3 Key Benefits of FastSpring’s Trial Hopping Prevention Feature

1. It Prevents Abuse

Repeated exploitation of free trials can lead to revenue loss and skewed metrics, making it harder to gauge genuine interest in your product. FastSpring’s Trial Hopping Prevention feature helps prevent users from repeatedly accessing free trials, protecting the integrity of your trial strategy and supporting healthier subscription performance.

2. It Delivers a Fair Trial Experience

Providing a free trial should be about allowing genuine users to explore your product and determine if it’s right for them. Trial hopping can undermine this experience by filling your trial funnel with non-serious users. Trial hopping prevention helps maintain a fair experience for customers sincerely exploring your product.

3. It Encourages Conversions

When free trials are limited to genuine first-time use, users who see value in your product are more likely to upgrade to a paid subscription to maintain access. By restricting repeated free trials, this feature can help support better trial-to-paid conversion outcomes.

How Does the Trial Hopping Prevention Feature Work?

FastSpring’s Trial Hopping Prevention feature helps reduce repeated free-trial abuse by preventing the same email from being used for unlimited retrials, helping guide repeat trial attempts toward a paid plan instead. Businesses can enable the setting within their store’s subscription configuration as part of their broader subscription strategy.

Best Practices for Leveraging the Trial Hopping Prevention Feature

Communicate Clear Policies

Transparency is key to maintaining trust with your users. Clearly outline your trial policies, including any restrictions, in your terms of service and marketing materials. This helps set expectations and reduces the likelihood of misunderstandings.

Use Incentives to Encourage Upgrades

To complement the Trial Hopping Prevention feature, consider offering incentives such as discounts or bonuses for users who transition from a free trial to a paid subscription. Highlight the value of your paid plans, and demonstrate how they can enhance the user’s experience.

Monitor Trial Metrics

Track trial-to-paid conversion rates and analyze user behavior during trials. FastSpring’s Trials dashboard can help you monitor signup volume, conversion performance, and lifecycle trends so you can refine your trial strategy over time.

Combine With Other Retention Strategies

Pair the Trial Hopping Prevention feature with other retention-focused tools, such as Pause a Subscription or a cancellation survey, to maximize customer satisfaction and reduce churn.

Protect Your Business and Enhance Customer Experience

FastSpring’s Trial Hopping Prevention feature empowers businesses to maintain the integrity of their free trial offerings while supporting stronger conversion outcomes. By preventing abuse, ensuring fairness, and encouraging upgrades, this feature helps you deliver value to genuine users and protect your subscription revenue.

FAQs

Partner With FastSpring

FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment and subscription platform for thousands of SaaS, software, video games, and digital products businesses, including VAT, GST, and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. 

Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post Maximizing Subscription Value With FastSpring’s Trial Hopping Prevention Feature appeared first on FastSpring.

• Chargebee offers a number of subscription management features, but their customers are still responsible for handling key tasks like connecting to payment gateways, taxes, payment reconciliation, and chargebacks.
• As your merchant of record (MoR), FastSpring takes on the responsibility for these tasks, including payment processing, remitting taxes across jurisdictions, and more.
• Other Chargebee alternatives include Stripe, Maxio, Zoho Billing, Stax Bill, Zuora, Sticky.io, PayPal Enterprise Payments, Recurly, and Paddle.

Chargebee is a robust subscription management platform —  and if you’re looking for Chargebee alternatives, you’re likely already aware of many of its key features.

However, there are certain aspects of collecting recurring payments that you would still be responsible for when using Chargebee, such as:

• Connecting to payment gateways manually. While Chargebee supports several different payment gateways, you have to set up and configure each one.
• Remitting taxes at the end of the year. They will collect taxes for you, but you are ultimately held responsible for filing and paying taxes correctly within each jurisdiction you do business.
• Reconciling payments, fulfillment, refunds, etc. While Chargebee lets you automate many mundane accounting tasks and integrate with account software, you still have to track and record every transaction, refund, etc.
• Responding to and processing chargebacks. Chargebee only offers full chargeback support for limited vendors, so other vendors will need to manage chargebacks for themselves.

In this guide, we present 10 alternatives to Chargebee that help relieve some of these burdens for users, starting with an in-depth review of our solution, FastSpring. 

FastSpring handles the entire payment process from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

10 Chargebee Alternatives

1. FastSpring.
2. Stripe.
3. Maxio.
4. Zoho Billing.
5. Stax Bill.
6. Zuora.
7. Sticky.io.
8. PayPal Enterprise Payments.
9. Recurly.
10. Paddle.

1. FastSpring

As your merchant of record (MoR), FastSpring takes on the responsibility for payment processing, remitting taxes, and more for your software or SaaS business.

To compare, most Chargebee alternatives are either subscription billing platforms or payment gateways. 

Some of these providers may be able to help you connect to international payment gateways, alert you to chargebacks, and help you collect VAT and sales taxes. However, you’ll still be responsible for paying taxes, processing chargebacks, and for things like legal compliance, dunning, and more. 

FastSpring, on the other hand, handles everything from optimizing your checkout flow to remitting end-of-year taxes by acting as your merchant of record (MoR).

Next, we explain how an MoR is different from other payment service providers. 

What It Means to Have FastSpring as Your Merchant of Record

A merchant of record, or MoR, is the business entity that sells goods or services to the buyer. You can act as your own MoR, or you can outsource the entire process to FastSpring. Companies that haven’t thought about who their MoR is are probably acting as their own MoR.

When you outsource your transactions to FastSpring, your customers still visit your website to choose their software and/or subscription, but FastSpring takes over when the customer gets to the checkout. They’ll receive a receipt from FastSpring, and FastSpring will be listed on their bank or credit card statement.

The profits are yours, but FastSpring is the liable party for the sale.

That’s why FastSpring can do more than other types of service payment providers can:

• Collect and remit VAT, sales taxes, and other consumption taxes.
• Comply with local laws and regulations.
• Monitor chargebacks in real time.
• Reconcile transactions, payments, refunds, etc.
• And more, all on your behalf.

If something goes wrong with local or tax compliance, chargebacks, accounts not balancing, etc., FastSpring takes the lead to solve the issue on your behalf.

Instead of juggling multiple platforms and providers for a complete payment solution, you can work with just one provider: FastSpring. 

Plus, you can start selling in 200+ jurisdictions almost instantly — because we’ve already established the necessary processes in each region. You can learn more about how FastSpring helps you with international recurring payments here.

In summary, FastSpring focuses on the selling, so you can focus on making a great product.

In the next sections, we’ll dive deeper into how FastSpring helps you: 

• Create flexible free trials and recurring billing logic without code.
• Minimize payment failures with advanced payment routing and smart dunning.
• Increase conversions with branded, localized checkout.

We’ll also cover how FastSpring provides all features for one flat-rate price designed to fit your budget. 

Flexible No-Code Free Trials and Recurring Billing Logic

Not every business can use the same free trial model. Some businesses will see more success if they let customers sign up without payment details, while others will see more success if they require a payment method to sign up but don’t automatically charge the customer at the end of the trial.

Additionally, what worked for your small business to start may not be the right solution for you long term as you grow and adopt more complex billing. That’s why many software, gaming, digital product, mobile app, and SaaS companies need payment software that can support many different types of trial models, subscriptions, etc. 

However, most payment processors (sometimes interchangeably referred to as “payment gateways,” while technically being slightly different) only offer limited recurring billing and basic trial options — e.g., a free trial that automatically turns into monthly billing. This makes it difficult to optimize your trials and subscription plans for high conversions and what works best for your customers. It also makes it difficult to adapt as a business in the long run. 

FastSpring, on the other hand, delivers advanced features and a wide variety of flexible options for how you can set up trials, subscriptions, and more. Below, we provide an overview of FastSpring’s subscription management tools. 

Trial subscription options:

• Free or paid trial periods of any length.
• Set up free, paid, or usage-based trials.
• Choose whether or not to require a payment method when signing up for a trial.
• Choose to automatically bill the user after the trial has ended or let them manually start a paid subscription.
• Allow subscribers to reactivate expired trial accounts.
• Choose when FastSpring will send reminders of ending trials (e.g., three days before the trial ends).
• Offer a discounted trial period.
• Automatically detect when a single user tries to sign up for multiple trials, and only allow one trial account.
• And more.

Recurring billing options:

• Choose subscription frequency (weekly, monthly, yearly, or custom) and billing date (or let your customers choose).
• Set subscriptions to auto renewal, manual renewal (i.e., customers have to re-enter payment information each time they’re billed), or managed renewal (i.e., your team initiates the charge via the API, which is great for usage-based billing).
• Offer discounts and coupons.
• Allow prorated billing if a customer wants to upgrade, downgrade, or pause the service part-way through the billing cycle.
• Add one time purchases to the initial bill but not recurring billings.
• Manage upsell and cross-sell products at checkout.
• Give customers the option of whether or not to store payment information (or make the decision for all customers).
• Auto-renew to a different subscription.
• Offer subscription add-ons.
• And more.

Fulfillment options:

• Choose whether to share products and resources via a license key, product download, signed PDF, or email.
• Configure multiple fulfillment actions for one subscription (e.g., send a license key and product manual PDF via email).

FastSpring also provides your customers with an easy-to-access self-serve Customer Account Portal, where they can view their entire order history; upgrade, downgrade, or pause their subscriptions; and add or edit payment methods.

This self-serve portal is entirely managed by FastSpring but reflects the visual branding of your checkout for a cohesive and user-friendly interface and customer experience. 

Finally, some subscription management tools require a lot of technical skills to set up and use. 

