How to switch from Vendasta's built-in billing to your own merchant account

Vendasta's built-in billing is the path of least resistance — it's already configured, every provisioned product flows through automatically, and your end-clients have one fewer thing to set up. For an agency under ~20 clients, it's often the right call.

Two limits show up as you scale. First, payment processing is bundled into Vendasta's pricing — there's a margin built in that you don't see as a line item. On a $400K/year card volume, that's typically $4K–$12K of recoverable margin per year. Second, Vendasta's billing doesn't surface per-client gross margin (your retail price minus their wholesale cost). You can build it in a spreadsheet, but only after the month closes.

Migrating to your own merchant solves both. Stripe Connect makes the merchant onboarding live in hours. Authorize.net / NMI takes 2–5 business days for underwriting but gives you the lowest rates once approved.

Step 1 — Pick a processor. Stripe Connect if you want to go live this afternoon; direct merchant via Authorize.net / NMI if you'd rather wait a week for underwriting and capture lower per-transaction rates. HubWho supports both, and you can run both in the same tenant — useful when you have a few enterprise accounts on direct and the long-tail on Stripe.

Step 2 — Connect HubWho to Vendasta. Your Vendasta Partner API credentials live in HubWho's encrypted credential vault. The first sync (5–10 minutes) imports your marketplace catalog, every business under your partner account, and every active subscription. Nothing changes on the Vendasta side.

Step 3 — Audit the first 20% of clients. Sort your client list by monthly billing total, descending. Take the top 20%. These are where the migration math is most positive (highest dollar volume = highest absolute processing-margin savings).

Step 4 — Migrate one client end-to-end as a pilot. Pick a friendly account. Inside HubWho, create the subscription matching what Vendasta provisions, set the price, send the first invoice (which goes through your merchant), confirm payment lands. This step is non-destructive — Vendasta's billing for this client should be paused, not deleted.

Step 5 — Move the top 20% in a single batch. Once the pilot looks good, do the remaining priority accounts the same way. Two hours of focused work. Don't spread it across days — context-switching kills the pacing.

Step 6 — Long-tail in waves. The bottom 80% of clients can move in weekly batches. No rush — Vendasta's billing still works for any client you haven't migrated yet.

Step 7 — Pause Vendasta billing per client only after the first HubWho payment settles. Until that payment lands, keep Vendasta as the failsafe.

Client billing-day mismatch. If a client is on Vendasta's 5th-of-the-month cycle and you switch to HubWho's 1st-of-the-month cycle, they'll get two bills in the transition month. Solve this by setting the HubWho invoice date to one billing cycle later, or by sending a small credit memo to cover the overlap.

Missed Plaid setup. If you're switching the client from card to ACH at the same time, send a portal-access email with explicit instructions. About 30% of clients will set up Plaid same-day; the rest need a nudge. HubWho's portal handles both.

Vendasta subscription cancellation. Don't cancel the Vendasta subscription — just pause billing inside Vendasta. The subscription itself controls provisioning; canceling it stops the marketing service.

Per-client gross margin appears in HubWho the same week. You'll see immediately which clients are profitable and which are loss-leaders.

Your processor margin is your processor margin — no mystery markup baked into rates.

Branded customer portal at your subdomain. Clients pay, view invoices, see KPI snapshots — under your brand.

Configurable dunning per client. Healthcare clients get a gentle 4-step sequence; chronic late-payers get a firm 2-step. Vendasta's dunning is one-size-fits-all.