If you work in partnerships or business development at a software platform, there's a good chance someone from a unified API provider has reached out to you. Maybe it was us at Apideck. Maybe it was someone else.

Your first instinct might have been skepticism. Another middleware company wanting access to your API. Another layer between your platform and the companies building on it. Why would you want that?

It's a fair question, and this article is our honest answer. We want to explain what unified API providers actually do, how they differ from other middleware approaches, why platforms benefit from working with them, and what collaboration looks like in practice.

What is a unified API provider?

A unified API provider builds and maintains connectors to multiple platforms within a software category, and offers B2B software companies a standardized API per category to access all of them.

Here's what that means in practical terms. Imagine a B2B SaaS company that needs to integrate with several accounting platforms: QuickBooks, Xero, Sage Intacct, NetSuite, FreshBooks, and others. Without a unified API, they would need to study each platform's API documentation, build separate connectors, handle different authentication methods, normalize the data across different schemas, and maintain every connection as APIs change over time. That's months of engineering work per platform, and the maintenance never stops.

With a unified API provider like Apideck, that company integrates once per category through a standardized API. Apideck builds and maintains the individual connectors, handles authentication through Vault (which preserves your platform's branded OAuth experience), normalizes the data into a consistent model, and takes care of ongoing maintenance. The B2B software company ships their integration once and it works across every supported platform in that category.

Apideck currently maintains 200+ connectors across seven unified APIs: Accounting, HRIS, CRM, ATS, Ecommerce, File Storage, and Issue Tracking. Over 200 B2B SaaS and Fintech companies build on our infrastructure.

How this differs from an embedded iPaaS

You may have also been approached by embedded iPaaS providers. There's a meaningful difference worth understanding, especially from your perspective as a platform.

Embedded iPaaS platforms provide visual workflow builders that get embedded into a B2B software company's product. When that company's customers (the people actually using your platform day to day) want to set up an integration, they interact with the iPaaS interface: configuring workflows, mapping fields, and managing connections through a third-party layer. In effect, the iPaaS becomes an additional product that your customers need to learn and use.

A unified API provider works differently. The B2B software company's engineering team builds the integration directly into their product using a developer-friendly API. Your customers never see or interact with Apideck. They simply see that your platform is natively supported in the product they're using. From their perspective, the integration feels built-in, not bolted on.

For platforms, this distinction matters. When a B2B software company uses Apideck to connect to your platform, the result is a native-feeling integration. Your brand experience stays intact. Your customers authenticate through your own OAuth flow. And there's no third-party interface sitting between your platform and the companies that depend on it.

What this means for your platform

Every company that builds on Apideck and activates your connector is a company whose product now integrates with your platform. That creates value in three directions.

Your platform becomes stickier

Every integration powered through Apideck increases your platform's stickiness. When your customers can connect their workflows to your product through the applications they already use, switching to a competitor becomes harder. The more integrations your ecosystem supports, the deeper your platform becomes embedded in your customers' daily operations.

The data on this is clear. ProfitWell's Integration Benchmarks study, based on data from 500,000 software companies, found that products with at least one integration see 10 to 15% higher customer retention, rising to 18 to 22% higher retention for products with four or more integrations. The effect also extends to willingness to pay: products with integrations command 20 to 30% higher willingness to pay compared to those without.

This dynamic works in your favor as a platform. Every integration that connects to your API is another reason for your customers to stay. And unlike features you need to build and maintain yourself, integrations powered through unified API providers come at zero engineering cost to you.

Separately, the buying side reinforces this. Gartner's 2024 Global Software Buying Trends report, surveying 2,499 B2B software buyers, found that a provider's ability to support integrations is the number one sales-related factor in purchase decisions, cited by 44% of respondents. In other words, integrations don't just help you keep existing customers. They help your customers win new business, which in turn drives more usage of your platform.

Your customers' end users get a better experience

Your customers' end users expect their software to work together. Consider an example: a finance team using your accounting platform expects it to connect with their spend management, invoicing, and tax compliance applications. If those connections don't exist, it creates friction, manual data entry, and in some cases, reasons to look for a different platform altogether.

This applies across every category, not just accounting. Whether you're an HRIS platform, a CRM, or an ATS, your end users rely on a web of connected applications. Unified API providers help close the integration gap at scale, connecting your platform to the broad ecosystem of B2B software companies whose products your customers use alongside yours.

Your ecosystem partners can move faster

The companies building on your platform, whether through your marketplace or your developer program, also benefit. Those partners face the integration challenge in reverse: they need to connect to many platforms across a category, and building each connector individually is expensive and slow.

When your platform is accessible through a unified API, your ecosystem partners can reach your customers faster. This lowers the barrier to entry for your ecosystem, meaning more applications in your marketplace and a richer offering for your customers.