But with ease of use in mind, FastSpring lets you set up many of the options mentioned above without code. If you have unique subscription management needs, you can also use our API and webhooks library for more control — our experienced developers are readily available to help you create the best solution for your subscription business model.

Don’t forget: Rules around recurring billing vary across the globe. Without a global MoR like FastSpring, it’s your responsibility to keep track of current and evolving local transaction laws and regulations and ensure your recurring billing model complies.

FastSpring handles this — and the liability for recurring transactions — for you.

Note: If you already have multiple subscriptions set up in another platform, we can help you easily migrate over to FastSpring. For subscription data migration with payment information included, click here for more info. For subscription data migration without payment information, click here for more info.

Advanced Payment Routing and Smart Dunning to Minimize Payment Failures

From the initial purchase to each subsequent rebill, failed payment is one of the main reasons for lost revenue.

Many payment service providers will automatically retry failed payments once or notify customers of failed payments. This is a good place to start, but there are more ways to meaningfully reduce involuntary churn due to failed payments. 

FastSpring helps you proactively minimize payment failures and reduce churn with flexible dunning management, which includes:

• Proactive reminders to update payment information (e.g., “Your subscription is due soon”).
• Multiple follow-up notifications (e.g., two, five, seven, 14, and 21 days after their payment method fails).
• A pre-made email template for reminders — or the ability to customize your own messages.
• Multiple payment retries before each follow-up notification is sent out.
• Automatic payment gateway rerouting (this solves many payment failures due to network or system errors.
• An intuitive self-serve portal (customers can easily update payment information from the same portal where they manage their subscription plan).

Plus, you can choose whether to pause or continue the service when a payment fails. If you keep the service going after a failed payment and give your customers a chance to update their payment information, you’ll have less churn and increase retention.

You can also choose to apply a pause rather than a full cancellation of their service after all reminders have been sent out. Pausing makes it easier for your customer to restart their subscription without the hassle of onboarding again.

You can read more about how one of our customers reduced churn by 50% in this case study. 

Branded, Localized Checkout to Increase Conversions

Friction at the purchase step can cause customers to fall off before completing a purchase. For example:

• If the price at checkout is different than it was on the website (e.g., different currency or different amount because additional fees have been added without a clear label), customers may decide not to buy.
• If the checkout is visually very different from the website, or if the checkout is on an entirely different website, the customer is less likely to believe the checkout is authentic and secure.
• If they have to create an account in order to purchase but don’t want to.
• If checkout translation and localization is incorrect, inconsistent, or missing, so the customer questions the store’s legitimacy.

These are just a few examples, but there are many reasons why a customer may decide against completing a purchase at the last minute.

FastSpring helps you anticipate objections and reduce friction at checkout in the following ways:

• Customizable checkout UI.
• The most popular payment methods.
• Local currency conversions and language translations.
• Conversion-optimized embedded, pop-up, or web storefront checkout experiences.
• Personalized developer support.

Read on for more details about each.

Customizable Checkout UI

Many subscription management platforms or payment processors only provide checkout templates where you can add your logo and choose basic color schemes. These solutions usually fail to match your visual branding and may not be optimized for increasing conversions. 

To create the best experience for your customers and get the highest conversion rates, you need more custom abilities.

FastSpring lets you customize the look and feel of your checkout with pre-built branding tools and CSS overrides. You have complete visual customization with our Store Builder Library (SBL), a JavaScript library that lets you customize, brand, and streamline your entire checkout workflow to build trust and eliminate friction throughout the buyer’s journey. This allows you to create the checkout experience that most aligns with your brand and highlights your product. 

The Most Popular Payment Methods

One of the biggest reasons customers fail to complete a purchase is because they can’t use their preferred payment method. 

However, offering different payment methods isn’t as simple as adding their logo to your checkout screen. 

You have to agree to certain terms and conditions before a payment network or issuing bank will approve transactions with your business. Each payment provider will have different regulations regarding fraud, chargebacks, privacy protection, etc. It can be a huge task to stay in good standing with many different payment providers on your own. 

If you want to transact internationally, there will be even more to manage.

While Visa and Mastercard may be popular payment methods in the U.S., buyers in other countries prefer different payment methods. To convert international customers, you need to provide many different types of preferred payment methods — which means more payment providers to maintain. 

For instance, Pix is a preferred payment method in Brazil, while AliPay is a preferred payment method in China.

FastSpring takes care of all of this — from staying in good standing with payment networks, to managing fraud and chargebacks — for you.

FastSpring already has good relationships with many different payment networks and issuing banks around the world, which means you can accept your customers’ preferred payment methods right away. 

Local Currency Conversions and Language Translations

Customers are more likely to trust a checkout experience that uses the same language and currency as what’s shown on your website. That’s why FastSpring lets you translate checkout into the local language and convert prices to the local currency. 

You can let each buyer select their preferred language from a dropdown menu featuring 21+ supported languages. Or, you can lock the language and FastSpring will automatically select the appropriate language based on the buyer’s location. 

You also have the option to set custom pricing strategies in each currency or let FastSpring automatically convert prices to the local currency (FastSpring supports 23+ currencies).

If you choose to let FastSpring convert product prices for you, we match the format of the original price. For example, if the original price is $12.99 and the conversion to Euros is €14.29, FastSpring would change it to €14.99.

Learn how Nelio increased growth by 50% with localized checkout in this case study.

Embedded, Pop-Up, or Web Storefront Checkout

With FastSpring, you can embed checkout directly on your website, insert a pop-up checkout, or send customers to a secure web storefront managed by FastSpring. This gives you the flexibility to choose the solution that’s best for your team and customers.

To compare, embedding checkout directly on your webpage ensures less disruption and typically decreases the likelihood of your buyers abandoning. Pop-up checkout requires less setup — simply insert a few lines of pre-written HTML and Javascript in your webpage.

Learn how DaisyDisk was able to spend less time managing their checkout while significantly increasing conversions by using FastSpring’s pop-up checkout, in this case study. 

To outsource the entire checkout process to FastSpring, you can choose the web storefront option.

With the web storefront option, customers will be redirected to a webpage entirely managed by FastSpring — but customized to match your visual brand identity — where they can view their cart and complete the purchase.

Personalized Developer Support

Many payment service providers only help with the initial setup and when something goes wrong with the software. Some companies only provide personalized support to their largest clients. This leaves you on your own to manage ongoing payment operations.

FastSpring is dedicated to providing you with the best experience throughout the entire engagement.

Our team is always available to help — regardless of how big or small your operation is. Whether that’s helping you build the best checkout experience for your business or expanding into a new region, our friendly customer support team will help you find and build out the best solutions for your business.

Robust Analytics and Reporting Dashboards

FastSpring’s Reporting and Analytics is a robust suite of reports and visualizations to keep you informed of important stats such as MRR, churn rate, new customers by product type, and more. 

For example, our Subscription Overview dashboard shows key subscription analytics including subscription churn, subscriber loss, MRR churn rate, active customers, and more. 

Use our Subscription Overview dashboard, Revenue dashboard, data export reporting and data API features, and more to better understand:

• How each product contributes to your bottom line. 
• When customers are most likely to drop off.
• What coupons or promotions are working.
• How individual trials are performing.
• Which subscription models generate the most revenue.
• Where your customers are located.
• What currencies and payment methods customers prefer.
• Chargeback rates by customer segment.
• Chargeback rates by product line.
• The status of your active webhooks.
• And much more.

All-in-One Pricing Without the Need for Additional Software

Chargebee separates its Billing features into three pricing plans, so you may eventually need the most expensive plan to get the features you need. For example, chargeback automation is not offered in Chargebee’s Starter plan. 

Plus, you’ll still have to pay for additional software solutions like payment gateways (sometimes interchangeably referred to as “payment processors,” although they are technically different) or tax software for a complete payment management system. Even with seamless integrations, it’s a hassle, an additional cost, and may even require additional headcount to manage it all. 

FastSpring, on the other hand, offers one flat-rate price that includes the entire platform — every feature and all services. Our team works with you to find an affordable price based on the volume of transactions you move through FastSpring (you’ll only be charged when successful transactions take place).

If you think FastSpring could be the right payment solution for your subscription-based business, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

2. Stripe

Stripe’s main service is payment processing; however, they do offer a few other services, such as: 

• Checkout.
• Fraud and risk management.
• Automated invoicing.
• In-person payments.
• Subscription management.
• Virtual and physical card issuing.
• Business spend management.

Stripe billing has fewer options than Chargebee for recurring billing, but you can easily integrate the two software solutions if you want to use (and pay for) both. Stripe works with companies of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises. 

3. Maxio

Maxio (formerly Chargify and SaasOptics) is another cloud-based financial operations platform for B2B SaaS. They offer solutions to automate financial systems on the back end, and features to help improve the order-to-revenue process. Their main services include: 

• Subscription management.
• Usage-based and global billing.
• Revenue recognition and revenue management tools.
• Billing system dashboard and metrics.
• Built-in integrations with various other software (e.g., accounting software such as QuickBooks and Xero).
• International payment gateways.

Maxio advertises their ability to accommodate any go-to-market strategy (such as product-led or sales-led approaches).

4. Zoho Billing

Zoho offers a large suite of software to run your business, from a CRM and ERPs to a video meeting platform. Zoho Billing (formerly Zoho Subscriptions) is their payment processing and recurring billing solution. Some of their key features include: 

• Invoicing and invoice templates.
• Multi-currency support.
• 50+ pre-built analytic reports.
• Automatic online payment retries.
• Out-of-the-box integrations with other billing platforms (e.g., Stripe, PayPal, etc.).

