The Austin fintech that made paying a bill as simple as replying to a text message.
Everyware started with a behavior anyone with a phone recognizes: an email invoice sits unopened for days, but a text message gets read in minutes. In 2015, Larry Talley - who goes by his middle name, Austin - and co-founder Scott Orlinsky built a company around that gap. Instead of asking customers to download an app or log into a portal, Everyware sends a bill straight to a text thread. The customer pays from their preferred method or simply replies “yes.” That is the entire checkout.
Talley did not arrive at payments by accident. His earlier company, Brand Tango, built sales-and-marketing software for some of the largest hotel brands in the world. Helping resorts reach guests taught him that the message - not the app, not the website - was where attention actually lived. Everyware took that lesson and pointed it at the hardest message a business ever has to send: the request to be paid.
A decade later the company serves more than 9,000 merchants across healthcare, travel, automotive, nonprofit, retail, and utilities. It has raised roughly $6 million, led by fintech specialist TTV Capital, and layered a full payments stack - online checkout, recurring billing, in-person terminals, and identity verification - on top of the original Pay By Text idea. But the core pitch has never changed: your phone number can be your wallet.
“Text messaging is the ultimate contactless technology - customers don’t need to download an app or memorize a password.”
Everyware, on why the message is the productFor most businesses, collecting a payment means chasing it - mailing a statement, emailing a link, calling a phone that goes to voicemail. Each extra step is a place where money leaks out. Everyware collapses those steps into one channel people already check constantly. A business creates an invoice, sends it by text or email individually or in batches, and the customer settles it in the same thread they use to talk to friends. The company says bills sent this way, in batches with SMS reminders, collect roughly 30% more than traditional methods.
The second problem Everyware attacks is the dead-end receipt. In most systems, a payment ends the conversation. In Everyware, the payment thread stays open - a two-way line where a customer can ask a question, reschedule an appointment, or get an automated text receipt that authorizes and validates the transaction to help mitigate fraud. The receipt becomes the start of a relationship rather than the end of a transaction.
It works because it asks the customer to do almost nothing. No app download, no account creation, no password to forget. For a healthcare practice, that means a patient can pay a bill from the messages app without a portal login. For an auto lender, it means a loan payment collected by text instead of a missed call. For a nonprofit, it means a donation that is one reply away.
Everyware is built to sit alongside what a business already runs rather than replace it. Its secure REST APIs, iFrame, and hosted-checkout options let payment and messaging features drop into existing systems, and it integrates with processors and platforms like Cybersource and MX - so a merchant can add two-way texting and pay-by-text without ripping out their stack.
The business sends an invoice by text or email - one at a time or in batches.
→The customer picks a payment method or simply replies “yes” to confirm.
→An automated text receipt authorizes and validates the payment to reduce fraud.
→The thread stays open for reminders, questions, and future payments.
Invoice by text or email; customers pay from any method or by replying “yes.”
SMS conversations for reminders, engagement, and support - in the same thread as payment.
Send invoices individually or in bulk with automated SMS reminders.
Accept payments online via hosted pages, iFrame, and REST API.
Take card-not-present and in-person payments from a browser or POS.
Recurring billing, subscription management, and buy-now-pay-later.
Identity Match, ID Document Verification, and biometric Liveness Check.
PCI DSS compliant, HIPAA certified, with reporting and instant payouts.
Plenty of companies now offer a text-to-pay button - Stripe, Square, and Authorize.net include invoicing features, and specialists like Prommt, Textel, and Solutions by Text compete on messaging. What separates Everyware is that text was never a feature bolted onto a checkout; it was the checkout from day one. The whole platform is designed around the messaging thread, which means payment, receipt, reminder, and support all live in one continuous conversation.
That focus shows up in the details. Customers never download an app or memorize a password. Businesses can plug the platform into existing systems rather than migrate to a new one. And in 2024 Everyware added something most text-payment rivals lack: a full identity-verification suite, with document scanning and a biometric liveness selfie, so a business can confirm who is on the other end of the thread before money moves.
The competitive question Everyware answers is not “who has the lowest processing rate” but “who gets the bill paid fastest, with the least friction, while keeping the customer relationship open.” For merchants whose problem is collection speed rather than raw cost, that is a different - and often more valuable - promise.
It also explains the company’s place in the market. Everyware is not trying to be a horizontal processor for every business on earth. It is a vertical-friendly payments-and-engagement layer for industries where a conversation and a payment naturally belong together: a clinic and a patient, a dealership and a driver, a charity and a donor.
Everyware earns on transactions run through its platform - the core payments rail behind Pay By Text and checkout.
Software fees for messaging, invoicing, recurring billing, and identity-verification tools.
Sits inside partners’ software - Cybersource, MX - earning as an embedded payments layer across verticals.
Austin Talley and Scott Orlinsky launch in Florida to make paying a bill as easy as replying to a text.
Online payments, hosted checkout, and API integrations extend beyond core Pay By Text.
TTV Capital leads, with Kinetic Ventures, RZC Investments, Capital Factory, and Naples Technology Ventures.
Real-time payments and open banking come to Pay By Text.
Named Best New Product of the Year (SMB) at the 2023 Best in Biz Awards.
Identity Match, ID Document Verification, and Liveness Check arrive to fight payments fraud.
A payments and sales executive with 20+ years building companies. Previously founded Brand Tango, marketing software for major hotel brands. Goes by his middle name, Austin.
Co-launched Everyware in 2015, helping shape the original Pay By Text platform.
A 27-person Austin crew named a Built In Best Place to Work three years running, with a stated focus on collaboration and customer service.
“As cybercrime in the financial space is proliferating, businesses must take action today to protect their customers, patients and partners against loss.”
Larry “Austin” Talley, Founder & CEOEveryware lets businesses collect payments and communicate with customers over text message. Its Pay By Text platform sends invoices by text or email that customers pay by replying - no app or login needed.
It was founded in 2015 by Larry “Austin” Talley (Founder & CEO) and co-founder Scott Orlinsky, originally in Florida and now headquartered in Austin, Texas.
Merchants in healthcare, travel/hospitality, automotive, nonprofit, retail, utilities, billing, and call centers - more than 9,000 businesses in total.
Yes. Everyware is PCI DSS compliant and HIPAA certified, and offers identity-verification tools including document verification and biometric liveness checks.
Everyware has raised roughly $6M, including a Series A led by TTV Capital with participation from Kinetic Ventures, RZC Investments, Capital Factory, and Naples Technology Ventures.