Payments as Rappi's strategic glue
Sebastian Mejia, co-founder of Rappi, on building for multi-verticality in on-demand
Payments turn Rappi from a delivery app that pays tolls on every order into a company that captures more of the money flow around each order. When a customer keeps a card or wallet inside Rappi, checkout gets faster, repeat use rises, and Rappi sees richer data on spend, timing, basket size, and repayment behavior. That lowers payment costs, improves conversion, and gives bank partners a much better basis to approve cards and credit inside the app.
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Rappi already made money from merchant commissions, delivery fees, ads, and subscriptions. Adding payments matters because payment savings fall almost entirely to contribution margin, unlike food delivery where rider pay and promos eat up much of each extra dollar.
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The frequency effect is especially important in a multi vertical app. Rappi’s users already buy across categories, with more than 90% purchasing from at least two categories, and cohort purchase frequency rising over time. A stored wallet or card makes it easier to use Rappi for small everyday purchases, not just planned meals.
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This follows the same playbook as Meituan, which used payments, merchant tools, and supply chain finance to become more deeply embedded with merchants. Rappi has kept building that layer, including RappiPay in Colombia and the long term Banorte partnership around RappiCard in Mexico.
The next step is for payments to become the glue across Rappi’s delivery, commerce, and credit products. As more transactions stay inside the app, Rappi can route users from ordering food to paying bills, using credit, and shopping other categories, which raises order frequency and makes the whole network more profitable and harder to displace.