Zoho Billing offers more pre-made solutions than other options on this list, which some companies may find limiting. However, Zoho Billing may be a good choice if you’re already embedded in the Zoho ecosystem.

5. Stax Bill 

Stax Bill (formerly Fusebill) provides subscription management software and a payment gateway in one platform. Other than offering a payment gateway with each plan, Fusebill offers many of the same features as Chargebee, including: 

• Dunning management.
• Flexible recurring billing options.
• Recurring revenue recognition features.
• Billing analytics.

Fusebill also offers flexible catalog pricing and inventory tracking tools. 

6. Zuora

Zuora is a monetization platform for B2C and B2B companies. Zuora’s key functionalities include: 

• Customer subscription management.
• Revenue reconciliation tools.
• Revenue analytics.
• Built-in integrations with lots of business software.
• Low-code SDKs and APIs to build your own integrations.
• Quoting software.

Zuora provides a lot of flexibility for building out your own solution on top of their platform; however, non-developers may find it difficult to manage.

7. Sticky.io

Sticky.io (formerly Limelight) is a subscription management platform that integrates with popular ecommerce platforms such as Salesforce Commerce Cloud, BigCommerce, and Shopify. They advertise the ability to: 

• Support nearly any subscription or pricing model.
• Create coupons, discounts, and special promotions.
• Offer add-ons, upsells, etc.
• Fight fraud and chargebacks.
• Manage automated dunning.

Like Chargebee, Sticky.io doesn’t provide a payment gateway; however, they do offer pre-built integrations with several payment gateways. 

8. PayPal Enterprise Payments

PayPal Enterprise Payments (formerly Braintree by PayPal) is a payment gateway provider that also provides merchant accounts. Other features include: 

• Subscription billing management.
• Optimized checkout flow.
• Flexible risk mitigation options.
• Reporting and analytics.
• Third-party integrations for recurring billing, accounting, and more.

PayPal Enterprise Payments supports payment from PayPal, Venmo (in the U.S.), Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

9. Recurly

Recurly is a subscription management software and recurring billing platform. Recurly offers features such as:

• Multiple pricing models.
• Item catalog.
• Recurring billing.
• Payments orchestration.
• Subscriber management.
• Churn management.
• Reporting dashboards and analytics.

Like Chargebee, Recurly doesn’t include a native payment gateway, but the platform does offer pre-built integrations with popular gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and more. Recurly also allows you to connect multiple gateways.

10. Paddle

Paddle is another Chargebee alternative that’s an MoR with a subscription billing platform, appropriate for use by SaaS and software companies. Paddle has features including: 

• Multiple payment gateways.
• Secure checkout.
• Recurring billing management.
• A robust payments toolkit.
• Fraud protection.
• Transaction and subscription reporting.
• Invoicing. 
• And more.

Learn more about Paddle alternatives.

Frequently Asked Questions About Chargebee Alternatives

What’s the Difference Between Chargebee and FastSpring?

In short: Chargebee is a subscription management platform for SaaS companies, while FastSpring is an all-in-one payments and digital commerce platform (and merchant of record) built for digital-first businesses.

Who Are the Top Competitors to Chargebee in 2025?

Top Chargebee competitors include:

• FastSpring.
• Stripe.
• Maxio.
• Zoho Billing.
• Stax Bill.
• Zuora.
• Sticky.io.
• PayPal Enterprise Payments.
• Recurly.
• Paddle.

What Should I Consider When Choosing a Subscription Management Platform to Replace Chargebee?

The most important considerations include:

• Your business size, industry, and transaction volume.
• Support for localization and preferred payment methods in the jurisdictions where your customers live.
• Integrations with other tools in your payments and tech stack.
• Security and compliance.
• Budget, costs, and scalability.
• Customer support.

How Difficult Is It to Migrate From Chargebee to Another Platform?

In short, the complexity of migrating from Chargebee to another platform depends heavily on factors including:

• Your current Chargebee setup.
• The complexity of your subscription model.
• The platform you’re migrating to.

If you’re looking to migrate from Chargebee to FastSpring, FastSpring can import your subscriptions with payment details or without payment details. Either way, our team is always available to help — regardless of how big or small your operation is.

Need a Chargebee Alternative for Your SaaS, Software, Video Games, or Other Digital Products Business?

FastSpring can help!

Instead of managing a large software stack for just the subscription lifecycle, let FastSpring handle all of payment lifecycle management for you. FastSpring is more than a subscription management platform — we’re the merchant of record for global SaaS companies and many other digital businesses. 

Sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

This post was originally published in December 2022 and has been updated.

The post Chargebee Alternatives in 2025: 10 Competitors and How They Differ appeared first on FastSpring.

FastSpring is heading to Singapore on Sept. 4, 2025, to connect with innovators from across the mobile landscape and to share key insights into how smarter payments infrastructure is fueling the next wave of global app expansion.

Catch Us Live: Tech Talk at 12:45 p.m.

Session Title: The Direct Monetization Shift: Unlocking Global App Growth Through Smarter Subscriptions and Payments

Sept. 4, 2025
12:45 p.m. SGT
Main Stage

Speaker: Jay Jia, Head of APAC, FastSpring

In this 20-minute Tech Talk, Jay will walk through how mobile app developers and publishers can drive real, sustainable growth by rethinking their payments strategies — especially in the wake of growing direct monetization trends and evolving global policy landscapes.

What You’ll Learn

1. Emerging Growth Opportunities in 2025
Policy changes, privacy regulations, and platform shifts are pushing more mobile apps toward direct monetization models. Learn how this shift is creating new ways to monetize globally — and what you need to do to stay ahead.

2. Hidden Barriers to Scaling Payments and Subscriptions
Conversions and compliance aren’t just technical issues — they’re growth issues. Jay will highlight how small frictions in payments, from localization gaps to regional tax pitfalls, can quietly erode revenue.

3. Building a Future-Ready Payments and Subscriptions Strategy
What should mobile apps look for in a global payment partner? Discover the critical components — like fraud protection, subscription flexibility, and tax compliance — that are non-negotiable in 2025.

4. FastSpring in Action
See how FastSpring’s empowers mobile app developers to launch faster, localize seamlessly, and maximize global conversions — all without overburdening your internal teams.

Why This Talk Matters

Global growth isn’t just about acquiring users — it’s about converting and retaining them in ways that comply with evolving regulations while keeping the user experience seamless. Whether you’re a mobile startup scaling across Asia-Pacific or an enterprise app tackling global compliance hurdles, this Tech Talk will leave you with actionable insights to level up your monetization strategy.

Where to Get Tickets

Still need tickets? Head over to the registration page to grab your ticket and get access to incredible speakers, unparalleled networking opportunities, and a networking app that will maximize your experience even more.

How to Connect With FastSpring

We’d love to meet you at Unlocked: Mobile & App Growth Summit Singapore! FastSpring will be on the ground throughout the event — if you’re looking to simplify payments, navigate compliance, or accelerate your international expansion, let’s talk. You can request a demo here or stop by our booth at the event. 

FastSpring is how SaaS companies and gaming publishers sell online in more places around the world. We handle every payment need from subscription management to tax collection, remittance and more so your business can go farther, faster. We’re also the leading merchant of record for global software companies — powering over a billion dollars in worldwide transactions every year. We’ll manage your checkout, VAT and sales taxes, compliance, and more, freeing you to focus on what you do best: building great software. To learn more about how FastSpring is Powering the Digital Economy®, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

The post FastSpring at Unlocked: Mobile & App Growth Summit Singapore 2025 appeared first on FastSpring.

If you look just underneath the surface, you find annual recurring revenue (ARR) telling you who showed up to make a purchase. Dig a little deeper and you’re going to find net revenue retention (NRR) which tells you who stayed long-term.

By focusing on optimizing your net revenue retention rate in addition to ARR, you can supercharge revenue, reduce customer acquisition costs, and even boost your valuation.

Below, we’ll cover:

• What NRR is and how it differs from ARR.
• Why you should optimize for both.
• How FastSpring can help with both ARR and NRR.

If you’ve been looking at payment services providers but want a more comprehensive merchant of record to help you grow your business internationally, we can help. FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, and digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Interested? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

What Is NRR?

Net recurring revenue is a measure of how well a company has retained and grown revenue from current customers. 

This is different from ARR because ARR is a measure of total recurring revenue (annualized) from current customers without accounting for the growth of current customers the way that NRR does.

A simple NRR calculation is to divide your total recurring revenue by the starting recurring revenue over a specific period.

ARR and NRR: Two Sides of the Same Engine

Most digital product and SaaS companies track annual recurring revenue, which is an annualized figure showing the predictable revenue streams from your subscribers. 

Imagine you’re on a road trip — that’s your business journey and it’s made up of two parts: ARR and NRR.

ARR tells you how many users said yes to your product. It’s like inviting people on a road trip and your users are the ones who said ‘yes’.

But you’re not only interested in filling up the seats in the car. NRR tells you if your users keep saying yes after their initial purchase. It’s like how long your passengers ride along and if they start pitching in for gas.

ARR is motion. NRR is momentum.

You can accelerate fast and close deals quickly, but NRR shows if customers are comfortable enough on the ride to pitch in for snacks, take scenic detours, or explore additional routes and services.

NRR reveals if your product continues delivering value when no one’s watching. It measures whether what you’ve built truly holds up out on the open road.

In short, ARR gets you started, but NRR keeps you going. To build lasting growth, companies need both metrics working together. One showing how effectively you’re acquiring customers, and the other how well you’re retaining and expanding on those relationships. Balancing motion and momentum means knowing not just which users said yes, but which users continue to say yes — and why.

