In this episode, Oded Kovach, CTO of Unipaas, explores the four stages most management software platforms experience on their payment journey:
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1️⃣ Avoiding Payments – staying focused on core product and pushing payments aside.
2️⃣ Moving Payments – plugging in a quick integration when users demand it.
3️⃣ Touching Payments – negotiating small margins but still lacking control.
4️⃣ Owning Payments – embedding payments directly, unlocking revenue, control, and stickier customer relationships.
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💡 Oded illustrates this evolution with Shopify’s story: from launching a snowboard store, to building Shopify in 2006, and then transforming the business model in 2013 with Shopify Payments. That shift turned payments from a side feature into a strategic growth engine, ultimately driving most of Shopify’s revenue and boosting merchant ARPU 5x.
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The key takeaway? Owning payments changes everything. It makes your platform critical infrastructure, scales revenue with transaction volume, and even boosts valuation multiples.
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👉 Whether you’re just starting or scaling, the question is: Where are you on your payment journey?

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