How a leisure management platform rebuilt its payments for multi-site omnichannel operations
Openplay provides booking and membership management software for leisure facilities across the UK, from private gyms to university sports centres. The platform drives significant payment volume on behalf of its clients every day, spanning online bookings and in-person transactions at facilities.
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As Openplay moved further into enterprise, its payment setup needed to move with it. Enterprise leisure clients operate at a different scale entirely: high membership volumes, complex facility management, and continuous payment processing across both online and in-person channels throughout the day. A provider built for smaller operators was no longer the right fit. Openplay needed a partner that could support enterprise omnichannel payments and had a commercial model that catered to volume-based pricing.
Openplay met Ryft's co-founder Alex Mackenzie at a payments industry event. Within weeks, the two teams were in active conversation.
We were processing significant payment volume without a partner built for our scale. Ryft gave us the infrastructure to support that volume properly, across online and in-person channels, while contributing to the success of the business.
Openplay assessed four providers.
Ryft's responsiveness set it apart from the first conversation. Dedicated support and direct communication with account managers meant queries were picked up and answered quickly, without the delays that come with most providers.
Technical due diligence was central to the evaluation process. When Openplay's senior developers reviewed the Ryft API, they gave it immediate sign-off: clean, well-documented, and straightforward to integrate.
The integration itself took a few weeks from commercial agreement to go-live. Ensuring a fast and well structured migration was key for Openplay who could not afford payment failures at any point in their operations - especially when actively signing enterprise clients.
These are enterprise clients processing hundreds of millions of pounds a year. If something wasn't working, they could lose a million pounds in a day. We needed dedicated account management, not a generic support channel.
Openplay has been live with Ryft for nine months. The partnership has given Openplay a payments infrastructure that matches the scale and complexity of its clients. Payments processed through Openplay are now exceeding the internal targets the team had set at the start of the partnership.
The partnership model has also given the Openplay sales team more room to move. For enterprise clients who fall outside standard commercial terms, Ryft works with Openplay to build an arrangement that makes the deal viable. That flexibility has made the difference on several significant contracts.
Nine months in and we're already exceeding the commercial targets we set. The team, the flexibility, the responsiveness, the partnership came together exactly as we'd hoped.
Key Benefits
- A partner built for enterprise scale: Flat-rate pricing and self-serve support work for SMEs. They do not work for clients processing hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Ryft brought volume-based pricing and a dedicated partnership model that Openplay's enterprise clients expected.
- Six weeks from contract to live: The Ryft API passed technical review immediately. Openplay's senior developers described it as clean and easy to work with. The full integration completed in six weeks, with no issues at go-live.
- Commercial flexibility that closes deals: Not every enterprise client fits a standard arrangement. Ryft worked with Openplay to build bespoke terms where needed, giving the sales team the confidence to pursue larger, more complex contracts without hitting a wall at the payments stage.
- A compounding model for enterprise growth: the commercial structure Ryft and Openplay built together supports enterprise clients properly. Nine months in, the partnership is exceeding the targets both teams set at the outset.
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