Why Both ARR and NRR Are So Important for Growth

While ARR tells you how effectively you get people to join your road trip, NRR is the fine print telling you how your product fits within their world. It’s about upsells, churn, and the overall health of your product.

Growth isn’t just about getting new customers — it’s about proactively working to maintain, nurture, and expand accounts. It’s ensuring that the current customers coming on the trip also settle in, turn up the music, and plan to stay.

So for anyone building or growing a product, embracing both ARR and NRR together is the magic formula for long-term, sustainable growth. NRR doesn’t care about drag racing to win new customers — it cares about keeping existing customers on a steady journey for the long haul.

What Signs to Watch For, and Why ARR + NRR Matters

ARR measures your company’s ability to acquire new customers effectively, while NRR provides deeper insight into how well your products continue to deliver value over time. When you measure ARR and NRR, there are some key things to keep an eye out for:

Is NRR on the Rise?

A rising NRR signals genuine product-market fit and customers are expanding services without being pushed. This momentum is only possible when the foundation set by ARR is strong and the experience post-sale holds up.

Use this signal to double down on what’s working:

• Identify which products, features, customer segments, or behaviors correlate with growth and build around them.
• Reinforce post-sale engagement to help more customers reach value faster. Double down on education, proactive support, product training, and other customer success levers to help your entire user base be successful.
• Create a growth potential playbook based on the successful customer journey and use it to inform lifecycle marketing, upsell triggers, and even product roadmap decisions.
• Turn your high NRR into new sales by capturing and sharing testimonials, case studies, and usage benchmarks to show future users what ongoing value looks like.

Keep in mind: rapid ARR growth can mask churn. Monitor your leading indicators like support tickets, feature usage, NPS, and be ready to intervene early. Growth hides churn… until it doesn’t.

Is NRR Declining?

A declining NRR isn’t just a retention rate problem. It’s a signal that your growth engine is leaking. You might be adding ARR through new customers, but without retention and expansion, that growth won’t compound.

If you’re having growth troubles, address it early with a structured approach:

• Dive into your data to look for patterns. Break down customer churn by segment, product usage, and support history. Look for spikes in cancellations, stalled renewals, or downgrades.
• Speak with churned and at-risk customers to understand what changed and use feedback to improve. Use this feedback to validate your hypothesis from your data or as an indicator to do more research.
• Look to improve your customer retention levers like onboarding, self-serve resources, and engaging inactive users. Customer growth can be largely impacted by feeling supported throughout the entire lifecycle, not just at product delivery.
• Consider changing your product positioning or packaging. Sometimes you’ve got the right product, but user expectations aren’t being met. If you’re seeing feedback that users aren’t getting the value they expected, it might be a sign that you need to change up messaging in sales, pricing, and onboarding.

In today’s SaaS business landscape, where customer acquisition costs (CAC) are climbing, budgets are tightening, and buyers are increasingly selective, ARR alone won’t fuel growth. When ARR and NRR work together, you not only acquire customers — you keep them, grow them, and build a business that runs on compounding growth.

How FastSpring Helps Grow ARR + NRR

FastSpring is built to power overall SaaS growth, and that includes features to help optimize for both ARR and NRR.

How FastSpring Helps With ARR

• Reducing checkout friction, making it easier for new customers to buy.
• Preventing endless free trials and trial abuse.

Make It Easier for New Customers to Try and Buy

On the ARR front, FastSpring makes it easier to get new customers on board. With customizable trial options, you can build a free trial that works for both your business and your customer base.

You can collect payment details upfront (during checkout) and automatically bill after trial completion, or opt for a cardless free trial. Cardless free trials remove friction from the trial checkout process and minimize perceived risk on the customer’s end, often yielding higher trial signups.

Imagine this: A customer who’s shopped with you before comes back to your store. They saved their payment information the first time around, so with FastSpring’s 1ClickPay feature, they can now pay with just one click — no need to reenter card details. Just one click, and their purchase is on its way.

This reduces checkout friction and makes it supremely easy to buy, on the customer’s end, and it means higher conversation rates and more revenue growth for your business.

Prevent Endless Free Trials

FastSpring customers have the option to enable Trial Hopping Prevention, which prevents trial users from accessing multiple cardless free trials with the same email address. Users who attempt to start a new free trial with one already in progress (or recently expired) are blocked and encouraged to add a payment method and choose a paid upgrade.

This helps to mitigate trial abuse, boost free-to-paid conversions, and cut down on new customer acquisition costs.

How FastSpring Helps With NRR

• Closely monitor subscriptions.
• Make the most of every customer interaction.

Closely Monitor Subscriptions

Understanding your customers is the number one key to higher NRR, and that means you need to be able to proactively monitor a lot more than just revenue and churn. FastSpring offers an in-depth Subscription Overview and Revenue Recognition dashboard that can help here.

Think of it like your business’ subscription reporting command center. The dashboard covers the most important subscription and SaaS metrics:

• Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR).
• Active customers.
• Active subscriptions.
• Cancellations.
• MRR churn rate.
• Active trials.
• Lifetime value (LTV).

Plus, you can dig even deeper by filtering your MRR data by date, product, country, coupon or discount, relationship type, and more. 

Keep drilling down to dive into:

• Contraction: MRR lost to cancellations and downgrades.
• Existing: MRR from existing customers who haven’t changed their subscriptions.
• Activation: MRR contribution from new customers.
• Expansions: MRR contribution from upgrades by existing customers.

Another great tool for boosting NRR is our Subscription Account Transfer API. It allows you to empower your customers to manage transfer of subscription ownership securely and easily. Whether you’re moving subscriptions due to a change in role, merging duplicate profiles, or because of employee turnover, the Subscription Account Transfer API allows you to automate subscription transfers at scale.

Make the Most of Every Customer Interaction

Picture this: You have a new customer, and they’ve bought something from you — is that the end of the road? Boosting NRR is about what comes next. It’s about guiding customers after that first purchase — say, suggesting products that go well with what they’ve already bought, or nudging them toward a premium subscription. In other words, it’s about upselling and cross-selling — not just to increase your total revenue (though it will do that), but to help make the customer’s experience richer, build loyalty, and retain customers for the long term.

FastSpring’s Product Offers API Suite can help you make the most of every customer interaction with targeted and personalized upsells, cross-sells, and even downsells. Combined with our reporting dashboards, you can see overall key metrics for your subscription products, and then use the Product Offers API suite to target users with value-based upsells. 

Specifically, with the API, you can create and edit product offerings — and showcase these offers right in your customers’ account management portal. The API helps to match the right product to the right customer. It’s a win-win: You see improved ROI and additional revenue, and your customers see an enhanced, more personalized experience and an easier way to manage subscriptions.

Supercharge Your Company Growth With FastSpring

Proactively building to improve both ARR and NRR is about much more than crafting features or pulling in new users. It’s a journey of constant evolution, iterating, and seeking to truly understand what your users need — and how that changes over time — and then bringing them something that genuinely adds value to their lives.

When developing products and navigating the market’s twists and turns, remember that growth and nurturing go hand in hand. That’s where you find a product that doesn’t just exist but lives, breathes, and resonates for years to come.

If you’ve been looking at payment services providers but want a more comprehensive merchant of record to help you grow your business internationally, we can help. FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, and digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support.

Interested? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post ARR vs. NRR: How These Paired Subscription Metrics Actually Drive Business Growth appeared first on FastSpring.

In recent years, mobile app developers have pushed back against marketplace fees that take up 15% to 30% of their revenue. Netflix, Spotify, and Fortnite all removed in-app subscriptions or payments to encourage users to buy on their websites instead. At its peak, Netflix alone was paying Apple an estimated $700,000 per day in fees just for offering subscriptions through the App Store.

Smaller app developers are following suit and are reaping the benefits as a result. While many aren’t removing in-app payments entirely, they are employing strategies to steer users to their websites for better user acquisition and mobile app monetization rather than relying on a middleman to do it for them.

What Are Web Subscriptions?

Web subscriptions–sometimes called web monetization–are the act of offering subscriptions for your mobile app directly from your website, instead of or in addition to in-app via app marketplaces. 

When users buy subscriptions through your website, you control the checkout, collect payment details, and avoid marketplace fees—boosting your margins. You also own the customer relationship, manage subscriptions directly, and gain access to conversion data for targeted acquisition campaigns that app marketplaces don’t actively support..

Many companies partner with a merchant of record like FastSpring to handle payments, tax compliance, and subscription operations end to end.

Why Should Mobile App Companies Offer Web Subscriptions?

By category, subscriptions are playing a bigger role than ever. Notably on Apple’s App Store, non-game app spending is on track to overtake games. Sensor Tower forecasts that non-game app revenue will outpace in-game revenue at $107B vs $78B in 2025.

As such, the revenue and desire from users to use subscriptions is already there. The most proactive companies are using web subscriptions to not only increase revenue share, but to improve customer acquisition.

Open Up User Acquisition Analytics by Linking Ads to Your Website

Direct user relationships also open up the opportunity to run user acquisition (UA) campaigns that give more power back to you, the developer.

Many mobile app companies currently run UA campaigns that link only to App Store pages. They get more users into their apps this way, but the trade off is giving the marketplace most of their user data. Attribution is therefore limited, and it’s much harder to know which ads are performing, which channels are driving sign ups, and how to optimize your ad spend.

By instead driving ad traffic to your own website, you regain visibility into this crucial part of your users’ journey. You can collect first-party data such as traffic source, session behavior, conversion rate, MRR, and much more, all directly attributable to your campaigns. You also avoid the signal loss that happens when players only interact within the marketplace ecosystem.

With stronger attribution, you can then refine your targeting, optimize creatives, and allocate budget to the channels that drive the most revenue.

