I build in a space where a chunk of what I'm selling requires a registration I can't realistically get. Not "haven't got round to it". The accreditation involves an external audit, a capital position, and a process sized for companies with a compliance department. A solo operator does not clear it.
Everyone in the space handles it the same way. You integrate a partner who holds the registration, they perform the regulated step, and you stay the integration layer and the party your customer actually has a contract with. Gray-label. It works, it's normal, and it's how a lot of fintech looks underneath.
What I haven't worked out is how to talk about it.
Say too little and you're implying you hold something you don't, which in a compliance product is the one lie that ends you. Say too much and the honest version reads as "I'm a wrapper," and the partner starts looking like the product. There's a pricing question underneath it too: you pay per transaction for the regulated step, so your floor isn't yours, while the integration work - the part customers actually feel - has almost no marginal cost.
So: has anyone here shipped something where a licensed third party performs the regulated step? How did you word it on the pricing page?
The tension between being transparent about the regulated step without making the partner look like the whole product is a genuinely interesting one. Curious how other founders in regulated spaces have handled that language.