Embedded payments have evolved from a “nice-to-have” revenue booster to one of the fastest-growing opportunities in vertical SaaS – often contributing 30-50% of total company revenue within just a few years of launch. But here’s what separates the platforms generating millions in payment revenue from those struggling to gain traction: how they approach the build.
The most successful platforms treat payments as a core product, not just a feature. They recognize that delivering a seamless payment experience requires the same level of strategic investment, technical sophistication, and operational rigor as their primary software offering. And as payment volume scales – from processing a few million to hundreds of millions annually – the need for dedicated payments expertise becomes unavoidable.
So how do you know when it’s time to bring on your first Head of Payments? And what should you look for when you do?
This article addresses these critical questions and outlines how to build an effective payments team for your vertical SaaS platform, starting with your first hire: a Head of Payments or Payments Lead. We’ll cover the capabilities that matter most for this foundational role, then explore when and how to add specialized positions as your payments program matures.
The Biggest Mistake Vertical SaaS Teams Make When Hiring for Payments
Many vertical SaaS platforms start payments hiring with an impossible wish list for their first payments leader – whether titled Head of Payments, Director of Payments, or Payments Lead. They are searching for a “payments unicorn” – someone who knows everything from risk and underwriting to product, go-to-market, and compliance. That bar isn’t realistic, and it’s not necessary.
The better question is: what do we need most right now? Before writing the job description, identify the single capability that matters most at your current stage – hiring for payment adoption and go-to-market, customer management, operations, or product. Listing every payment responsibility dilutes strategic focus and scares away strong candidates when they don’t hit every checkbox.
Start with leadership focused on your core needs. As payments volume grows, you’ll likely add specialized roles like payments sales reps, merchant support, or a payments product marketer – but those come later, after you’ve proven the model with your Head of Payments or Payments Lead.
What to Look For In Your First Payments Hire: Your Hiring Evaluation Guide
As you evaluate candidates for your Head of Payments or Payments Lead, here are the critical capabilities that separate strong payments leaders from poor fits:
Cross-Functional Influence: Payments leaders rarely have large teams. They work across finance, product, technology, and sales without direct authority. Look for examples of aligning teams, securing product bandwidth, or enabling sales to position payments correctly – all without direct reports.
Partnership Management: Your processor relationship directly impacts success. Merchant onboarding is typically the biggest hurdle to activation. Strong candidates understand processors as true partners, maintain direct communication channels, and collaborate on complex merchant situations rather than managing them as vendors.
Merchant Relationship Building: The best payments leaders develop personal relationships that go beyond what large processors offer. Look for experience building direct merchant relationships, providing personal support, and showing up at industry conferences or maintaining direct support channels.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Strong candidates use data to identify friction, improve workflows, and drive adoption. They should talk about outcomes with specific numbers and demonstrate how they’ve taken customer feedback and turned it into actionable improvements.
What Strong Candidates Look Like (vs. Red Flags)
Strong payments leaders demonstrate:
- Excitement about successes backed by specific numbers
- Clear explanations of complex concepts across audiences
- Deep merchant understanding and what drives adoption
- Examples of productive processor partnerships
Watch out for:
- Speaking in generalities without owning outcomes
- Overusing jargon instead of clear explanations
- No concrete metrics around adoption, retention, or boarding
- Treating payments as isolated from the broader product
How to Set Your Payments Leader Up For Success
Hiring the right person is only half the equation. Your payments leader needs:
Company-Wide Buy-In: When sales, customer success, and product support payments as a priority, payment adoption improves immediately. Without this, your payments leader can’t get the bandwidth they need.
Honest Expectations: Be transparent about where you are in your payments journey. Are you ready to commit resources, or still exploring? It’s only fair for candidates to understand your real stage and constraints.
Strong Processor Partnership: Clunky boarding processes or poor communication will sabotage even the best hire. Your payments leader needs a responsive, collaborative embedded payments partner.
Leadership Chemistry: This relationship becomes the backbone of how quickly you can scale. Find someone you work well with.
When to Scale Your Payments Team
Once your Head of Payments has established your payments foundation and proven the model, you’ll likely need additional support. Here’s when to consider new payment hires:
- Payments Sales Rep: When adoption becomes a bottleneck and your leader spends a majority of time on sales calls rather than strategy.
- Payments Support Rep: When onboarding volume and support tickets pull focus from strategic work (Note: Some embedded payments partners like Payabli offer dedicated merchant support options, eliminating this headcount need).
- Product Marketer: When you need dedicated resources for sales enablement and customer education materials
The sequence matters less than the trigger: hire when a specific function becomes a clear bottleneck to growth. When building a payments team, most companies start with leadership, add sales support next, then layer in specialized roles as volume scales.
Ready to Hire a Payments Leader? Next Steps
Before you start interviewing, answer these questions honestly:
- What’s our most critical need right now? Go-to-market, operations, product, or partnership management?
- Where are we in our payments journey? Early exploration, ready to scale, or looking to differentiate?
- What resources can we commit? Sales bandwidth, product development capacity, budget, and executive attention?
- What does success look like? Define concrete milestones – monthly, quarterly, and annually.
- How will we support this person? Company buy-in, processor partnership, and realistic expectations?
Once you can answer these clearly, you’re ready to write a focused job description that prioritizes what actually matters, interview payments candidates against the capabilities that drive success, and build a team that will transform your embedded payments program into a lucrative competitive advantage.
Ready to go deeper? Download our complete Embedded Payments Launch Checklist for a comprehensive guide to everything you need for a successful payments launch within your vertical SaaS platform.