Merchant Clearing House is business software for small merchants, with payments built in. A register, invoicing, and online checkout all land in one back office, on one statement, at one rate. The money goes to the merchant's bank, never to us.
Merchants run their whole day on software, and payments are one part of it. So we build the software, with payments inside.
Timeline
September 2026
A week of research
Before a line of code: how card payments move, who is allowed to hold the money, and what it costs to do it properly. We chose to start on an established payments platform instead of connecting to the card networks ourselves.
September 2026
Fourteen rounds of naming
Greek letters, symbols, finance domains. We landed on the plainest option, Merchant Clearing House, and registered the LLC and merchantclearing.com.
September 2026
Site live in a day
A full marketing site from my Next.js template in one commit: home, pricing, security, and a quote form.
The pricing page. One rate per transaction, and nothing else. September 2026
Software first, payments inside
We stopped building a payments company and started building a point of sale system, with the software included in the rate. That lets payments run on an established payment facilitator's infrastructure at launch, so merchants can start sooner. We can take on more of it as we grow.
- A register on the tablet or laptop already at the counter
- Invoices, recurring billing, and cards on file
- Checkout for the site the merchant already has
- One statement and one deposit for all of it
The point of sale page, rebuilt the same day around the register. September 2026
Building the product
Accounts, businesses, and team invites work, and the back office is up. The register, invoicing, and online checkout come next.
Impact
- A live site and brand, three days after the name.
- A launch path on an established payments partner, so merchants can start sooner.
- Accounts, businesses, and team invites working in the merchant app.
My role
Co-founder and the only engineer. I ran the research, built the site and brand, and am building the product.
- Next.js
- PostgreSQL
- Prisma
- Vercel