicated hardware.
5. Acquirer-Agnostic Infrastructure
Most legacy payment integrations lock you to one acquirer. Surfboard is acquirer-agnostic — switch processing relationships without re-integrating, and offer competitive rates by playing acquirers against each other.
Industry-first PCI DSS 4.0 multi-cloud certification — your integration runs on infrastructure with 9 active instances across GCP, AWS, and Azure.
6. The Whole Platform, Not Just Payments
Modern ISVs need more than card processing. Surfboard ships the full surface: gift cards, tips, identification, NFC tag reading, AI image and branding generation, recurring billing, multi-merchant routing, scheduled SFTP reports, and customer-facing receipts.
One integration. Years of feature parity already done.
The capabilities ISVs use most
Monetize every transaction your merchants run
Twelve endpoints, four levels, every surface
Generate themes and product imagery
Automate terminal procurement and replacements
Card-tap identity for loyalty, entitlements, access
FUND and ENTITLEMENT card infrastructure
Network tokens, subscriptions, recurring billing
Settlement reports your finance pipeline ingests
Self-serve KYB merchant signup
Run your POS app on Surfboard hardware
SurfTouch, SurfPrint, and SurfPad run Android. Publish your POS, journal, or vertical SaaS app to the device alongside the payment application — no second device, no cabling, no ECR integration project.
Or skip the dedicated hardware entirely with CheckoutX SoftPOS — turn any Android phone or tablet your merchants already own into a payment terminal.
Start integrating
One API, one set of credentials, one mental model. Onboard merchants, configure branding, place terminal orders, and start accepting payments — all programmatically.
// Onboard a merchant programmatically
POST /partners/:partnerId/merchants
{
"businessName": "Acme Coffee Co.",
"country": "SE",
"businessType": "LIMITED_LIABILITY",
"registrationNumber": "5566778899",
"billingPlanId": "plan_isv_growth",
"brandingFromUrl": "https://acmecoffee.example"
}
// Place an automatic terminal order
POST /partners/:partnerId/merchants/:merchantId/shipment
{
"lineItems": [{ "productId": "surftouch-pro", "quantity": 1 }]
}