Boost Revenue With Web Subscriptions

Each time a user transacts within the App Store or Play Store there’s a fee–often 30%. That’s a significant share of your revenue lost before you ever see a deposit into your account, limiting your ability to reinvest in your business and ultimately, grow.

Web subscriptions reduce that cost nearly immediately. If you offer users the ability to purchase through your website with a partner like FastSpring, you typically pay about 6% in fees, including processing and infrastructure. That difference–24% or more per transaction–adds up fast.

Let’s take a look at an example of a business offering web subscriptions in addition to in-app purchases:

By shifting just 25% of transactions to the web, this business would see $60,000 in monthly profit, or $720,000 annually. If you grow or migrate more volume to web subscriptions, that number scales quickly.

And these benefits don’t just apply to bottom line revenue. Alongside better margins per transaction, leveraging web subscriptions, mobile app companies can create a direct relationship with their users which leads to attribution data and ultimately the ability to reinvest confidently in the channels that deliver the highest return.

Establish a Direct Relationship With Users

One of the most vital parts of web subscriptions is that when you sell directly to your users, you aren’t just driving more revenue. You’re also building a direct relationship with your users.

The reality today is, nobody follows their meditation app on social media, few users are joining a discord for their video editing app, and users aren’t signing up for a newsletter from their favorite messaging app. Plus, with different platform access points like mobile, web, tablet, and elsewhere your user base is fragmented at best.

Without a unifying backbone behind those platforms, you don’t have a real relationship with your users. Nor do you have a way to market to them.

By creating a web store offering web subscriptions and account management, you unlock a direct line of communication instead of “renting” your audience from app marketplaces. You control your channels, your data, and ultimately, your user relationships. A direct user relationship means you can market to them and engage with them as they use your app across different platforms, today and into the future.

With direct user access, you can leverage marketing tactics such as retargeting pixels, targeted social ad campaigns, community-driven advocacy, and more. All of these tools let you connect with your users regardless of the platform they engage on, drive boosted conversion rates, and build brand loyalty over time. And according to a Harvard study, increasing retention (via loyalty) by just 5% delivers between 25% to 95% higher profits over time.

Web Subscriptions are More Common (and Stickier Than Ever)

The most successful mobile app companies are already offering web subscriptions, and it’s paying off. Even a few years ago, it would have been unorthodox to consider offering subscriptions outside of an app, but now, web store purchase flows have been normalized and users are more convinced of the value of making subscription purchases on your site instead of through the app stores.

Plus, in the US, mobile app companies are allowed to steer users to their websites directly from in-app on iOS. What does that mean? Users are learning about a channel that was previously difficult to find and mobile app developers who were ready are already reaping the benefits.

As more users get used to subscribing via your website, linking ads directly to your web store becomes a natural part of the funnel, reducing friction and improving ROI via customer acquisition.

Web Subscriptions Are Already Allowed — and Growing Fast

For years, many app developers assumed that offering web subscriptions was against marketplace terms of service, and users were unfamiliar with purchase flows outside of the app store. But, that’s not true at all.

Under current terms of service, offering web subscriptions to your users is allowed and on iOS, you’re even allowed to steer users from in-app directly to your website to make a purchase if they’re buying from the US.

And, regulatory shifts in the EU (Digital Markets Act) and Japan (Smartphone Act) mandate broader support for third-party payments and alternative app stores. Brazil is following closely, with active investigations and legislation proposals aimed at reducing marketplace control and giving power back to developers and users.

The Time for Web Subscriptions Is Now — Partner With FastSpring

Offering web subscriptions on your website is a no brainer. Revenue goes up, you own more user data, and open up the ability to market to your users. Plus, when you partner with FastSpring, you get access to our varied subscription capabilities including:

• Subscription management APIs
• Coupons and discount services
• The most popular payment methods used around the world
• Instant currency localization
• Managed tax compliance across the globe
• …and more.

If you have questions about how to start offering web subscriptions, or want to learn more about how FastSpring can help you drive business growth, set up a call with one of our industry experts today to get started.

The post The Rise of Mobile App Monetization: Building a Case for Direct Web Subscriptions appeared first on FastSpring.

Our latest product release further enhances the modularity of our subscription services by adding to our library of composable subscription tools. From easy account transfers to smarter discounts, all of our subscription upgrades give you more control over how you operate your subscription business.

Here’s a list of some key updates in our Summer 2025 release, including:

• Manual Subscription Renewal Invoice API
• Manual to Automatic Subscription Conversion
• Subscription Account Transfer API
• Apply Later Discounts
• Revenue Recognition Dashboard
• … and more.

Hybrid Subscription Management Capabilities Drive Composable Commerce

FastSpring’s hybrid subscription management approach gives you the freedom to build subscription workflows exactly how you want. Whether you’re using Salesforce or Hubspot as your CRM or are integrating with another backend system, FastSpring is able to integrate directly and handles billing, renewals, and payments behind the scenes.

Features like Managed Subscriptions provide core billing logic, while our Invoice API, Proforma Invoice, and Renewal Invoice capabilities enable precise control over your invoicing and billing workflows. This hybrid approach lets you centralize your subscription data  and customer touchpoints within your CRM while using FastSpring to handle billing, renewals, and payments securely and at scale.

Learn more about our hybrid subscription management capabilities

Subscription Account Transfer

With our Subscription Account Transfer API, empower your customers to manage transfer of subscription ownership securely and easily. Whether moving subscriptions to change in role, merging duplicate profiles, or due to employee turnover, the Subscription Account Transfer API allows you to automate subscription transfers at scale.

• Flexible transfers between new or existing accounts
• Automated validation and detailed logging
• Secure by design—no payment methods transferred

Learn More about Subscription Account Transfer (Planned to launch Mid-August 2025)

Manual Subscription Renewal Invoice

Make renewals predictable for customers who opt into manual renewals. Our renewal invoices enable you to automatically generate invoices so users can proactively pay at renewal without support intervention.

• Sales-assisted or self-service initiation
• Supports mid-cycle plan changes with proration capabilities
• Clear, formal invoices to improve cash flow

Learn More about Manual Subscription Renewal Invoice (Planned to launch Mid-August 2025)

Manual to Auto Pay Conversions

Reduce churn by letting users switch from manual to auto-renew in just a few clicks. With Manual to Automatic Subscription Conversion, your users can either opt-in to automatic subscriptions in the FastSpring-hosted account management portal, or in yours via our embedded widget.

• FastSpring-hosted or seller-hosted workflows
• Built-in payment capture
• Frictionless upgrade to auto-renewal

Learn More about Manual to Auto Subscription Conversions (Planned to launch End of Q3 2025)

Apply Later Discounts

Drive subscription upgrades and retention by offering flexible discount timing with our Apply Later Discounts. Apply Later Discounts allow you to schedule incentives for a future billing cycle, supporting smarter pricing campaigns without disrupting current terms.

• Offer discounts now or at next renewal
• Perfect for winbacks, plan upgrades, and retention offers

Learn More about Apply Later Discounts (Available Now!)

Revenue Recognition Dashboard

Track recognized revenue with precision with our Revenue Recognition Dashboard. Our updated dashboards deliver both stacked bar charts and sortable tables so you can analyze trends, filter by product, and export data with ease.

Learn More about Revenue Recognition Dashboard (Available Now!)

With our latest features, and many more, FastSpring delivers a truly composable subscription commerce platform where every workflow, pricing model, and customer interaction can be tailored to your unique business goals. Whether you’re scaling self-service SaaS, exploring web monetization for your mobile app, or managing complex B2B subscriptions, FastSpring gives you the tools to build the experience your users expect. Schedule some time with FastSpring today.

The post Build a Subscription Experience Designed for Your Business With FastSpring’s Latest Subscription Feature Launches appeared first on FastSpring.

This June 19-20, Amsterdam transforms into the global epicenter of innovation as TNW Conference takes over the industrial-chic NDSM Wharf. Join 10,000+ founders, tech leaders, and growth experts for two days of groundbreaking insights, bold visions, and transformative connections. At Booth 26, FastSpring is showcasing how ambitious digital businesses can scale globally without drowning in operational complexity.

The digital economy has never been more accessible — or more demanding. Today’s SaaS companies face a paradox: While technology has made it easier than ever to reach customers worldwide, the operational requirements of global commerce have become increasingly complex.

Consider the landscape:

• Regulatory Complexity: New tax laws emerge monthly across 190+ countries.
• Payment Fragmentation: Customers expect 40+ local payment methods.
• Subscription Sophistication: Modern buyers demand flexible billing, usage-based pricing, and seamless upgrades.
• Gaming Revolution: Studios are embracing direct-to-consumer models to escape 30% marketplace fees.
• Customer Expectations: B2B buyers now expect B2C-level checkout experiences.

FastSpring exists at the intersection of these challenges, providing the infrastructure that lets you focus on what matters: building exceptional products and delighting customers.

Where to Get Tickets

Still need tickets? Head over to the registration page to grab your ticket and get access to incredible speakers, unparalleled networking opportunities, and a networking app that will maximize your experience even more.

How to Connect With FastSpring

We invite all summit attendees to connect with our team throughout the event. Whether you’re looking to optimize your current monetization strategy or exploring new ways to engage with your player community, FastSpring offers the expertise and solutions to help you succeed in today’s competitive gaming market. Schedule a demo now or at any time in Amsterdam in person.

FastSpring is how SaaS companies and gaming publishers sell online in more places around the world. We handle every payment need from subscription management to tax collection, remittance and more so your business can go farther, faster. We’re also the leading merchant of record for global software companies — powering over a billion dollars in worldwide transactions every year. We’ll manage your checkout, VAT and sales taxes, compliance, and more, freeing you to focus on what you do best: building great software. To learn more about how FastSpring is Powering the Digital Economy®, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

The post FastSpring Brings Global Growth Tools to TNW Conference 2025 appeared first on FastSpring.

