Payment Pulse – Ep. 12

Payment Pulse: The Power of Social Proof: Learn how influencer endorsements, online reviews, and peer behavior shape our buying habits.

Status Spending and Luxury Psychology: Understand why consumers use high-end payment methods to signal prestige and how brands capitalize on the “Keeping up with the Joneses” mentality.

FOMO and Impulse Purchases: Explore the role of limited-time offers and BNPL services in reducing purchase friction and triggering rapid spending.

Digital Trends on Social Media: See how platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are revolutionizing product discovery and checkout experiences.

Cultural Influences on Spending: Discover how global payment preferences vary and why adapting to local norms is key for businesses expanding into new markets.

Also Listen On:

Episode Transcript

Steve: Welcome to Payment Pulse, a podcast by Clearent by Xplor, where our goal is to humanize and simplify the complex world of payments. My name is Steve, and today we have a very, very special episode. For those of you watching on YouTube, you might already notice a little bit of a difference in the panel that we have, but it brings me great pleasure to introduce our first guest on this podcast.

Don’t worry, Max isn’t going anywhere, but we’re facilitating these conversations with guests a little bit differently. Excited to introduce our first guest here. I’m here with payments veteran

Mark Passifione, the Senior Vice President of Integrated Payments Business Development here at Clearent. Mark is here with us today to crack the code on the difference between embedded and integrated payment solutions at a pretty high level—just to be transparent there. We’re going to be talking about that and why the choice between the two can make or break your payment strategy.

Mark has been in payments for the last 26 years, including the rollout of both integrated and embedded payment strategies for software providers. He’s also been very influential to me—I’ve worked with him for years now, including a bit at a previous competitor of Clearent as well, which he’ll get into. Very excited to bring him on and allow him to share some of those experiences over the last 26 years.

Mark, how you doing today? Quick banter—how are you?

Mark: I’m doing great, Steve. I’m excited to be on your podcast. Beautiful day in California—it’s going to be in the high 80s. I know I tell you to come out here all the time. You can live where you want to live. Allergies are in full effect though—the winds are popping up, so it’s a typical California spring day, but it’s beautiful. Getting ready for Mother’s Day, so excited to be on the show.

Steve: Nice. Glad to have you. Mark’s been pushing me toward California for a while and I’ve been thinking about it. We’ll see what happens next.

That said, let’s jump into it. Mark, during your tenure you built successful payment solutions and partnerships within the independent sales organization channel as well as enterprise, and now embedded and integrated solutions for software providers. Can you briefly take us through your career journey and what led you to focusing on integrated and embedded solutions?

Mark: Sure. I’ve had a kind of crazy full-circle journey. I think about this a lot because of the way I made my way into payments. I was actually the CEO of a software company and we were selling into large wireless carriers. At the time there was a big consolidation going on in the wireless market with companies like AT&T and Verizon, and what was then McCaw Cellular, now AT&T Wireless. They came to me looking for a solution to help with their payments. They wanted to move from fronting inventory out to their distribution channel to making them pay with a credit card—which would be a good idea.

You’ve got to remember this is 1999. AT&T did not have a big retail presence at that point—it was all through third-party channel. The internet was around but not used anywhere near like today. My partner and I started looking for companies that had payment pieces and we found a company that we bought. We took that software and continued to customize it over time and commercialize it by adding database and a front-end UI. Eventually that product became known as Supercharge, and the idea was it could turn any workstation on any local area network into a payment terminal. It made it easy for organizations with LANs to have all of their call center or workstation users accept credit card payments.

We continued with that company for a while, distributing the product through ISOs. Later we started buying ISOs because we found that was a pretty lucrative business at the time. We started taking on more and more of the revenue channel. It’s similar to how PE is pushing software companies today into payments. It was obvious not just to provide the technology that linked them to payments—but to start making money on the payments. We started doing that, it went really well, and I eventually sold that company. It’s still in existence today, selling payments to third-party software partners that need integration.

I went on to other places like CardConnect, where I was fortunate to meet you and start our working relationship, and then eventually here at Xplor Pay / Clearent. So for me, I’ve never really moved far from the intersection of software and payments. It’s how I got to the payments business, and it’s probably how I’ll leave it at some point.

Steve: Really cool full-circle breakdown. I didn’t realize you first started with the software connection. That’s why we brought him on—he’s been doing this for a while and has been involved with the software piece since the early days. Let’s dive in and break down the embedded vs. integrated definitions.

With that said, let’s jump into the terms at a high level. Mark, could you explain what integrated payments are and what it means?

Mark: Sure. The terminology is difficult because we hear “integrated” versus “embedded” used almost interchangeably, and I don’t think of them that way. I think of integrated payments as a connection to a third-party processor. Characteristically you’d see payments processed through some external provider; the user is often redirected or interacts with a third-party UI. The easiest example is an e-commerce platform: you click a buy button or get directed to a shopping cart page to take payment. That’s what I think of as integrated payments.

If I compare that to embedded payments, I think of payments being natively built into the core experience. Payments feel seamless, often invisible to the end user. A great example is Uber—you put your card on file and you’re transacting without thinking about the payment. It’s so far removed from the workflow that it’s completely embedded in the experience. Characteristically, the payments feel like a native part of the software platform. Today that’s often powered by what we term PayFac as a Service or managed PayFac. These systems not only enable acceptance, but also onboard merchants, manage payouts, and control the end-to-end UX. That’s how I bucket them.

