From Internal iPaaS to Embedded Integrations
Zachary Kirby, co-founder of Vessel, on building the Vercel for integrations
The key shift is that integration vendors discovered the real budget sits with software companies that need integrations inside their own product, not just ops teams automating work behind the scenes. Tools that started as drag and drop workflow builders for internal automations could reuse the same connectors, auth flows, and data mapping engine, then wrap them in an embedded UI so a SaaS company could ship a customer facing Salesforce or HubSpot integration much faster.
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Internal iPaaS products were built for ops and product teams moving data between apps they already use. Embedded iPaaS repackages that plumbing for a different buyer, the SaaS company, which wants the integration to appear native inside its own settings page, with its own branding and user experience.
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This is why companies like Paragon, Prismatic, and Alloy sit between no code automation and full custom engineering. They handle OAuth, connectors, retries, and mapping logic, while leaving the last mile UI to the customer. That is much closer to a product feature than an internal workflow tool.
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The market split is visible in scale and positioning. Zapier reached an estimated $310M revenue in 2023 and Workato $150M, reflecting how large the internal automation category became first. Smaller embedded players grew by serving the next wave of demand, SaaS vendors deciding broken or missing integrations were hurting sales and retention.
From here, more integration spend moves out of IT and rev ops budgets and into product budgets. The winners will be the platforms that let software companies launch native integrations quickly, keep them updated as APIs change, and own the customer experience instead of handing users off to a third party workflow tool.