The PayFac Economy: 2026 Report
Payment facilitation carries a 2.6x median EV/Revenue and a 4.7x median EV/Gross Profit across Windsor Drake's seventeen-constituent public comparable set at the 20 August 2026 close. The report introduces The Spread Stack: a single card payment is sold four times before it settles, and each layer of the stack reports a different slice of it as revenue. Gross margin across the set runs from 27% to 100%, five constituents move three or more places between the two rankings, and the retained spread on processed volume runs from 10 to 159 basis points. The report also sets out the Visa and Mastercard registration rules that cap a facilitator's merchant book, the 2026 interchange settlement, and the licensing and safeguarding perimeter across six jurisdictions.
- Sector
- Fintech
- Focus
- Valuations
- Published
- August 21, 2026
- Length
- 25 slides
- Reading time
- 13 minutes
Slide deck
25-slide deck. Desktop readers can page through the embedded viewer below. Mobile readers can open the direct PDF link.
Open slide deck PDF Key findings
- Composite EV/Revenue is 2.6x across the comparable set, interquartile 1.6x to 3.8x, full range 0.8x to 13.9x at the 20 August 2026 close.
- Composite EV/Gross Profit is 4.7x, interquartile 3.1x to 8.4x, and the ranking is not stable across the two bases: five constituents move three or more places and the largest single move is six.
- Toast clears 2.7x on reported revenue and 10.3x on gross profit; Adyen clears 11.1x on both, because it reports no cost of revenue line.
- Network fees were 52.6% of Shift4's FY2025 gross revenue and interchange and network cost was 77.2% of Toast's FY2025 financial technology revenue, so gross margin across the set runs from 27% to 100%.
- Retained spread on processed volume runs from 10 basis points at Marqeta and 16 at Adyen to 159 at Square, against 190 to 258 basis points charged to the merchant before pass-through.
- Visa Rule 5.3.1.4 requires an acquirer to contract directly with any sponsored merchant above USD 1 million in annual Visa volume, within two years for merchants that grow across the line.
- Visa and Mastercard each committed on 10 November 2025 to a 10 basis point reduction in the US average effective credit interchange rate for five years; preliminary approval was granted on 9 June 2026 and final approval is listed for 16 November 2026.
- Interest income was 46% of global payments revenue in 2024 (McKinsey) and the federal funds range has been held at 3.50% to 3.75% since December 2025; float income was 19.0% of Payoneer's Q2 2026 revenue.
- Strategic acquirers take 91% of the payments cohort in the Windsor Drake Exit Index, and 2026 is the busiest year that cohort records.
Methodology
Framework: The Spread Stack. All multiples are Windsor Drake's own computation from primary market data, not licensed from a vendor: enterprise value equals market capitalisation plus total borrowings less cash and short-term investments, using closing prices of 20 August 2026 and balance sheet and trailing twelve month figures from each constituent's most recently filed period. Cash held on behalf of merchants and customers, settlement assets and restricted cash are excluded throughout. Seventeen listed constituents in three layers, with the two card networks shown alongside them. Every transaction multiple quoted was published by a party to that transaction and is attributed to it.
Frequently asked questions
What multiple does a payment facilitator sell for in 2026?
Windsor Drake's public comparable set carries a median 2.6x EV/Revenue and a median 4.7x EV/Gross Profit at the 20 August 2026 close, with an interquartile band of 1.6x to 3.8x on revenue. Which of the two applies to a given business depends on whether it reports interchange inside revenue or outside it.
Why do payfac revenue multiples vary so much?
Because reported revenue means different things across the set: network fees were 52.6% of Shift4's FY2025 gross revenue while Global Payments excludes interchange from revenue entirely. Gross margin across the seventeen constituents runs from 27% to 100%, and the revenue multiple inherits that spread before any judgement about quality is made.
Is becoming a payment facilitator worth it?
Bain's published ladder puts an owned payment facilitator at 60 to 100 basis points of net take against 10 to 40 basis points for a retail ISO arrangement, against upfront build costs of roughly $200,000 to $800,000 for a payfac-alternative model and $1M to $3M for a rental model. The filings bear the range out: Shift4 retained 102.3 basis points of volume in Q2 2026 and Priority retained 88.7 basis points across FY2025.
What happens when a sub-merchant grows past the network threshold?
Visa Rule 5.3.1.4 requires the acquirer to enter a direct merchant agreement with any sponsored merchant exceeding USD 1 million in annual Visa transaction volume, before processing for a new merchant or within two years for an existing one. Carve-outs exist for facilitators with a two-year acquirer relationship and regular reporting, and for seventeen listed merchant category codes.
Who buys payment facilitators?
Strategic operators, overwhelmingly: strategic acquirers account for 91% of the payments cohort in the Windsor Drake Exit Index. The 2026 evidence runs the same way, from Nuvei's agreement to acquire Payoneer to Adyen making the first two acquisitions in its corporate history.
How much does regulation move the value of a payfac?
Enough to be a diligence line rather than a footnote. The FCA's supplementary safeguarding regime commenced on 7 May 2026 with daily internal and external reconciliation, a monthly regulatory return and an annual safeguarding audit, and the Reserve Bank of India's payment aggregator directions of 15 September 2025 require Rs 25 crore of net worth by the third year of operation.
Is the exit window open?
Payments funding narrowed while payments M&A did not: KPMG recorded $19.2B of payments investment across 542 deals in 2025, and CB Insights counted four fintech IPOs in Q2 2026. Strategic acquisition has carried the activity through, and the transactions announced in 2026 have been larger and more concentrated than in either of the two prior years.
Companies covered
Public and private companies referenced in this report.
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If you are evaluating a sale
Windsor Drake is a sell-side only M&A advisory firm for founder-led software, fintech, and technology companies with enterprise values between $5 million and $300 million. This research comes from the same desk that runs our sale processes. If you are weighing an exit in this market, a confidential valuation is the place to start: no obligation, senior attention, and a view grounded in the transactions this report tracks.
Windsor Drake’s fintech, payments, and financial services practice is advised by Bruce Goldstein, a FINRA registered investment banking professional with twenty-five years in financial services, formerly of KBW, Sandler O’Neill and Milestone Advisors.
Cite this report
The PayFac Economy: 2026 Report. Windsor Drake Market Intelligence, 2026. windsordrake.com/market-intelligence/reports/the-payfac-economy-2026-report. Windsor Drake Market Intelligence data is free to use with attribution to Windsor Drake (windsordrake.com).