Aeropay Review
6.6/10Pay-by-bank built for US gaming: 15-second payouts on RTP and FedNow, an owned bank-linking layer, and zero licenses of its own by design.
Our read
- Gaming-native at real scale: roughly 80% of revenue from gaming, over $1B in annualized volume at the 2024 Series B, and transaction volume that nearly doubled in 2025.
- PrizePicks and Kalshi both carry Aeropay as a player deposit method, and at Dabble 60% of payouts land instantly, with $2M+ paid out since fall 2023.
- Owns its bank-linking layer: Aerosync connects 12,000+ banks with 98% instant authentication, removes the Plaid dependency, and sells standalone to Transak, Xsolla, and Topstep.
- Instant payouts within 15 seconds on RTP and FedNow, 24/7/365, with instant payout volume up 88% in 2025 and RfP pay-ins live with Cross River since December 2025.
- Guaranteed ACH puts return risk on Aeropay for guaranteed-tier merchants.
- Distribution through Worldpay's US gaming merchant network including tribal (live 2025) and Jack Henry's reach into roughly 7,400 financial institutions (June 2026), with cash-flow profitability since Q4 2023.
- Holds no licenses of its own: no MTLs and no FinCEN MSB registration, so the entire money flow depends on four partner banks.
- State gaming-supplier registrations are made as needed, with no published list of states.
- Live sweepstakes exposure: Fliff and its casino brand Sidepot run on Aeropay while California's AB 831 makes knowingly processing sweeps payments a crime from January 1, 2026, and roughly 17 states now ban or restrict sweeps.
- No rate card, no minimums, and no published contract terms.
- One rail, one mailbox: no cards or wallets means operators still run a second PSP, and consumer support is email-only, a single mailbox that every player-side issue routes through.
- No uptime SLA in the merchant contract.
US-facing DFS and pick'em operators, CFTC-regulated prediction markets, and state-licensed books and casinos that want A2A deposits plus instant payouts alongside an existing card PSP, including tribal casinos reaching it through Worldpay.
Operators needing cards, wallets, crypto, or any market outside the US from one vendor, procurement teams that require a licensed counterparty, and anyone who wants a rate card before a sales call.
Markets & licensing
Aeropay holds no money transmitter licenses and no FinCEN MSB registration. The money moves on rails owned by Cross River, MVB, Regent, and UBank. What it does hold is SOC 2 Type II and annual independent NACHA ACH audits.
Aeropay is US-only and gaming-first, with about 80% of revenue from gaming and Worldpay distributing it across US gaming merchants including tribal casinos. What it does not bring is paper of its own: no MTLs and no FinCEN registration, with state gaming supplier registrations made as needed.
There is no UK or European presence here: no entity, no FCA permission, and no non-US rails. Aeropay is a US-domestic specialist by design.
- US money transmission licensingUnited States
- None held, and no FinCEN MSB registration, with the model built on funds never touching Aeropay
- Partner-bank layerUnited States
- Cross River, UBank, Regent, and MVB hold the regulated exposure and move the money · Partnerships from October 2023 (UBank) through September 2025 (MVB)
- State gaming supplier registrationsUS states
- Made as needed
- SOC 2 Type II + NACHA auditsUnited States
- SOC 2 Type II certification plus annual independent ACH audits under NACHA rules
Licensing tier: no state license and no FinCEN registration of Aeropay's own.
US-only by design, with USD the only currency and no international processing at all.
Methods & rails
What you can reach
A2A rails
Payout rails
Processing features
Integrations & engineering
One contract and one API instead of a separate deal per studio, feed, or PSP. Here's what connects, how fast, and on what stack.
One REST v2 API covers deposits and payouts, with the Aerosync SDK handling bank linking inside every path, whether the turnkey widget or a fully custom build. Webhooks are signed, tokens are scoped and short-lived, and sandbox credentials arrive at onboarding rather than self-serve. Rails are chosen per player bank: RTP or FedNow when the bank supports them, Same-Day ACH otherwise, with RfP pay-ins on the RTP network rolling out from December 2025. Reconciliation runs through the merchant portal, SFTP feeds, and webhooks, and operators inside Worldpay's gaming network can switch Aeropay on through that integration instead of building direct.
Under a week on the SDK widget path, about two weeks for a custom API build.
Products & tools
Four pieces cover one rail: Pay by Bank moves US deposits over ACH and its instant successors, Instant Payouts returns winnings in seconds on RTP and FedNow, Aerosync links the player's bank account and sells on its own, and Guard decides what gets approved and who carries the returns.
Pay by Bank
The deposit rail: players link a bank account once through Aerosync and pay by bank transfer from then on, with batched same-day ACH settlement to the merchant by default and the whole flow built to route around card networks and their interchange.
- Same-day ACH settlement to the merchant by default
- 60% of gaming players arrive already holding Aeropay-linked bank accounts
- Converts 20% more first-time depositors
- Processing costs cut by up to 50% versus cards
- QR-code in-person payments carried over from the cannabis retail years
Instant Payouts
The retention product: winnings return to the player's verified account within 15 seconds, over RTP and FedNow, 24/7/365, with Same-Day ACH as the fallback and Request for Payment instant pay-ins on the RTP network added with Cross River in December 2025.
