PayIt: A Government Payments Platform
#69
TLDR
PayIt is a Kansas City-based platform that state, local, and provincial governments white-label so residents can pay property tax, utility bills, court fines, and licence fees online. It is a government software and payments vendor — it is not a bank, and in Canada it is best known for a contract that ended: Toronto’s MyToronto Pay, decommissioned in June 2025 after an Auditor General’s procurement audit.
Key facts:
Founded in 2013 by John Thomson; headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri
Disclosed funding of US$195M+ across three rounds, led by Insight Partners (2019) and Macquarie Capital (2022)
Company says its platform covers 150+ million residents across North America
Clients include the State of Kansas, North Carolina’s DMV, and, since fall 2025, Harris County, Texas
Launched an AI feature suite, Smart Works, in June 2026
Origins
PayIt’s founding story starts at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). In 2013, founder and CEO John Thomson tried to renew a vehicle registration online, failed, and ended up waiting in line — an experience the company credits with inspiring the business. Thomson, who previously co-founded logistics software firm CarrierPoint, built PayIt in Kansas City with co-founders including Michael Plunkett. An early statewide contract with Kansas in 2017 preceded the funding that scaled the company.
What It Is and Isn’t
PayIt is a software-as-a-service company that gives governments a branded digital storefront — MyToronto Pay, iKan, myNCDMV, MyHarrisCountyTax — through which residents complete transactions, backed by a payments layer and back-office tools for agency staff. Revenue is transaction-based, with the company advertising no implementation fees.
It is not a bank, a lender, or a deposit-taker. It is also not always free to the end user: in Toronto, bank-account payments carried no fee, but PayIt collected a 2.35% processing fee on credit cards and 1.50% on debit, fees the City said it did not keep. And its “serving 150+ million residents“ figure is a coverage claim — the population of client jurisdictions — not a count of active users. A July 2025 report put the same figure at “more than 100 million.”
Market Position
PayIt sits in the government payments and digital-services segment of govtech, selling to treasurers, tax offices, DMVs, courts, and natural-resources agencies across the United States and, since 2020, Canada. It is a growth-stage private company competing against much larger incumbents: Tyler Technologies booked US$2.3 billion in 2025 revenue and acquired statewide-portal operator NIC for US$2.3 billion in 2021, while Paymentus reported US$310.7 million in revenue in Q3 2025 alone. PayIt’s revenue is not disclosed.
Product Portfolio
The platform spans property tax, courts and fines, utilities, licensing and permitting, DMV services, outdoors licensing, and tolling. Residents get a single profile with saved payment methods, eBilling, and reminders that works across services. Agencies get real-time transaction visibility, refunds, and reconciliation tooling — a back-office dashboard released in 2022 as ProSight. The outdoors vertical came via PayIt’s first acquisition, Nashville-based Sovereign Sportsman Solutions, in May 2023. In June 2026 the company added Smart Works: Smart Reconcile (AI payment matching), Agent Assistant (plain-language data queries), and Smart Guide (resident service discovery). The platform is PCI DSS Level 1 compliant, SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type 2 attested, ISO 27001 and 27018 certified, and hosted in AWS GovCloud; Canadian data for Toronto was stored in the AWS Canada Region.
Traction
Named clients include the State of Kansas (iKan, since 2017, renewed December 2023), North Carolina’s myNCDMV, Palm Beach County, the City of Grand Rapids, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which selected PayIt as statewide digital payments vendor in September 2023. The most concrete recent numbers come from Harris County, Texas — the third-most-populous US county — where MyHarrisCountyTax launched in November 2025 and, per the company, processed 468,000+ transactions and enrolled 185,000+ resident profiles in its first tax season. In Toronto, MyToronto Pay had 300,000+ registered accounts by mid-2023 and handled over one million payments before shutdown. Headcount grew from fewer than 50 in 2019 to 225+ by late 2023; current figures are undisclosed.
Funding
Disclosed total: US$195M+; GovTech reported the total as “above $200 million” after the 2022 round, and aggregator Tracxn estimates US$267M across seven rounds. Weatherford Capital is an earlier investor with a board seat; Thomson has deliberately withheld valuation figures.
Leadership
John Thomson remains founder and CEO. Tom Nieto joined as president and COO in November 2023 from Accela, where he was COO, with earlier stints at Box and Boston Consulting Group. Steve Kovzan became CFO in July 2025 after 14 years as CFO of NIC Inc., the digital-government payments company Tyler Technologies acquired for US$2.3 billion in 2021. Jon Telch has led the Canadian business as VP, Canada since July 2023.
Competitive Map
PayIt’s differentiators are the cross-service resident profile and an in-house adoption and support function; the incumbents’ advantages are ERP entrenchment (Tyler) and biller-network scale (Paymentus).
Regulatory
PayIt holds no bank charter and takes no deposits; its published compliance posture is certification-based: PCI DSS Level 1, SOC 1/SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001/27018. Its Canadian entity is PayIt Digital Government, Inc., with a Toronto base established in 2020. No PayIt entity appears in web-searchable results for the FINTRAC money services business registry or the Bank of Canada’s Retail Payment Activities Act payment service provider registry as of this writing; both are searchable databases, and readers should verify directly. Notably, the Bank of Canada first published its PSP registry on September 8, 2025 — after MyToronto Pay was already decommissioned. Whether PayIt’s Canadian activities trigger either registration is not publicly documented.
The most significant public-record event is client-side: Toronto’s Auditor General audited the PayIt contract in 2024, finding limited realized savings, that former senior staff proceeded without council authorization, and that competitors were not properly notified during the unsolicited-proposal process. City Council then ordered the platform decommissioned by the contract’s June 2, 2025 expiry. This was a procurement audit of the City’s process, not a regulatory enforcement action against PayIt.
