The situation
A vertical SaaS platform serving a specific professional services segment had 2,400 customers and was processing its customers' outbound payments through a legacy bank relationship with no embedded economics. The platform was aware that its customers were processing approximately $4M monthly in payments through the platform's workflow — payments the platform had zero economic participation in.
Rather than defaulting to Stripe or a BaaS provider, the platform's CFO had a specific question before any vendor conversation: what is the right program structure, and what economics should we expect at $4M monthly volume and at $15M monthly in three years?
The architecture decision
The economics modeling at $4M monthly showed: BaaS program at 40% revenue share on 120 bps interchange = approximately $230K annually. Direct PayFac program at 85 bps net capture = approximately $408K annually. Direct bank relationship at 105 bps net capture = approximately $504K annually.
At $15M monthly in year three: BaaS = $864K. PayFac = $1.53M. Direct bank = $1.89M. The year-three gap between BaaS and direct was $1.026M annually — significant enough to justify the higher-complexity launch path.
The platform chose a direct bank relationship, accepted the 9-month launch timeline, and allocated the resources to build the compliance infrastructure before the bank conversation rather than after.
What the build looked like
The platform built the BSA/AML program and KYB/KYC processes in parallel with the sponsor bank diligence process — a 10-week parallel track that meant compliance was ready when the bank approved the program. The bank relationship, including interchange terms and float economics negotiation, took 8 months from first conversation to signed agreement.
The platform negotiated interchange-plus pricing with a commercial BIN, a fee structure that allowed speed premiums for same-day payment requests, and a float yield sharing arrangement on customer balances — a term that required the bank relationship to negotiate and would not have been available through a BaaS provider.
The outcome
The platform launched at 95 basis points effective take rate — interchange capture plus fee income — compared to the 38 basis points a comparable BaaS program would have generated at the same volume. The float yield arrangement added approximately $68K in year one at the average daily balance.
At current growth trajectory, the year-three economics are on track to exceed the $1.89M direct model projection. The platform is now evaluating card issuing for a subset of customers — a capability that the direct bank relationship enables without requiring a program re-architecture.