12 Payment App Success Stories [2023]

Updated: July 23rd, 2023
Start A Payment App

A payment app lets you accept payments from anywhere, using your mobile phone or tablet. It’s best for business owners and professionals to get payments for products or services occasionally or irregularly.

Starting a payment app is an excellent way of making passive income online. It doesn’t require much initially, and the revenue can be significant.

Payment apps are quite popular nowadays, allowing people to pay for goods and services with the tap of a button on their phones. Creating a new payment app can help you capture a share of this growing industry and virtually endless niche for your business.

Here are some real life success stories of starting a payment app:

1. Payment for Stripe ($720K/year)

Ryan Scherf (from Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) started Payment for Stripe over 8 years ago.

Revenue
$60K / month
Team
1 founders / 1 employees
Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Case Study

I’m Ryan Scherf, the founder of payment.co (@payment), an app built on top of the Stripe payment gateway for creating card-present charges. Payment is available on iOS and Android, and allows customers who have created online stores to easily collect payments in person, in the same account, with no barriers or card readers required.

The app launched in January 2015, and since has grown to process over $70M in volume annually. The app collects a 1% service fee on every single charge.

how-i-created-a-60k-month-app-that-collects-in-person-payments-through-stripe

2. HoneyCoin ($12K/year)

David Nandwa (from Nairobi) started HoneyCoin about 2 years ago.

Revenue
$1K / month
Team
1 founders / 0 employees

Case Study

Hi! My name is David Nandwa & I’m the Founder & CTO of HoneyCoin. We help creators and internet businesses monetize their audiences & Gen Z and Millenials manage their cash & crypto all in one place. Whether you’re crowdfunding for something you believe in, studying abroad and receiving money from your parents, spending online on your favorite stores, or joining the current Bitcoin hype train, you can do it all with HoneyCoin and more.

Our main offering is monetization & remittance features that allow users to send, receive, spend, & manage FIAT currency (KES, NGN, USD, UGX, etc.) as well as Cryptocurrencies such as (BTC, ETH, USDT, and more).

building-a-payments-application-for-african-creators-and-gen-z

Learn more about starting a payment app:

Where to start?

-> How much does it cost to start a payment app?
-> Pros and cons of a payment app

Need inspiration?

-> Examples of established payment app
-> Marketing ideas for a payment app
-> Payment app names

Other resources

-> Payment app tips

4. shurjoPay ($24M/year)

Fida haq (from Dhaka, Bangladesh) started shurjoPay about 13 years ago.

Revenue
$2M / month
Team
2 founders / 150 employees

Case Study

Hi! This is Fida Haq and I am the MD and CEO of shurjoPay since its inception in 2010.

During Q1 of 2021, shurjoPay is averaging a transactional volume of USD 1.5M per month with the total number of merchants exceeding 600. We believe shurjoPay's impact in bringing about a change in the country’s online payment collection system has been transformational.

how-we-developed-a-1-5m-month-online-payment-gateaway

5. TenantCloud ($12M/year)

Joe Edgar (from Austin, TX, USA) started TenantCloud almost 9 years ago.

Revenue
$1M / month
Team
1 founders / 130 employees

Case Study

I founded TenantCloud as a way to help landlords manage their rental properties and assist with finding tenants. There are over 15 million DIY landlords in the U.S. and they own 21 million rentals and house 60 million tenants.

Our first revenue was in 2018 and currently, we are on track to do near $15 million at the end of 2021.

we-launched-a-12m-year-property-management-saas-for-landlords-tenants

6. Akurateco ($1.2M/year)

Vladimir Kuiantsev (from Amsterdam, Netherlands) started Akurateco almost 3 years ago.

Revenue
$100K / month
Team
3 founders / 45 employees

Case Study

My name is Vladimir Kuiantsev. I’m a Managing Partner of the Netherlands-based company Akurateco, a payment software provider for fintech companies. A payment orchestration platform, or white-label payment gateway, is a cloud platform for two main categories of entrepreneurs:

Our headquarters is located in Amsterdam, with two regional offices in Tel Aviv and Lisbon, and a Research & Development office in Kyiv.

how-we-bootstrapped-a-1-2m-year-white-label-payment-saas

7. Factofly ($1.8M/year)

Jannik Flor Borg (from Copenhagen, Denmark) started Factofly almost 3 years ago.

Revenue
$150K / month
Team
3 founders / 4 employees

Case Study

My name is Jannik and I am the co-founder and CEO of FactoFly. FactoFly is helping freelancers, side-hustlers, and gig workers to lead administration-free lives by taking care of everything related to their business in terms of admin.

