Salesforce Payments is a native Salesforce solution for collecting and managing payments. Kulturra goes beyond payment collection, offering invoicing, recurring payments, payment plans, automation, POS, and support for 100+ payment processors and gateways. Salesforce Payments may suit simpler needs, while Kulturra is built for businesses that need a more flexible, comprehensive payment operation in Salesforce.
If your business uses Salesforce and wants to accept payments directly within your CRM, you may be wondering:
Should you use Salesforce Payments or a Salesforce-native payment solution like Kulturra?
Both can help businesses accept payments within Salesforce, but they are designed for different needs.
Salesforce Payments focuses on payment collection and payment experiences within the Salesforce ecosystem. Kulturra goes beyond payment collection by combining payment processing, invoicing, recurring billing, payment plans, automation, and payment management directly within Salesforce.
So, which one is right for your business?
It depends on how much of your payment operation you want to manage inside Salesforce.
Salesforce Payments vs. Kulturra: Quick Comparison
| Feature | Salesforce Payments | Kulturra |
|---|---|---|
| Native Salesforce experience | ✓ | ✓ |
| Online payments | ✓ | ✓ |
| Payment links | ✓ | ✓ |
| Credit/debit cards | ✓ | ✓ |
| ACH / bank payments | ✓ | ✓ |
| Recurring payments | Depends on setup | ✓ |
| Invoicing | Depends on Salesforce products | ✓ |
| Payment plans & installments | Depends on setup | ✓ |
| In-person / POS payments | Limited | ✓ |
| Payment processor flexibility | More limited | 100+ processors |
| Automated reminders | Limited | ✓ |
| Failed-payment retries | Limited | ✓ |
| Saved payment methods | ✓ | ✓ |
| Salesforce reporting | ✓ | ✓ |
In short: Salesforce Payments can be a good option for straightforward payment collection. Kulturra is designed for businesses that need a broader payment-processing and billing operation inside Salesforce.
What Is Salesforce Payments?
Salesforce Payments is Salesforce’s native payment solution for accepting and managing payments within the Salesforce ecosystem.
It can support payment experiences such as secure payment links and checkout, along with capabilities for payment monitoring and transaction management.
For businesses with relatively straightforward payment requirements, Salesforce Payments may provide what they need.
However, payment collection is only one part of managing payments.
Businesses with more complex requirements may also need:
- Invoicing
- Recurring payments
- Payment plans and installments
- Automated payment reminders
- Failed-payment recovery
- Multiple payment processors
- In-person payments
- Payment reporting and workflows
That’s where Kulturra takes a broader approach.
What Is Kulturra?
Kulturra is a Salesforce-native payment solution built to help businesses manage more of their payment operations directly inside Salesforce.
With Kulturra, businesses can manage:
- One-time and recurring payments
- Invoicing
- Payment plans and installments
- Payment links
- Credit card and ACH payments
- In-person and POS payments
- Automated payment reminders
- Failed-payment retry workflows
- Saved cards and tokenization
- Payment reporting and audit trails
Kulturra also supports 100+ payment processors and gateways, giving businesses flexibility when choosing how transactions are processed.
That flexibility matters for companies that already have a preferred processor, negotiated rates, or an established merchant account.
Instead of replacing the existing payment infrastructure, businesses can use Kulturra to bring payment workflows into Salesforce while maintaining supported payment-processing relationships.
Is Kulturra a Payment Gateway?
No. Kulturra is more than a payment gateway.
A payment gateway primarily helps securely transmit payment information between systems involved in processing a transaction.
Kulturra provides the Salesforce-native payment and billing workflows around those transactions.
Think of it this way:
Payment gateway: Helps securely transmit payment information.
Payment processor: Processes the transaction.
Kulturra: Helps businesses manage payment processing and related workflows inside Salesforce.
This means Kulturra can work with supported payment processors and gateways rather than requiring businesses to treat Kulturra as a replacement for their existing processor.
What’s the Difference Between Salesforce Payments and Kulturra?
The biggest difference is scope.
Salesforce Payments is well suited to businesses primarily looking for a native way to collect payments.
Kulturra is designed to manage more of the payment operations surrounding those transactions.
For example, a business may need to:
- Create an invoice.
- Send the customer a payment link.
- Collect the payment.
- Automatically charge future payments.
- Retry failed transactions.
- Send payment reminders.
- Track payment activity in Salesforce.
With Kulturra, these workflows can be connected within Salesforce instead of being spread across multiple systems.
That can help finance, sales, and operations teams work from the same customer and payment data.
Why Payment Processor Flexibility Matters
Your payment processor can have a significant impact on your payment operations and processing costs.
You may already have:
- Negotiated processing rates
- An existing merchant account
- A preferred payment processor
- Multiple payment providers
- Specific payment methods you need to support
Kulturra supports 100+ payment processors and gateways, giving businesses more flexibility when building their Salesforce payment setup.
This is one of the areas where Kulturra can be particularly valuable.
Businesses don’t necessarily have to choose between using Salesforce and keeping the payment infrastructure that works for them.
They can use Kulturra to connect supported payment processing with their Salesforce workflows.
For high-volume businesses, even small differences in processing fees can add up. That’s why evaluating a Salesforce payment solution should involve more than asking whether it can accept payments.
It’s also worth asking:
Can I use the payment processor that’s right for my business?
Recurring Payments, Invoicing, and Automation
Payment collection is only one part of the billing process.