Recent Milestones
June 2026 — Smart Works AI suite launched
April 2026 — Harris County first-season results disclosed: 468K+ transactions, 185K+ profiles
Early 2026 — Tenth consecutive GovTech 100 listing
November 2025 — MyHarrisCountyTax launched in English and Spanish
July 2025 — Steve Kovzan appointed CFO
June 2025 — MyToronto Pay decommissioned at contract expiry
November 2024 — Toronto City Council ordered decommissioning following the Auditor General’s audit
Footprint
Headquarters at 1100 Main St, Kansas City, Missouri, with offices in Nashville and Toronto and remote teams across North America. Canadian clients named in 2023 were Toronto, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, and the Town of Stouffville; Toronto has since ended, and the current status of the other Canadian relationships could not be verified. The website continues to market to “states and provinces.”
Outlook
Trackable items for the next six to twelve months:
Toronto’s re-procurement. Council directed staff to run an open, competitive digital-payments procurement and report results before awarding, targeted for after Q2 2026. Whether PayIt bids — and wins — is checkable.
Ontario’s licensing re-platform. Ontario says a new fishing and hunting licensing system will be implemented in late 2026, replacing the current service in early 2027. The vendor outcome will show whether PayIt’s outdoors vertical lands in Canada.
Harris County prepayments. The company said 2026 tax-year prepayments would ship in spring 2026.
Massachusetts rollout. Public evidence of services live under the September 2023 statewide selection.
Registry appearances. Any PayIt entity appearing on the Bank of Canada PSP registry would signal renewed Canadian payment activity.
Sources
PayIt — https://payitgov.com/
PayIt, Our Story — https://payitgov.com/our-story/
PayIt, Harris County results (Apr 2, 2026) — https://payitgov.com/news/payit-partners-with-harris-county-tax-office-to-deliver-modern-property-tax-platform/
Business Wire, Smart Works launch (Jun 16, 2026) — https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260616673348/en/PayIt-Introduces-Smart-Works-AI-Powered-Features-to-Accelerate-Government-Modernization
CW39 Houston, MyHarrisCountyTax launch (Nov 2025) — https://cw39.com/news/local/harris-county-launches-online-service-to-simplify-property-tax-payments/
PayIt, Kovzan CFO announcement (Jul 23, 2025) — https://payitgov.com/news/payit-appoints-steve-kovzan-as-chief-financial-officer/
Ingram’s, Kovzan hire — https://ingrams.com/article/payit-hires-steve-kovzan-30-year-finance-veteran-as-cfo/
Business Wire, Nieto appointment (Nov 2023) — https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231116440739/en/PayIt-Appoints-Tom-Nieto-as-President-and-Chief-Operating-Officer
Startland News, Nieto appointment — https://www.startlandnews.com/2023/11/payit-president-coo/
PR Newswire, Insight Partners investment (Mar 2019) — https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/payit-receives-investment-from-insight-partners-to-accelerate-digitization-of-government-payments-300819759.html
TechCrunch, Insight round coverage (Mar 2019) — https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/28/payit-a-payments-platform-designed-for-public-services-raises-100m-from-insight-partners/
GovTech, Insight round context — https://www.govtech.com/biz/PayIt-Wins-100M-Investment-for-Digital-Services-Software.html
PR Newswire, Macquarie investment (Aug 2022) — https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/payit-announces-90m-growth-investment-from-macquarie-capital-principal-finance-301599962.html
GovTech, Macquarie round context — https://www.govtech.com/biz/payits-new-90m-investment-continues-rapid-growth
Tracxn, PayIt profile — https://tracxn.com/d/companies/payit/__PSWNtqdKPBzqif90_-0n7Mrc1w1fuQ2YUdudEO0t8GQ
Crunchbase, PayIt timeline — https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/payit/company_overview/overview_timeline
Crunchbase, John Thomson — https://www.crunchbase.com/person/john-thomson-2
City of Toronto, MyToronto Pay — https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/mytoronto-pay/
Toronto City Council, item 2024.AU6.2 — https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2024.AU6.2
Toronto City Council, item 2024.GG13.16 — https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2024.GG13.16
Now Toronto, Auditor General coverage (Oct 2024) — https://nowtoronto.com/news/city-to-shutdown-its-online-payment-platform-after-damning-report-suggests-foul-play/
FF News, Telch VP Canada (Jul 2023) — https://ffnews.com/newsarticle/paytech/payit-expands-canadian-presence-appoints-jon-telch-as-vice-president-canada/
Finextra, Telch VP Canada / MyToronto Pay stats — https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/97431/payit-names-jon-telch-vp-canada
Ontario, fishing licences (system replacement note) — https://www.ontario.ca/page/fishing
Environmental Registry of Ontario, licensing modernization — https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-9441
Bank of Canada, PSP registry — https://www.bankofcanada.ca/regulatory-oversight/retail-payments/psp-registry/
Bank of Canada, registry publication timeline — https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2025/08/update-on-payment-service-providers-registry/
FINTRAC, MSB registry — https://fintrac-canafe.canada.ca/msb-esm/reg-eng
GovTech, Tyler FY2025 results — https://www.govtech.com/biz/tyler-stumbles-on-revenue-but-plans-ai-and-payments-growth
SEC, Paymentus Q3 2025 8-K — https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1841156/000119312525262574/pay-ex99_1.htm
SEC, Paymentus FY2025 10-K — https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1841156/000119312526064510/pay-20251231.htm
Dealroom, InvoiceCloud — https://app.dealroom.co/companies/invoice_cloud