Over the last twelve months, we’ve grown the business from 0 to around €130k monthly revenue.

this-admin-tool-for-freelancers-now-generates-1-8m-year-denmark

8. Fatura Simples ($324K/year)

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/c/NathanLatkawatchFatura Simples CEO Felipe Bagetti: Recurring billing automation for businesses growth... Visit them: www...

Felipe Bagetti (from Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil) started Fatura Simples over 5 years ago.

Revenue
$27K / month
Team
1 founders / 23 employees

Case Study
  • Felipe Bagetti is the founder of Fatura Simples by Tenex, a Brazilian platform for automating recurring billing.

  • Fatura Simples by Tenex integrates Financial Management, issuance of slips, and electronic invoices.

  • This platform also automates sales processes and ensures proper management of contracts.

  • Fatura Simples generates revenue by charging a commission on transaction fees.

  • Since its launch in 2018, this company has expanded to a 23-person team and raised $250K in funding.

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Listen to the full Podcast on podcasts.apple.com ➜

9. Trust Chain ($360K/year)

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/c/NathanLatkawatchTrust Chain Global CEO Giancarlo De Lio: The first end-to-end transaction platform for commodities... Vi...

Giancarlo De Lio and Katrin Shechtman (from Toronto, Ontario, Canada) started Trust Chain over 2 years ago.

Revenue
$30K / month
Team
2 founders / 7 employees

Case Study
  • Giancarlo De Lio and Katrin Shechtman founded Trust Chain Global, a fintech platform and third-party workflow management solution.

  • The platform enables the global commodities community to transact transparently and legally faster and with better safety.

  • Trust Chain Global started as a SaaS company and is shifting to cutting-edge technologies like blockchain to bring trust, confidence, and transparency to the commodities market.

  • Through the platform, parties can transact more quickly and with greater assurance thanks to continuous identity verification, digital escrow and payments, and a smart deal management system.

  • Founded in 2021, the startup secured its seed round with Toronto-based venture capital firm N49P and Entrepreneur First in Q1 of 2022.

  • The startup is growing its customer base through its internal network and hopes to grow revenue through its Escrow service and user subscription fees.

article

Watch the full interview on youtube.com ➜

10. 10er ($120K/year)

Mikkel created 10er, a Patreon-similar service for Danish creators. During the last months, the site has grown a lot and reached the $2,000/month goal.

Revenue
$10K / month
Team
1 founders / employees

Case Study

Mikkel Malmberg founded 10er.app, a Danish Patreon app designed for creators to accept payments from their loyal fans.

The payments for 10er are automated and ongoing. It provides you with security and an opportunity to make plans. The app encourages your creative freedom while allowing you to be in direct contact with your fans, who wish the best for you.

The founder, Mikkel, is a stand-up comedian from Denmark. He first gained national attention in 2010, when he finished third in the fourth round of Comedy Fight Club on TV 2 Zulu. He also co-hosted the Danish comedy podcast Fup I Farvandet with Comedy Fight Club in March 2011.

The founder loves creating things and has built & run quite a few side projects and had to consciously keep the number of projects he will work on limited to a certain number. Before 10er, he built Brainbow, a product studio, and then developed 10er as a side project of Brainbow to help creators.

Malmberg is an interdisciplinary artist and self-starter. His goal is to provide platforms for artists as well as apps for expert consumers.

A Glimpse Of How The Project Started & Key Milestones

  • Mikkel dropped out of university to start a stand-up comedy.
  • Doing stand-up comedy led him to create 10er.app Through this, he took donations from his audience.
  • Being a programmer, building his service as a side project seemed the more straightforward solution.
  • He built 10er as a Ruby on Rails app, and the first month it charged money was December 2014.
  • Marketing strategies were his podcast & marketing blogs.
  • Within a few months after launch, his successful side project has seen significant growth and almost reached its desired $2,000/month mark.
  • 10er.app solved Mikkel’s problems, & it’s making a nice bit of recurring revenue, and it takes very little work to maintain.

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12. VizyPay ($20.4M/year)

Austin Mac Nab (from Waukee, IA, USA) started VizyPay over 6 years ago.

Revenue
$1.7M / month
Team
2 founders / 110 employees

Case Study

I’m Austin Mac Nab, CEO and Founder of VizyPay. Based in Iowa, our bootstrapped FinTech provides innovative, transparent, money-saving payment processing solutions to small business merchants across rural America.

Revenue also exploded from 100K to 18M in just six years - all without a single cent of outside funding. VizyPay is now No. 209 on the 2022 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and No. 918 on the national 2022 Inc. 5000 list, making it the fourth fastest-growing private company in Iowa.

how-we-have-built-an-18m-year-business-providing-payment-processing-solutions-to-smbs

Pat Walls,  Founder of Starter Story
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