Consider a business that needs to:
- Create and send invoices
- Collect payments
- Charge customers on a recurring schedule
- Manage payment plans
- Retry failed transactions
- Send reminders for unpaid invoices
- Track everything in Salesforce
Now you’re managing an entire payment workflow, not just a transaction.
Kulturra is designed to bring these workflows together inside Salesforce.
This can be useful for businesses that manage:
- Subscriptions
- Memberships
- Retainers
- Installment plans
- Recurring services
- Payment plans
By connecting these processes to Salesforce, Kulturra can help reduce the manual work involved in managing payments while keeping customer, invoice, and transaction information connected.
Real-World Results With Kulturra
The value of a payment solution ultimately comes down to what it does for real businesses.
Kulturra’s customer results include measurable improvements in payment and operational workflows.
For example, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) reported:
80%+ improvement in payment success rates
80%+ reduction in manual work
80%+ improvement in operational efficiency
These results illustrate an important distinction between simply accepting payments and optimizing the payment process itself.
Kulturra has also worked with businesses looking to reduce payment-processing costs.
One customer case study documented $27,000 in annual payment-processing savings after optimizing its payment setup.
These examples demonstrate why payment processor flexibility and workflow automation can matter beyond the initial ability to accept a transaction.
What About In-Person Payments and POS?
Not every payment happens online.
Businesses may also need to accept payments in person through POS or tap-to-pay experiences.
Kulturra supports in-person payment workflows, giving businesses another way to connect payment activity with their Salesforce environment.
This can be useful for businesses that need to manage both online and in-person payments without maintaining completely separate payment workflows.
Who Should Use Salesforce Payments?
Salesforce Payments may be a good fit if you:
- Primarily need straightforward payment collection
- Want a native Salesforce payment experience
- Have relatively simple payment workflows
- Don’t require extensive payment processor flexibility
- Don’t need advanced payment and billing automation
For these businesses, keeping the payment process simple may be the right approach.
Who Should Consider Kulturra?
Kulturra may be a better fit if your business needs more than basic payment collection.
Consider Kulturra if you:
- Need payment processing and invoicing in Salesforce
- Manage recurring payments
- Offer payment plans or installments
- Need automated payment reminders and retries
- Accept payments in person
- Want access to 100+ payment processors and gateways
- Want to reduce manual payment work
- Need comprehensive payment reporting and workflows
- Want to keep payment activity connected to Salesforce records
The more complex your payment operation becomes, the more valuable it can be to have those processes connected in one place.
Salesforce Payments or Kulturra: Which Is Right for You?
There isn’t one solution that’s right for every Salesforce customer.
Salesforce Payments can be a good fit when your primary need is straightforward, native payment collection.
Kulturra is designed for businesses that want to manage more of their payment processing, billing, automation, and payment workflows directly inside Salesforce.
The better question isn’t simply:
“Which solution can accept payments?”
It’s:
“How much of our payment operation do we want to manage inside Salesforce?”
If you only need to collect payments, Salesforce Payments may be enough.
If you want to process, automate, invoice, manage recurring payments, support multiple processors, and connect your payment workflows to Salesforce, Kulturra is worth considering.
And the real-world results from Kulturra customers show that the value can extend beyond convenience, from reducing manual work to improving payment success rates and potentially lowering processing costs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Salesforce Payments?
Salesforce Payments is a native Salesforce payment solution that allows businesses to accept and manage payments within the Salesforce ecosystem.
How does Salesforce Payments work?
Salesforce Payments provides payment experiences within Salesforce, such as payment links and checkout, allowing businesses to collect payments without relying entirely on separate payment systems.
Who should use Salesforce Payments?
Salesforce Payments may be suitable for businesses with straightforward payment-collection needs that want a native Salesforce payment experience.
What are the best alternatives to Salesforce Payments?
Kulturra is an alternative to Salesforce Payments for businesses that need broader payment-processing and billing capabilities inside Salesforce. Kulturra supports invoicing, recurring payments, payment plans, payment automation, in-person payments, and 100+ payment processors and gateways.
Is Salesforce Payments a payment gateway?
No. Salesforce Payments is a broader payment service, while a payment gateway is infrastructure used to securely transmit payment information as part of the transaction process.
What is the difference between Salesforce Payments and Kulturra?
Salesforce Payments focuses on native payment collection within Salesforce. Kulturra combines payment processing with broader payment and billing workflows, including invoicing, recurring payments, payment plans, automation, POS, and processor flexibility.
Can Kulturra work with existing payment processors?
Yes. Kulturra supports 100+ payment processors and gateways, giving businesses flexibility when choosing or maintaining their payment-processing infrastructure.
Does Kulturra support recurring payments?
Yes. Kulturra supports recurring payment workflows, including recurring invoices and automated payment processes.
Can Kulturra handle payment plans?
Yes. Kulturra supports payment plans and installment-based payment workflows within Salesforce.
Final Takeaway
Salesforce Payments and Kulturra can both help businesses accept payments within Salesforce, but they serve different needs.
Salesforce Payments can be a practical choice for businesses looking for straightforward, native payment collection.
Kulturra is built for businesses that want to go beyond payment collection and manage more of their payment processing, billing, automation, and payment workflows directly within Salesforce.
With support for 100+ payment processors, broader payment capabilities, and documented customer results such as 80%+ improvements in payment success and operational efficiency, Kulturra provides a solution for businesses looking to make Salesforce the center of their payment operation.
The right choice ultimately depends on your payment complexity, processor preferences, automation requirements, and long-term needs.
Simple payment collection? Salesforce Payments may be enough.
A broader, more flexible payment operation inside Salesforce? Kulturra is worth considering.
