Card processing
Credit card processing your customers use inside your software
BrainMerchant provides credit card processing for software platforms, so your customers can take cards where they already work, with ACH bank payments from the same provider.
Northwind LandscapingInvoice #3108
Amount due$380.00
- Pay by bankACH from a checking or savings account
- Pay by cardCredit card ending 4242
Pay $380.00
Card and ACH payments processed by BrainMerchant
Card processing for your customers, not your own billing
Your customers take payments every day: rent from tenants, invoices from clients, bookings from guests and donations from supporters. This page covers your customers accepting cards from their own customers; if you also need to collect from your own subscribers, tell us.
Payments taken inside the software your customers already use are often called embedded payments.
Payment lifecycle
How a card payment moves
A card payment your customers take moves through four stages, from approval to the merchant’s bank account.
Card paymentCard networks
- AuthorizeThe issuer, or the network on its behalf, approves or declines
- CaptureThe sale is confirmed, then cleared: details are validated and assessed
- SettleFunds move between banks: net positions are calculated and issuers and acquirers settle
- FundThe merchant is paid on its provider’s schedule, net of fees
In card terms, your customer is the merchant and the person paying is the cardholder. For a payment taken at checkout, only authorization happens while the cardholder waits; capture, clearing and settlement follow between the issuer, the card network and the acquirer. When the merchant is funded depends on its contract with its acquirer or payment facilitator.
Use cases
Where cards fit in your software
When your customers accept credit cards in your software, cards suit payments where the payer wants a familiar way to pay and your customer wants an answer before the work goes ahead.
Deposits and bookings
A deposit holds a date, a room, a class spot or a crew’s time. The payer pays when they book, inside the booking flow your software already runs.
One-off invoices
A landscaper finishes the job and sends the invoice from your software. The client opens it and pays by card on the spot, with no check to mail or deposit.
Online payments
When a cardholder pays on a website or in an app instead of presenting the card in person, the payment is card-not-present, like a client paying an invoice from a link your software sends. In the Federal Reserve’s diary study of 2025, about 37% of consumer payments were made remotely rather than in person.
Memberships and repeat payments
Gyms, clubs and businesses that sell service plans charge members on a set schedule. If your software schedules repeat charges like these, ask us how repeat card payments would work.
Copays and patient balances
Practices collect copays and bill patients for what insurance did not cover. A patient can pay a statement balance by card from the statement link, without waiting for the next visit.
Small or urgent payments that need an answer now
For a small fee or a rush order paid at checkout, your customer sees whether the card was approved while the payer is still there, and can ask for another way to pay if it was declined.
Costs
What card processing costs are made of
Interchange is set by the card networks and paid by the acquirer to the card issuer, and it is bundled with other fees into the merchant discount your customer pays. Card-not-present payments, the kind your customers take online, carry more fraud risk and generally higher interchange than card-present ones.
Parts of a card feeWhat a merchant pays on each card payment
- InterchangeSet by the network, paid to the card issuer
- Network feesCharged by the card networks themselves
- Provider markupWhat the processor and gateway add on top
All three are bundled into the merchant discount
Disputes and risk
Disputes, fraud and network monitoring
Card payments can be challenged after they go through, and Visa monitors merchants whose fraud and dispute counts run high.
Dispute categories and deadlines
Visa groups disputes into four categories: Fraud, Authorization, Processing Errors and Consumer Disputes. An issuer generally has 120 calendar days from the transaction’s processing date, not the purchase date, to raise a dispute, and the acquirer generally has 30 calendar days to respond. Exact limits vary by dispute condition.
Visa’s monitoring program (VAMP)
The Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program replaced Visa’s separate dispute and fraud monitoring programs. It measures card-not-present payments with one ratio: fraud reports plus disputes, divided by settled transactions. Since April 1, 2026, a U.S. merchant is rated Excessive at a ratio of 1.5% or more with at least 1,500 fraud reports and disputes in a month.
3-D Secure can shift fraud-dispute liability to the issuer for authenticated payments; ask any provider whether and how it supports it.
Questions
Credit card processing for software platforms: common questions
Short answers on card processing for platforms, with links to the guides that go deeper.
Does this page cover billing our own subscribers?
No. This page is about your customers taking cards from their own payers inside your software. If you also bill your own subscribers, tell us how you charge them today and we’ll talk that through separately.
What do Visa’s surcharge rules require?
As of October 2026, Visa’s U.S. rules allow surcharges on credit cards only, never on debit or prepaid cards, capped at the lesser of the merchant discount rate or 3%. Your customer must give its acquirer at least 30 days’ notice and disclose the surcharge at the point of entry, at the point of sale and on every receipt. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and Puerto Rico prohibit surcharges by private merchants. This is general information, not legal advice, so confirm the rules with your acquirer and counsel; our guide to credit card processing fees has more.
Which part of PCI DSS stays with our platform?
PCI DSS applies to any business that stores, processes or transmits cardholder data, or that could affect the security of the environment that holds it, and that can include software platforms. No provider makes your platform compliant for you, so work out which parts of your software touch card data; our guide to PCI compliance for SaaS platforms walks through it.
Should we offer ACH too?
It depends on who pays and how much. BrainMerchant processes credit card and ACH payments for software platforms, so you can offer your customers both from one provider; our guide to choosing between ACH and credit card payments shows where each one fits.
How do we add card payments to our platform?
Start with a conversation: tell us how your customers take payments today and where cards belong in your software, through the contact form or by email. BrainMerchant is the payment gateway between your platform and the payment networks, and we’ll walk you through what adding card payments to your software involves.
Further reading
Card guides worth reading
Go deeper on the costs, disputes and security rules that come with credit card processing for SaaS platforms.
Guide
Credit card processing fees explained
What interchange, network fees and provider markup are, and what makes a card payment cost more or less.
Guide
Chargebacks vs ACH returns
Why a card dispute and an ACH return follow different rules and timelines, and where 3-D Secure fits.
Guide
PCI compliance for SaaS platforms
Which parts of PCI DSS apply when your software handles card data or can affect its security.
Talk to BrainMerchant
Add card payments where your customers already work
We don’t publish pricing here, so talk to us. We’ll walk you through what card processing with BrainMerchant looks like for your platform, with ACH bank payments from the same provider.