Here’s an in-depth look at how this feature works and why it’s beneficial.

6 Key Benefits of FastSpring’s Subscription Pause Feature

1. Flexibility for Customers

Life can be unpredictable, and sometimes, customers temporarily may not need or be able to afford a service. The subscription pause feature allows them to disable billing and services temporarily without canceling their subscription. This flexibility builds trust and shows that your business values customer needs.

2. Retention Strategy

Rather than losing customers permanently due to cancellations, the pause feature provides an alternative. By allowing customers to pause their subscriptions, businesses can retain them over the long term, improving customer lifetime value and reducing churn rates.

3. Automatic Resumption

Once a pause is initiated, subscriptions automatically resume on the configured date. This eliminates the need for customers to take additional action, making the process seamless and ensuring service continuity when they’re ready to return.

4. Customization Options

FastSpring’s subscription pause feature is highly customizable, allowing businesses to:

• Define the maximum pause duration.
• Determine whether customers can initiate pauses themselves or require assistance.
• Tailor the experience to match their subscription model and customer needs.

5. Reduced Churn

By providing an alternative to cancellations, businesses can significantly reduce churn rates. Customers facing temporary financial constraints or changes in service needs are more likely to return after a pause than if they had canceled altogether.

6. Improved Customer Experience

Offering a pause option demonstrates empathy and understanding of your customers’ challenges, or of even just their usage habits and expectations. Offering a pause feature enhances their overall experience and strengthens their loyalty to your brand. 

For example, a November 2024 Wall Street Journal article cites an Antenna report showing that the rate of streaming service subscribers who canceled one year and rejoined the next increased from a median of 29.8% in 2022 to 34.2% in 2023. Since more and more people may be regularly stopping subscriptions and then rejoining later, making the process easier for your customers can foster goodwill and loyalty, ultimately improving retention.

How to Implement FastSpring’s Subscription Pause Feature

Step 1: Configure Pause Settings

• Within your FastSpring account, configure the subscription pause settings to align with your business strategy. 
• Decide on the maximum allowable pause duration and whether customers can initiate pauses themselves. (This configuration setting allows you to choose the number of bill periods the customer can pause for.)

Step 2: Customer Communication

• Clearly communicate the pause option to your customers. Highlight the benefits, such as avoiding cancellation fees or preserving their subscription benefits upon resumption. The number of billing cycles for which a subscription can be paused is configurable, but it must be set in advance.
• If the pause feature is not enabled for customers, only sellers can pause subscriptions.
• The pause applies only to the configured number of billing cycles, and this setting must be saved in the subscription’s configuration.

Step 3: Monitor Paused Subscriptions

FastSpring provides webhooks to monitor and manage paused subscriptions. Use these to identify trends or common accounts, such as common pause durations or reasons for pauses, and refine your strategies accordingly. (FastSpring sends webhooks when a subscription is paused or updated to resume, such as subscription.paused and subscription.updated.)

Step 4: Leverage Automated Notifications

Set up automated email notifications to:

• Confirm the pause request.
• Remind customers when their subscription is about to resume.
• Offer incentives, such as discounts or bonuses, to encourage early resumption.

A Win-Win for Businesses and Customers

The subscription pause feature is a powerful tool that benefits both businesses and customers. By reducing churn, improving customer retention, and enhancing the overall experience, it positions your business for long-term success. Customers, in turn, appreciate the flexibility and understanding, fostering loyalty and trust. A “Pause” option reduces churn by catching these “non-permanent” cancellations.

Buyers feel less pressure and more positive about the brand, leading to higher lifetime value (LTV).

Start leveraging FastSpring’s subscription pause feature today and give your customers the flexibility they need while ensuring your business thrives in the subscription economy.

Are you looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your business internationally? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, gaming, and other digital goods businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post Enhance Customer Experience With FastSpring’s Subscription Pause Feature appeared first on FastSpring.

Are you a Digital River customer in emergency need of a new payment and subscription provider ASAP? Click here — our team of specialists is standing by, and requests are prioritized and routed by geo to ensure you have a fast, smooth experience.

Many Digital River customers are reporting that Digital River is having serious, material problems running their business. 

Their customers may need immediate help to maintain continuity for their own businesses. 

FastSpring has already helped many Digital River customers make the switch, and if you’re looking for a new merchant of record to help your digital business with payments and subscriptions, we’re here to help you, too. 

Switch to FastSpring ASAP

The fastest way to get emergency assistance from our sales and onboarding specialists is to fill out this form:

FastSpring’s demo form is routed by geography and priority. We won’t make you sit through a demo if you need immediate help switching to a Digital River replacement — we’ll help you start transitioning immediately. 

See why world-leading sound technology company Steinberg was so impressed by FastSpring’s fast and “highly efficient” onboarding process.

“We were able to connect FastSpring to our Steinberg systems very easily, so our Online Shop was running again in no time. We had such great support from all FastSpring employees in this challenging time.”

Jonas Baumbach, Head of Digital, Steinberg

FastSpring is how SaaS, software, digital products, and video game companies sell online in more places around the world. We handle every payment need — from subscription management to tax collection, remittance, and more — so your business can go farther, faster. We’re also the leading merchant of record for global software companies, powering over a billion dollars in worldwide transactions every year. We’ll manage your checkout, VAT and sales taxes, compliance, and more, freeing you to focus on what you do best: building great software.

Fill out our demo form to contact our team of specialists for immediate assistance transitioning to FastSpring for payments and subscriptions.

The post Need a Digital River Replacement ASAP? FastSpring Can Help appeared first on FastSpring.

And typical payment service providers won’t help you with most of those concerns.

Luckily, FastSpring isn’t just a payment service provider — we’re a merchant of record, which means you can outsource the entire cross border transaction process to us, and we’ll handle all the complexities that come with it.

Read on to learn:

• Why cross border payments are key to taking your business global.
• Why cross border payments are so complicated, even with typical payment providers. 
• How FastSpring drastically simplifies the entire cross border payments process for SaaS, software, mobile game, and other digital product businesses.

FastSpring handles the entire payment process from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

Why Cross Border Payments Are Key to Taking Your Business Global

A cross border transaction is a transaction that happens between parties in two different countries.

And if you want to sell globally as a software company — even a small one — the majority of your transactions likely will be cross border. 

For example, 70% of FastSpring’s transactions are cross border (and that’s including the European Union factored as one “country”; if we separated out all the countries within the EU, that percentage would go up). 

This adds dramatic complexity, suboptimization, and unpredictability when using a traditional payment service provider. 

Why Cross Border Payments Are So Complicated, Even With Typical Payment Providers

There are many payment service providers (PSPs) out there, all offering different levels of payment processing services and related add-ons.

But if you want to use a standard PSP to accept international payments, you have two main options.

1. Create your own entity structure around the world. This means having a true physical presence in many geographies and managing the significant legal and financial costs and headaches that come with that.

2. Don’t create your own entity structure around the world, but be treated as a non-local business in the majority of the markets in which you sell. This comes with additional disadvantages, such as:

• International surcharges on credit card payments (typically 1-2%), increasing the expected cost while lowering the predictability of your processor fees.
• Lower approval rates on credit cards as a non-local acquirer. In some regions (such as Latin America), this means as much as a 20%-30% differential in approval rates due to the relatively low prevalence of “international credit cards” (i.e., those that can be used to purchase from foreign merchants) among buyers in such regions. 
• Dramatically lower ability to accept local payments methods, as many local payment methods require that you be a local business to be able to accept them (for example, Pix – one of the most popular online payment methods in Brazil). 

Even if you choose to create your own entity structure, you will need to work with many PSPs (or legal entities) to be treated as a local business in each market. 

And even if you work with one PSP that is worldwide (such as Stripe), you’ll need to maintain separate accounts with separate fee structures and contract with separate legal entities of the PSP in each region. 

Further still, if you want redundancy in your ability to accept cross border payments — which everyone should have to ensure they never lose sales to payment system down time — this at least doubles your complexity in each region. 

You could instead choose to only expand into a few new countries or regions, but if you limit the number of places where your software or digital product is sold, that will limit sales accordingly. You can’t get fast, meaningful revenue expansion with slow, piecemeal geographical expansion. 

Luckily, there is another, much simpler option.

Let FastSpring Help as Your Merchant of Record!

FastSpring’s ability to simplify cross border transactions for your business goes far beyond standard PSPs because we’re a merchant of record (MoR).

While PSPs and MoRs may look similar at first, there are some big, fundamental differences between PSPs and MoRs.

A payment service provider does bridge some gaps for companies selling digital products and software, such as handling back-end specialized services and networks (including payment gateways, payment processors, and merchant accounts) so you don’t have to connect directly with all of those yourself.

But PSPs stop shy of becoming the entity that worries about risk considerations, regulatory rules in many geographies, card brand rules, and even tax calculation, collection, and remittance — responsibilities that a merchant of record does take on for you. 

That’s because a merchant of record becomes the entity that is technically selling the product.

Because an MoR already has the necessary infrastructure set up, it’s already a complete payment solution that lets you quickly outsource the entire checkout process, including fraud prevention, tax compliance, and even sales tax and VAT remittance. 

As a merchant of record, FastSpring is uniquely positioned to support cross border commerce, offering you the following conveniences:

• One vendor and one account.
• Greater access to local payment methods.
• Higher approval rates due to local acquiring.
• Predictable flat rate pricing model with no cross border fees.
• 24/7 buyer transaction support.
• Elimination of tax registration, filing, and remittance worldwide.
• Elimination of need to monitor changing tax laws and requirements worldwide.

