Build & Operate

Building a toll & subscription platform from $2k to millions (USA)

Built and operate complete B2B SaaS platform from MVP to multimillion-dollar ARR managing toll-to-transaction mapping, multi-gateway payments, QuickBooks integration, and continuous platform operations as a managed service

Client: US Client
Industry: Mobility / Fintech

Client Context & Problem

A U.S.-based B2B SaaS platform for dealerships, car-rental and fleet companies that manages toll payments across hundreds of thousands of vehicles. C4Scale has been the outsourced product and engineering partner from day one building, scaling, and operating the entire platform as a managed service.

Pain Points

  • MVP needed complete toll-to-transaction mapping across multiple payment gateways
  • Complex car-to-license-plate and plate-to-customer-contract mappings
  • Required support for 5+ payment gateways (Stripe, Windcave, Tempus, CenPos, etc.)
  • Invoice generation and QuickBooks integration for reconciliation
  • Needed a partner to build AND operate the platform long-term

Key Challenges

Scalability

Scaling from $2k/month to multimillion ARR without breaking the system

Billing automation

No scalable billing engine for real-time toll transactions

Data mapping

License plates not reliably mapped to customer contracts

Multi-tenancy

Supporting thousands of dealers on a single platform

Project Goal

Build, launch and operate a subscription platform that could handle real-time toll transactions, map plates to contracts, generate accurate invoices, and scale from $2k/month to multimillion-dollar ARR.

Success Metrics

  • Scale from $2k/month to multimillion ARR
  • Support 100x client growth
  • Maintain 99%+ CSAT during scaling
  • Automate toll reconciliation and invoicing

Solution & Platform Architecture

We built and operate an AWS-based multi-tenant SaaS platform as a managed service. Microservices handle toll-to-transaction mapping, car-to-license-plate matching, license-plate-to-customer-contract mapping, and multi-gateway payment processing (Stripe, Windcave, Tempus, CenPos). Automated invoice generation integrates with QuickBooks for billing and reconciliation. AI-powered anomaly detection flags unusual toll patterns. We manage the entire product lifecycle from development to production operations, monitoring, and continuous optimization.

Architecture

Building a toll & subscription platform from $2k to millions (USA) Architecture Diagram

Serverless-first AWS platform (us-east-2) combining API Gateway + Lambda (80+ route handlers) with ECS long-running services and AWS Batch for bulk processing. EventBridge drives event-driven scheduling across toll ingestion, payment reconciliation, and customer lifecycle flows. Amazon Textract and a GenAI LLM layer handle document intelligence (toll notices, plate images). Multi-gateway payment orchestration (Stripe, WindCave, Tempus, CenPos) is managed by a dedicated payments microservice, while Amazon Cognito secures all user pools and RDS PostgreSQL (accessed via RDS Data API / TypeORM) stores transactional data.

Key Components

  • Amazon API Gateway — HTTP entry point with request routing and throttling
  • AWS Lambda — Express-based gateway with 80+ route handlers and auth middleware
  • Amazon ECS — containerised long-running microservices (Payments, Tolls, Recon, Customer Processor, Reconciler)
  • AWS Batch — bulk toll ingestion and scheduled report generation
  • AWS EventBridge — event bus, cron schedules, and routing rules across services
  • Amazon Textract + GenAI LLM — OCR for toll notices and plate images; NLP document parsing and chatbot
  • Multi-gateway payment orchestration — Stripe, WindCave, Tempus, CenPos via a single payments service
  • Amazon RDS (PostgreSQL) — core transactional store via RDS Data API and TypeORM
  • Amazon Cognito — user pools, JWT issuance, and identity management for fleet managers and customers
  • SNS / SES / SMS notifications and QuickBooks accounting integration

Workflow

1

Event Ingestion

Toll events stream via API Gateway and Lambda

2

Plate Mapping

Event processor maps license plates to active contracts

3

Billing

Billing engine calculates toll fees and taxes

4

Payment

Payment service generates payment links and collects funds

5

Notification

Notification service sends receipts to dealers and customers

6

Reconciliation

Reconciliation service aggregates daily totals and surfaces anomalies

7

Dashboard

Dealers access dashboards for fleet usage and revenue

Platform Capabilities

Before

Manual toll reconciliations, no automated billing, invoices generated manually, no scalability

  • Manual toll reconciliation spreadsheets
  • License plates manually mapped to customers
  • Invoices generated by hand
  • No automated payment collection
  • System would break at scale

After

Dealerships manage fleets in a single portal, view near-real-time toll charges, automatically invoice customers, and reconcile hundreds of thousands of vehicles with minimal manual effort.

  • Real-time toll event processing
  • Automatic plate-to-contract mapping
  • Automated invoice generation
  • Automated payment collection
  • Single portal for fleet management
  • Near-real-time visibility into charges
  • Handles hundreds of thousands of vehicles

Impact & Results

ARR Growth

Before
$2k/month
After
Multimillion dollars
500x+ ARR growth

Client Base

Before
Handful of dealers
After
Thousands of dealers
100x growth

Customer Satisfaction

Before
N/A
After
99%+ CSAT
Consistently above 99%

Manual Work

Before
Highly manual
After
Fully automated
Near-zero manual intervention

Business Outcomes

  • ARR grew from $2k per month to multimillion dollars
  • Client base increased 100x
  • CSAT consistently above 99%
  • Minimal manual intervention required

Why C4Scale

Build AND Operate as managed service

We don't just build — we operate the platform 24/7 as an extension of their team

Complex integrations expertise

Multi-gateway payment processing (5+ gateways), QuickBooks integration, toll-to-transaction mapping at scale

Long-term partnership

The client continues to outsource product development and operations to us through sustained growth

Production operations excellence

Managed monitoring, incident response, continuous optimization, and 99%+ CSAT throughout scaling

Ready to transform your operations?

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