Steve: Makes sense. It seems like the end-user experience is where a lot of the differences show up—and where software providers decide whether the lift is worth it. You highlighted embedded’s UX; can you go into more depth on integrated, and how each impacts the end-user experience?

Mark: Each method engages functions like boarding new payment customers, accepting payments, and improving the SaaS platform’s revenue channel. The primary difference: embedded lets the SaaS platform control and transform what looks like a disconnected task into a smooth, integrated part of the product experience. Instead of separate functions that are merely connected, it’s seamless and fluid.

I like analogies. Consider reporting. We work with a field-service system—a work-order platform for HVAC or plumbers. A manager wants to analyze completed jobs, technician performance, average invoice amounts. If the platform lets them export files or use a plugin to push data into Power BI or Excel, it’s possible, but external—requires setup, a plugin, and time. Hands-on and a bit disjointed. I’d call that integrated.

Now take the same company with built-in reporting dashboards. The manager logs in and instantly sees charts and metrics about technicians, completion times, work orders, and invoices—inside the platform. Interactive, tailored, no exports or plugins. Fast and actionable, part of daily workflow. That’s embedded. Payments map similarly: the more you embed into the SaaS platform, the faster and cleaner the workflow.

Steve: Appreciate the examples—they paint the picture. What are the upsides and the hurdles for software providers?

Mark: For embedded:

The tradeoff: it’s more work. If you want to own boarding, customer maintenance, disputes, support ticketing—and then grow into embedded lending or marketing—it’s a lot of integration effort. Tools are better every year, but it’s still more than just wiring a transactional API and letting a partner handle the rest.

Steve: Definitely the pinnacle, but it requires resources and time. Can you contrast with integrated payments—where does it make sense, especially for smaller teams?

Mark: We think about SaaS companies by stage: startup, growth (maybe with PE), and legacy (large user bases). There’s plenty of room for companies that don’t want the development and maintenance load of embedded. They want to set up a transactional API quickly and rely on a strong partner for the rest of the payments program.

It often comes down to company size, resources, and priorities. Many legacy players have hundreds or a thousand customers—great recurring revenue—but limited expendable resources. The quickest path is to implement payment acceptance via API and let a partner handle the rest. They might later grow into embedded—or not—depending on needs.

Steve: Great breakdown. There’s still room for integrated in today’s space; you don’t have to go embedded if you’re not ready.

Let’s bring this to life. You worked on a large dental partner PayFac-as-a-Service rollout that led to significant results: increased processing volume per account by 1,900%, increased payment attachment rate by 27%, and reduced non-activated accounts by 11%. Can you walk us through how we got there?

Mark: First, it’s an unusual situation but it makes good points. The dental partner had been through a few iterations and settled on a PayFac-as-a-Service provider. They struggled with hardware deployment, because the provider didn’t fully integrate ordering/fulfillment from the boarding system. They were using pay links and QR codes and saw decent attachment—high-60s, ~70%. But transaction volume was very low.

In dental, they were competing with other acceptance systems: a back-office adjudication platform like Dentrix, text-to-pay tools, patient-engagement systems for scheduling/reminders—all able to accept payments. Our move: add payment terminals to their system, which was primarily used by the front office. Think “line-busting” in retail—meeting the payer at the point of interaction.

Now, when the patient checks out at the front desk, staff can settle the bill right there. Historically they’d send you to an online portal or run it in the back office. With front-desk hardware tied into the scheduling/engagement system, they just take the card.

We moved typical accounts from about $1,500/month (~5 transactions) to $30,000+/month; today it’s closer to $40,000/month. The payment flow completely changed. Attachment also improved, and non-activated rates dropped—once hardware was present, offices naturally shifted workflow.

This goes back to contextual relevance. It makes sense to hand your card to the front-office person rather than sending it to the back. It’s common-sense workflow design, not just technical features.

Steve: It sounds like a simple change with huge impact: more usage inside their software and faster collection—on-site vs. days later.

What’s the biggest lesson from that 6x story?

Mark: Don’t overthink it. In payments we love acronyms and tech weeds. But if you stand in the user’s shoes at the front desk, the natural flow is to pay right there. That’s true in many businesses. Another example: FieldEdge (field service). One of their biggest “competitors” can be the accounting system—customers let invoices flow to accounting and then take payment there, instead of collecting on site. Changing the workflow to collect in the field gets you paid faster, reduces risk, and feels normal for the customer.

Steve: Lots of shiny objects out there; our job is to simplify. Let’s wrap: any parting advice for software providers evaluating embedded vs. integrated?

Mark: Keep it simple. Know yourself. Which path aligns with your roadmap, dev resources, and customer expectations?

Both can work—your stage and market matter. Some markets value embedded more; others with long implementation cycles might not need instant boarding.

Steve: Great insights, Mark. That’s going to wrap it up. I’ll leave Mark’s LinkedIn below if you want to connect. He’s also a really good cook and has great LinkedIn posts about his Italian background—go check them out. If you’d like to strategize with Clearent or have questions around your integrated or embedded payment strategy, there’s a link in the description to get in touch with our payment consultants. Thank you for listening today and we will see you next week.