Increase Revenue, Decrease Complexity, and Mitigate Risk With FastSpring

Once you implement FastSpring, you gain almost instant access for your SaaS, software, or other digital products to be sold in more than 200 regions, with support for 21+ languages and 23+ currencies.

FastSpring manages all the hard parts of cross border transactions so you can focus on building the fantastic products that will help you become the next great global brand.

FastSpring manages all the hard parts of cross border transactions so you can focus on building the fantastic products that will help you become the next great global brand.

We Make It Easy to Integrate FastSpring With Your Business

Beyond the financial services that PSPs and MoRs provide — and the regulatory, risk, tax, and other additional responsibilities MORs take on — PSPs and MoRs offer varying levels of tools to help integrate their services with your business. 

With FastSpring, here are just a few of the great features included when we serve as your merchant of record.

Extensive B2C and B2B Selling Features

Sell in all the ways that customers want to buy. Our platform accommodates one-time purchases or recurring payments, subscription downloads and cloud-based offerings, trials with and without payments, and more. 

We support these flexible selling models and options with both best-in-class self-serve checkout functionality and localized, custom B2B quotes and invoicing.

Industry-Leading Customization Features

Just because FastSpring takes on the complexities of cross border payments doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice branding and customization options. 

Besides being able to create a seamless trial, checkout, fulfillment, and subscription experience for your customers with our webhooks, APIs, and no-code customization options, we also offer a FastSpring-managed JavaScript library and robust checkout localization tools.

Partnership-Style Support

While providing the above-mentioned tools that allow developers to dig in themselves, you’re not on your own to set up your online store. 

FastSpring’s MoR services include 24/7 multi-tiered support that are prioritized by urgency instead of business size; global VAT, GST, and sales taxes handled by experts, to the tune of $54M+ filed and paid every year; and multi-layer fraud prevention and compliance management that adheres to SCA, PSD2, CCPA, GDPR, Economic Nexus, and dozens of local regulations across varied jurisdictions. 

Get Started With FastSpring

FastSpring handles the entire payment process from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies, with award-winning support to help along the way. 

To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly with cross border transactions, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

Other Articles You Might Be Interested In

Have more questions about the financial institutions and systems that merchants of record and other payment platforms work with to make international transactions and payments work? We cover more about the important differences between PSPs and MoRs and explain some of the ecommerce details that need to happen in the background for cross-border payment services to work and compare features such as transaction fees and payment options in 2Checkout vs. Stripe vs. FastSpring: Comparing Payments, Taxes, and Platform Features (+ Pricing).

Worried about regulatory requirements, international bank transfers, currency conversions, credit and debit cards and digital wallets, different currencies, transaction costs, and all the other details it takes to make international financial transactions happen? Find out why a merchant of record makes all of this easy in What Is a Merchant of Record? (And Why Should You Care?).

Looking for a global payments provider and merchant of record to serve as a complete cross border payment system? Learn more about FastSpring’s global payments.

If your software or other digital goods business’ roadmap includes becoming part of the global economy, you can move beyond only accepting domestic payments with a new payments provider. Learn more about why merchant of record FastSpring is so well equipped to remove the friction of cross border transactions on our merchant of record page.

The post Easy Cross Border Transactions With FastSpring as Your MoR appeared first on FastSpring.

Here are the questions we sought to answer by analyzing anonymized subscription data for transactions across various Asian countries (excluding broader “APAC” regions like Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia):

• How do customers in Asia’s growing markets  prefer to manage their SaaS subscriptions? 
• Are their preferences similar to those in the U.S. or EU, or are they different? 
• Do regional nuances, such as the choice between annual and monthly plans, significantly impact renewal rates? 
• How can businesses best position their subscription products for success in the Asian market?

Drawing on anonymized global subscription data, we compared monthly and annual subscription renewal rates between Asia, the United States, and the European Union for products across multiple SaaS verticals.

Here’s what we uncovered:

Key Insights Into How Asia-Region Customers Renew SaaS Subscriptions

1. Monthly subscription renewals are lower in Asia than in the EU and the U.S., but they’re growing.

When it comes to monthly SaaS subscriptions — i.e., those that renew each month with the option to cancel at any time — both the EU and the U.S. report similar average renewal rates in the upper 80th percentile. The EU monthly renewal rates averaged 85% over the last 12 months, while the U.S. averaged 89%. This means that, for example, for every 100 U.S. customers in June, about 89 will renew their subscription for July.

However, in Asia, retention for monthly subscriptions is notably lower at 75%. If you’re selling software at the same price into both the U.S. and Asia, this subscription rate difference represents a 16% lower lifetime value (LTV) for Asia-area customers.

That said, there’s a silver lining: While monthly retention in the EU and North America remained stable from 2023 to 2024, Asia’s monthly retention rate improved by approximately 3%, showing positive momentum.

2. Annual subscriptions in Asia match or exceed renewal rates in other regions.

Annual SaaS subscriptions — i.e., those that renew once per year — paint a different picture.  In the EU, customers renewed annual subscriptions at a rate of 55%, compared with 56% in Asia and 59% in the U.S. 

Here we see Asia-area customers renewing annual subscription rates at much closer rates to global averages.

Conclusions

What we can conclude from this data is that customers in Asia are less likely to renew monthly subscriptions than customers in other global markets, but are just as likely to renew annual subscriptions.

This provides some crucial insights for SaaS companies selling into Asian markets — particularly when those companies use U.S. and EU customer data to set “one-size-fits-all” global pricing. Those pricing models may not hold up globally given the different regional customer trends.

Specifically, if you have set your monthly subscription pricing for all markets based on EU and U.S. customer trends, you may be disappointed by the financial performance of monthly subscriptions in Asia, given the likely 15% drop in LTV for that region. 

A better bet is to promote annual subscriptions in Asia, where customer behavior better matches other global markets.  With very similar renewal rates, your pricing model will more likely deliver the LTV, profitability, and subsequent growth that your business is expecting.

Strategy: Focus on Annual Subscriptions to Build a Strong APAC Subscriber Base

Prioritizing annual subscription models could prove to be the key to success for businesses looking to expand into Asia. Here are seven strategies to grow your annual subscription base in Asia.

7 Strategies for Growing Annual Subscriptions in Asia

1. Emphasize Annual Plans in Your Marketing

Given the stronger retention rates for annual subscriptions in Asia, make them a core focus in your marketing efforts. Offer exclusive incentives, such as discounts or bonuses, to encourage customers to commit to a yearly plan and maximize long-term retention.

2. Tailor Pricing to Favor Annual Subscriptions

Competitive pricing is crucial. Design pricing strategies that make annual plans more attractive than monthly ones, offering a noticeable discount for committing to a full year. This approach taps into Asia’s apparent preference for long-term subscriptions.

3. Leverage Popular Local Payment Methods

Simplifying the payment process is essential, especially for annual plans. Offering widely-used local payment options — such as AliPay or WeChat Pay — helps reduce friction at checkout and boosts customer satisfaction, leading to higher renewal rates.

4. Invest in Customer Support to Drive Retention

Retaining annual subscribers requires ongoing support. Ensure that your customer service is not only easily accessible but also localized to the region, with support offered in local languages. This can help address any issues or concerns over the subscription period and build trust, fostering long-term retention.

5. Reward Loyalty With Renewal Incentives

Consider implementing loyalty programs that reward customers for renewing their subscriptions. This is particularly effective for annual plans, where the stakes are higher and a single renewal carries more weight.

6. Monitor Regional Retention Trends

While the insights shared here are valuable, it’s important to regularly review your own subscription data across different regions. Each region is not a monolith, so trends can also vary from country to country, and even the type of business or software you offer may affect how receptive each area is to subscriptions. Staying on top of retention trends across Asia compared to North America and the EU will allow you to adjust your strategy and better meet the evolving needs of each market.

7. Localize the Customer Experience

Localization extends beyond just offering your checkout in many languages and currencies. Tailor your product features, pricing, and customer support to reflect regional preferences. By aligning your subscription offerings with the cultural and business nuances of each market in Asia, you can significantly boost long-term retention.

Let FastSpring Help You Take Your SaaS to Asia

FastSpring is the leading full-stack merchant of record service for growth-stage SaaS and software businesses. If you’re looking for a merchant of record to help your business expand globally, we’re here to help.

And with the opening of FastSpring’s office in Singapore in January 2024, this strategic expansion marks a significant milestone in our journey to strengthen our global footprint and better serve our clients in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

✦ Meet FastSpring Senior Account Executive Jay Jia and benefit from his expertise about growing a digital goods business in Asia in this deep diving podcast interview. ✦

Our platform serves as an all-in-one payment platform that handles everything from payment and checkout localization, to sales and VAT tax management, to customer support for end consumers, and so much more.

Learn more about how FastSpring can help you grow your business globally: Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post Breaking Into Asia? Benchmarking Data and Insights on SaaS Subscriptions in Asia appeared first on FastSpring.

Are you a Digital River customer in emergency need of a new payment and subscription provider ASAP? Click here — our team of specialists is standing by, and requests are prioritized and routed by geo to ensure you have a fast, smooth experience.

There are a lot of Digital River alternatives on the market, and you may not know what makes any of them stand out in particular. 

It’s especially important to note that Digital River is a merchant of record (MoR), which means that many payment service providers may not include the kind of comprehensive services you’re used to with an MoR. 

