According to CRN, Alternative Payments has acquired data and analytics vendor Delmar Insights to create an AI-powered payments and intelligence platform specifically for MSPs. The company has tripled both revenue and its MSP customer base over the past year, now processing more than $1 billion in payments annually. All three Delmar employees are joining Alternative Payments, with founder Danny O’Hanley becoming general manager of data and analytics. The integration is scheduled to begin in early 2026, though deal terms weren’t disclosed. CEO Baxter Lanius called this Alternative Payments’ first acquisition amid rapid growth, with the team doubling to about 60 employees.
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The Last Frontier for MSPs
Here’s the thing about MSPs – they’ve become incredibly efficient at automating their technical operations, but their financial systems often look like something from the 1990s. Lanius nailed it when he said financial operations remain “one of the last frontiers.” Most MSPs are so focused on delivering great tech service that they forget to automate the business itself. And honestly, who can blame them? When you’re fighting fires and managing client relationships, reconciling payments and analyzing profitability metrics tend to fall by the wayside.
The combined platform aims to solve exactly that problem by merging payments automation with business intelligence. Think about it – you’ve got ticket volume data sitting in your PSA, financial data in QuickBooks, and payment data scattered across multiple systems. Bringing all that together in one place? That’s where the real magic happens. MSPs will be able to see customer-level margins alongside operational performance metrics, giving them what Lanius calls “operational clarity” and “financial clarity” in the same dashboard.
Why This Actually Matters
Look, another tech acquisition announcement might make your eyes glaze over, but this one touches on something fundamental. When O’Hanley says “MSPs are drowning in data but don’t have the time or resources to turn it into something useful,” he’s describing a universal pain point. The problem isn’t lack of data – it’s lack of actionable insights. Most MSP owners can tell you their revenue numbers, but how many can instantly tell you which clients are actually profitable versus which are draining resources?
The real test will be whether this combined platform can deliver on the promise of “curated experience” that O’Hanley described. Because let’s be honest – most business intelligence tools end up being another complicated system that requires dedicated resources to manage. If they can actually make financial analytics as seamless as processing a payment, they might really have something here.
What Comes Next
With integration not starting until early 2026, there’s a long runway ahead. But the timing makes sense given Alternative Payments’ explosive growth. Tripling revenue and hitting $1 billion in annual payments processed? That’s the kind of scale that makes an acquisition like this feasible. And Lanius isn’t shy about saying this might not be their last move – he explicitly mentioned that broader M&A is still on the table if it accelerates their mission.
Corey Kirkendoll’s Blues Brothers comparison might sound cheesy, but it actually captures something important about channel partnerships. When two companies that already work well together decide to merge rather than just partner, it often leads to better integration and faster innovation. The question is whether they can maintain that partnership energy through what will inevitably be a complex integration process.
Basically, if Alternative Payments and Delmar can actually deliver on their vision of uniting payments automation with AI-driven analytics, they could fundamentally change how MSPs think about financial operations. But the proof, as always, will be in the platform they actually ship to partners.