- Payouts within 15 seconds on RTP and FedNow, including weekends and holidays
- Same-Day ACH fallback for players whose banks sit off both instant rails
- Instant payout volume up 88% in 2025
- RfP instant pay-ins launched December 2, 2025 with Cross River, Splash Sports first live
- Good-funds model on RfP: real-time authorization, settlement, and confirmation in one pass
Aerosync
Aeropay's own bank-linking aggregator, launched July 2024, connecting 12,000+ US banks and credit unions at a 98% instant authentication rate, used inside every Aeropay flow and sold standalone to companies that are not payment clients at all.
- 12,000+ connectable banks and credit unions, with OAuth connections at 2,700+ institutions
- 98% of US banks authenticate instantly without micro-deposits
- White-label flows, re-linking for returning users, and a manual verification fallback
- Two years of transaction history plus real-time balance checks
- Standalone clients outside gaming: Transak, Xsolla, Topstep, and Guac
Guard
The risk stack: fraud models trained on gaming transactions and retrained network-wide in real time, cross-merchant player reputation, biometric re-authentication, and guaranteed ACH, where Aeropay absorbs insufficient-funds returns for merchants on the guaranteed tier.
- Guaranteed ACH: the merchant still gets paid when a payment returns for insufficient funds
- Two-tier model: non-guaranteed merchants fund a reserve account and reimburse returns by weekly auto-debit
- Return reductions: R03/R04 invalid-account returns down 60-66%, R01 insufficient-funds returns down 40%+
- Trusted User Program shares player reputation across the merchant network
- MFA & Play biometric re-authentication plus configurable if-then guardrails
The history
Longevity in this industry usually comes with a change of owner somewhere in it.
Aeropay started in Chicago in 2017, founded by Dan Muller after Synchrony acquired GPShopper, the mobile-commerce firm where he ran product and engineering. Cannabis retail, locked out of card processing, was the first vertical, and gaming became the business at about 80% of revenue. Cash-flow profitability arrived in Q4 2023, followed by a $20M Series B led by Group 11 on May 16, 2024. Total funding stands at $25M+ across three rounds. In January 2026 Aeropay unveiled a 15,000-square-foot penthouse headquarters at One East Wacker with about 60 Chicago staff and plans for 20 to 30 more hires.
Brands & clients on the platform
Corporate
Leadership
Milestones
- 2017
Dan Muller founds Aeropay in Chicago after the Synchrony acquisition of GPShopper, with card-locked cannabis retail as the first vertical.
- 2023
PrizePicks partnership signed (August), UBank becomes the first gaming banking partner (October), and Q4 brings cash-flow profitability.
- 2024
Cross River joins for instant payouts (February), a $20M Series B led by Group 11 closes (May 16), Aerosync launches as a standalone bank-linking product (July 17), and Worldpay signs distribution across its US gaming network (October 9).
- 2025
Regent Bank (March) and MVB Bank (September) widen the banking layer, GambleID adds gaming KYC and geolocation (October), a Payment Service Provider of the Year finalist slot lands at the American Gambling Awards (August), and RfP instant pay-ins launch with Cross River (December 2), Splash Sports first.
- 2026
The Loop penthouse HQ opens with 20 to 30 hires planned (January), and the Jack Henry integration takes RfP and RTP routing toward roughly 7,400 financial institutions (June 2).
Where they're pushing next
- Prediction markets: Kalshi live, with Novig and ProphetX both entering CFTC-regulated exchange status in June 2026
- Tribal gaming through the Worldpay distribution (2025-2026)
- E-commerce through the Skipify checkout integration
Awards & recognition
Longevity and ownership
Switching vendors is expensive, which makes the company's staying power part of the purchase. What the contract says about your data decides how expensive an exit gets.
Aeropay vs alternatives
Most buyers in this market shortlist three or four vendors long before they take a single sales call.
| Attribute | Aeropay | PayNearMe | Sightline Payments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2017 | 2009 | 2010 |
| Team | 60+ | 230+ | 81+ |
| US market | Available | Available | Available |
| Pricing | On request | — | On request |
| Methods | 1+ | 9+ | — |
| Currencies | 1+ | 1+ | 1+ |
| Settlement | Same-day ACH batches to the merchant by default | — | — |
| Instant payouts | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Settlement & commercials
Aeropay prices per deal, so exact figures land in the contract rather than on a public rate card.
Per-transaction pricing sold on interchange bypass, with up to 50% savings versus cards
Consumers pay nothing: Aeropay deposits at Kalshi are fee-free with a $10 minimum. Merchants on the guaranteed tier pay for Aeropay to absorb ACH returns.
The deal
Money movement
Onboarding path
- 1Request a demo at aeropay.com/demo
- 2Clear merchant KYB: photo ID, business license, state operating licenses, and tax ID, with licenses re-proven on a 30-day renewal window
- 3Negotiate the tier: guaranteed ACH shifts return risk to Aeropay, while the non-guaranteed tier carries a reserve account sized from projected volumes
- 4Take sandbox credentials at onboarding and build: the SDK widget path runs under a week, a custom API build about two weeks
- 5For gaming, scope the GambleID-bundled KYC and geolocation path
- 6Go live with same-day ACH settlement plus instant payouts over RTP and FedNow where the player's bank supports them
Support & account management
You can't demo service before you sign, so what a vendor puts in writing is the only floor you can hold it to.