In this post, we cover: 

• What a merchant of record is, and why it’s so important to make sure your MoR-level service isn’t disrupted if you’re thinking of switching providers.
• Why FastSpring is an excellent Digital River alternative.
• Three other payments options in 2024.

FastSpring handles the entire payment process from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

Why the Best Digital River Alternative Is a Merchant of Record

If you’re familiar with Digital River but aren’t familiar with the term “merchant of record,”  you might not be familiar with exactly how many benefits come with using one. 

Here’s a refresher on what an MoR is and why — if your business is currently using one to monetize your SaaS, software, or other digital product — you probably want to ensure you keep using one.

What Is a Merchant of Record?

A merchant of record (MoR) is the entity that actually sells the goods and services to the customer. Companies can serve as their own MoR, but many opt to outsource that responsibility to a company like Digital River or FastSpring to sell goods and services on their behalf.

The MoR takes on the liability of SaaS transactions for you, meaning they handle everything from payment processing, to chargeback management, to collection and remittance of taxes, and even compliance with local laws and regulations. And because the MoR is liable for issues in those areas, they handle resolving those issues so you don’t have to. 

Digital-commerce-reliant businesses that utilize an MoR can focus less on ecommerce and more on making great software, SaaS, video games, mobile games, or other digital goods. 

What Makes a Merchant of Record Different From Payment Service Providers?

Payment service providers (PSPs), like MoRs, serve as a bridge between businesses that want to sell a product, and the specialized networks and services that are needed on the back end to make those transactions happen. Those specialized networks and services may include payment gateways, payment processing, a merchant account to accept debit and credit card payments, and others.

PSPs usually also include some sort of ecommerce platform and/or integration functionality (such as APIs, plugins, special integrations, etc.) to integrate their payments platform or checkout with your online store or website, but options will vary.

However, payment service providers usually stop short of managing risk, handling taxes, and assisting with chargebacks. If rules and regulations change in any of the regions or countries where you sell your product, you’d be responsible for keeping track of those changes and updating your PSP processes and checkout accordingly. 

Some PSPs may offer upgradeable payment solutions to get their services closer to those that an MoR includes automatically, but they are often bolt-on features, and they will come with upgrade fees. For example, Stripe has a fraud prevention upgrade called Radar, but it comes with additional costs per transaction fees.

Grow With FastSpring, an Experienced Merchant of Record

FastSpring is the leading merchant of record for global software companies, powering over a billion dollars in worldwide transactions every year.

Here are just a few of the reasons we’ve earned that reputation.

We Have Decades of Experience

Founded in 2005, FastSpring has two decades of experience with enabling global payments, and we’ve been a part of the SaaS landscape as it has grown. 

Because of this, our team deeply understands the complexities of selling digital goods and software, including subscription management and all of the nuanced needs that come with it.

We’re Backed by Great Investors

You don’t need to worry about FastSpring being profitable or reliable. Along with our experience, we also offer the peace of mind that comes with being backed by a top-performing, highly reputable investment firm. 

Thanks to Accel-KKR, FastSpring has the resources and proceeds needed to help scale your business with online payments, while providing excellent corporate, privacy, and security governance.

We Grow When You Grow

Our many years in the global payments platform industry has also enabled FastSpring to grow over time — but that growth has only happened because of our great customers. 

That’s for two reasons: because we work on a revenue-sharing model, and because we’re a partner who wants to help you continue growing.

1. FastSpring Makes Money When You Make Money

Thanks to FastSpring’s revenue sharing model, we make money when you do. When your buyer makes a purchase, we charge a small commission fee on that transaction.

That means that if you’re not transacting, we’re not charging that commission.

Our team will work with you to determine simple, flat-rate pricing based on your volume of business and transaction time, and that pricing includes all of our platform’s features and tools. 

Learn more about FastSpring’s pricing here, or request a meeting to discuss more details. 

2. FastSpring Wants to Be Your Partner, Not Just Your Payments Solution

Stardock was able to make the transition to SaaS subscriptions thanks to FastSpring’s ready-to-use existing subscription infrastructure, but they saw the mutual investments that we were putting back into our own platform to continue developing new features and products. 

This made Brad Sams of Stardock feel secure in Stardock’s partnership with FastSpring, because he could see we were in it for the long haul. “Because the better we do, the better FastSpring is going to do. We’ve got to make sure that everybody’s winning, and things with FastSpring just felt aligned.”

“FastSpring was on that path of continued investment and wasn’t just collecting the paycheck every month and doing nothing.”

– Brad Sams, Stardock

Read more about Stardock’s experience with FastSpring here.

TestDome has also been very happy with FastSpring’s support, noting that it goes from assistance with buyer issues and chargebacks all the way up to the top of the company and our CEO. 

TestDome CEO and co-founder Mario Zivic is happy to have been using FastSpring for a decade, saying that FastSpring has been the clear and easy choice for their merchant of record needs. 

Besides more common support for buyer issues like chargebacks, credit card issues, and refund requests, Mario even received an offer of advice from FastSpring’s CEO. That resulted in a personal phone call and “an extremely valuable piece of advice,” noting that he has seen firsthand that “the willingness to help and support was not limited to Support — it went all the way up to the CEO.”

Read more of TestDome’s story about our partnership.

Award-Winning Customer Support and Customer Success

The high level of support and service has not only been recognized by our customers — it has also been recognized in our industry. 

In April of this year, FastSpring’s support team won a Silver Stevie® award for Front-Line Customer Service Team of the Year in the “Technology Industries – Computer Software” category.

Then in June, FastSpring’s customer success team won a gold Globee® award for Customer Excellence in the “Achievement in Team Customer Success” category.

We don’t just say we want to be a partner — we set out to prove it. 

Our Hands-On Migration Team Strives for Your Success

FastSpring support isn’t only there for you after you’ve onboarded — we want to ensure you get up and running on our payments platform as quickly and easily as possible.

Our implementation team of hands-on, highly efficient sales engineers are experts in FastSpring’s pre-built web storefront solution, the flexible and extensive FastSpring API, webhook features, and more. They’re there to help you make a seamless transition through migration and integration. 

FastSpring has powerful integrations with best-in-class third-party solutions, including WordPress, Zapier, and multiple Google services. Learn more about FastSpring integrations here. 

Other Great FastSpring Features

Here are a few more great reasons to use FastSpring: 

• You’ll automatically be compliant with sales tax, VAT, and privacy regulations around the world.
• FastSpring accepts the top payment methods in 200+ regions across the globe with 23+ currencies and in 21+ languages.
• You can customize seamless embedded or modal popup checkout experiences on your website.
• We make it easy to offer coupons, discounts, and dynamic price points for promotions.
• Checkout can be streamlined to a single click with 1ClickPay.
• Strong documentation that includes AI-powered search for precise, relevant responses in real time.
• And so much more!

To learn more, check out our product overview, or sign up to check out our platform yourself. Want personalized answers? Request a demo with one of our experts.

3 More Digital River Alternatives

The following options are common alternatives you might look at if you’re assessing Digital River competitors. Keep in mind that none of the below options are merchants of record, so you may need to supplement their services, either internally or with additional vendors and services.

Stripe

Stripe is a well-known payment processor that allows businesses to accept debit cards, credit cards, and mobile payments, with features such as:

• Payment processing.
• A customizable UI and pre-built checkout flows.
• Simple subscription management.
• Online invoicing.

You may be wondering if it’s an option for your business simply because it’s so ubiquitous, and it may appear at first to have lower pricing than the merchant of record you’re currently using. But that’s because Stripe isn’t a merchant of record. 

If you’re looking to lower your transaction costs and you have the scale, expertise, time, and teams to support the many services you’ll be losing by switching from an MoR to Stripe, this may be a good option for your business. But you’ll need to make up the difference in services lost, including tax compliance, fraud management, and more. Stripe does offer products to cover some of those needs, but they are add-ons that will increase your overall cost — so any initial cost savings might quickly disappear.

However, if you want to switch from Digital River to a business in the same category with the features and peace of mind an MoR provides, Stripe probably isn’t the right Digital River competitor for you.

Adyen

Adyen bills itself as an “end-to-end payments, data, and financial management in a single solution.” Its payment solutions and financial services include features and products such as:

• In-person and online payments in one system.
• Revenue optimization with intelligent payment routing to improve conversion rates.
• Subscription management features like dunning automation.
• Risk management with fraud detection and prevention.

While Adyen has some of the features a merchant of record offers, you will still need to manage your own company accounts and merchant accounts.

PayPal for Business

PayPal is a well-known digital wallet for personal online payments, but they also offer a payment processing option for small business. PayPal for Business is both an in-person and ecommerce solution.

(SaaS companies using FastSpring can also process payments using PayPal.)

Other features of PayPal for Business include but are not limited to: 

• Built-in integrations with major online shopping carts (such as Shopify). 
• QR code and POS systems.
• Invoicing.
• Chargeback protection (only available for business accounts with Advanced Credit and Debit Card checkout).

Besides PayPal for Business, PayPal also has a payment processor specifically for SaaS called Braintree.

How FastSpring Can Help

Need a merchant of record to help you grow your business internationally? FastSpring is a full-stack, all-in-one payment solution for SaaS, software, video games, and other digital product businesses. 

Our services include VAT and sales tax calculation, collection, and remittance; payment localization; regulation compliance; award winning consumer support; and so much more! 

Sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

Other Articles You Might Be Interested In

• 2Checkout vs. Stripe vs. FastSpring: Comparing Payments, Taxes, and Platform Features (+ Pricing)
• Stripe Alternatives for 2024: In-Depth Guide and 8 Options
• International Payment Gateways: An In-Depth Guide and 10 Payments Options

The post Digital River Alternatives for 2024 appeared first on FastSpring.