How the data actually flows

One of the most common questions we hear from platform partnership teams is: "How does the data move? Are you storing our customers' data?"

The short answer: no. Apideck operates a real-time passthrough architecture. When one of our customers makes an API call, Apideck routes that request to your platform's API in real time. Your platform processes the request and returns the response. Apideck normalizes the response into a standardized format and passes it to our customer. At no point does Apideck store or cache your platform's data.

Your platform remains the single source of truth. Data is always fresh. There's no sync-and-cache layer introducing staleness or data residency risk.

A few other details that matter for platform teams:

Brand-compliant authentication. Apideck's Vault component enforces OAuth 2.0 flows that respect your platform's brand guidelines. Your customers see your branded authorization experience, not Apideck's.

Rate limit respect. Apideck's infrastructure honors your published rate limits. API requests are throttled according to your specifications. No surprise traffic spikes.

Logging and debugging. All API requests are logged for 90 days, allowing developers to self-serve troubleshooting. This reduces the support burden on your team when integration issues arise.

Addressing common concerns

In our conversations with platform partnership teams, a few questions come up consistently.

"Won't this undermine our direct partnerships?"

This is the opposite of how it works. A unified API provider doesn't replace the partnership between your platform and the B2B software companies building on you. It strengthens that partnership by removing the most time-consuming part: the technical integration.

Every integration partnership has two sides. There's the technical side: building and maintaining the connector, handling authentication, normalizing data, and keeping up with API changes. And there's the commercial side: marketplace listings, co-marketing, co-selling, and customer support alignment.

Apideck handles the technical side. This frees both parties, your platform and the B2B software company, to focus on the commercial relationship that actually drives business value. Instead of spending months on engineering before the partnership can deliver results, both sides can focus on go-to-market activities from day one.

This applies regardless of the partner's size. A large enterprise software company benefits because their engineering team can redirect resources toward core product development instead of integration maintenance. A smaller startup benefits because they can offer your platform as a supported integration without building and maintaining a dedicated connector. In both cases, the partnership gets stronger because the technical barrier is removed and both sides can invest their energy in the relationship itself.

"How is this different from scraping or unofficial access?"

An important distinction. Apideck builds and maintains connectors using your platform's API and documented endpoints. We use proper OAuth 2.0 authentication, respect your terms of service, and work within your API's published guidelines.

We don't reverse-engineer private APIs, scrape data from user interfaces, or use credential-sharing workarounds. Every connector Apideck maintains is built to work with, not around, your platform's intended integration model.

Where we have certified partnerships, like with Intuit, Workday, Sage Intacct, SAP, and HubSpot, our connectors are formally recognized and reviewed by the platform's partnership team. We actively pursue the same level of formal collaboration with additional platforms.

"What would working together actually look like?"

Collaboration with Apideck can take different forms, depending on what makes sense for your platform.

Certified partnership. The deepest level of collaboration. Apideck goes through your partner program, meets your technical and compliance requirements, and becomes an officially recognized integration partner. This is how we work with Intuit, Workday, Sage Intacct, SAP, and HubSpot. Your team has full visibility and control over how the connector works, and both sides get the most value.

Developer program participation. Many platforms have open developer or partner programs with documented requirements and self-serve onboarding. Apideck can participate in these programs following the same process and meeting the same standards as any other company building on your API.

Starting with the essentials. In cases where a certified partnership or formal program isn't the right starting point, providing Apideck with API documentation, access credentials, and a sandbox or testing environment is enough for us to build and maintain a high-quality connector. We understand this kind of access isn't always publicly available, and we're happy to work with your team to set it up in a way that fits your internal policies. This approach lets both sides evaluate the relationship with minimal commitment before deciding whether to formalize it.

The right model depends on your platform's policies, your partnership program's structure, and where you are in your own integration strategy. We're flexible because we've seen that every platform has different needs.

Who already works with Apideck

Apideck maintains certified partnerships with some of the most widely used platforms in the B2B software ecosystem: Intuit (QuickBooks), Workday (Silver Partner), Sage Intacct, Sage Business Cloud Accounting, SAP, and HubSpot. Each of these platforms went through their own evaluation process and concluded that working with Apideck benefits their ecosystem.

Beyond certified partnerships, Apideck maintains 200+ connectors across seven categories. Our customer base includes over 200 B2B SaaS and Fintech companies, from early-stage startups to established enterprise software providers.

We're SOC2 Type 2 compliant, use AES-256 encryption, enforce TLS for all data in transit, and undergo regular third-party penetration testing.

Getting started

If you're interested in exploring what a collaboration with Apideck could look like, the easiest starting point is a conversation. We'll walk you through how our connectors work, what our customers are building, and what model of collaboration makes the most sense for your platform.

We're not asking for a long-term commitment upfront. We're asking for a conversation about how we can help grow your ecosystem.

Reach out to our partnership team at partners@apideck.com.