For example, using a one-size-fits-all approach to pricing and packaging tends to be less fair for players located in countries with lower disposable income, which also limits your ability to increase revenue and profit driven by players in those countries.

We know there is potential to make things more fair for players and increase profits at the same time — but how can we localize pricing without making players angry at a lack of pricing parity between countries?

In this article, we explore how optimizing global pricing and packaging is a delicate balance between driving transaction volume, profitability, and pricing parity. We’ll take you through a crawl-walk-run approach to finding the best formula for your game’s global P&P strategies that can deliver the most value to you and your players — without making them angry.

The ROI of Global Flexibility

Optimizing for profitability with your global P&P strategy is a fairly straightforward concept. The lower your price is in any particular country, the more transaction volume you’ll have, but with a lower profitability per transaction. If your transaction volume increases enough, your total profit for that country will increase, even if your profit per transaction is lower. Easy peasy.

The more complex part of global P&P is when pricing parity across countries is considered. 

For example, gaming is a global and social business. Your players are everywhere and likely interact with each other on Discord, Reddit, or other social media. If you offer players in India a lower price than you offer to players in the U.S., then your U.S. players may learn of your lack of pricing parity between countries and get angry with you. They may even try to game the system by using VPNs or other techniques to try to get access to the lower pricing. Not so easy… peasy.

So how do you localize your P&P globally to maximize profits without making players angry? 

I like to recommend a crawl-walk-run approach to price localization, starting with the least aggressive options and testing into more aggressive options over time.

Global Pricing and Packaging Strategies

(Ordered by Least to Most Aggressive)

1. No Localization: You offer the same currency and price globally.

2. Localized Currencies: You charge the same price in all countries, but offer local currencies pegged to the current exchange rate for that currency.

Pro tip: Changing prices frequently due to shifting exchange rates can be confusing for players. I recommend evaluating exchange rates about once a year to set prices instead of changing prices frequently or dynamically. That said, you should take note that exchange rates can change quickly depending on the country and world events, so prices that make sense in January might not make as much sense in March.

3. Localized Discounts and Promotions: You offer the same products at the same list price (adjusted for local currencies) in all countries, but you offer a limited time discount for that country (e.g., “We’re celebrating our growth in India with 20% off our June battle pass for India-based players!”). Players tend to be more forgiving of celebratory regional discounts causing a lack of price parity vs. a lack of parity for everyday list prices.

Pro tip: Use geo localization on your web store to gate offers to only show to players located in the countries you’re targeting. You can use IP addresses or the player’s billing address (for logged in players) to power geo localization on your web store.

4. Localized Products: You offer slightly different products for a lower price in specific countries (e.g. “Buy BattlePass Lite for a 50% discount. Excludes bonus skins included in the main battle pass.”). The logic behind this strategy is that if players in one country notice a cheaper price in another country, you can point out that this is because those players get less for that price. Lower price = less entitlements.

Pro tip: Try acknowledging that you’re offering players in certain countries cheaper options with less entitlements to help all players enjoy your game regardless of their access to disposable income. There’s nothing sneaky or wrong about trying to be inclusive and fair.

5. Localized Pricing: You offer the same products globally, but price differently per country. This is the most extreme example, in which your battle pass costs maybe $20 in the U.S., but only the equivalent of $5 in India. This comes with the greatest risk of player dissatisfaction due to the lack of price and value parity between countries for the same product.

Pro tip: As the most aggressive approach, this should be the last option you experiment with; however, this approach also offers the highest degree of control when optimizing for profits within a specific country. Additionally, if you are monetizing a casual game where players rarely if ever speak with each other, you may have lower risk of localized pricing causing players to be angry at a lack of price parity between countries.

So, What Is the Best Approach for YOUR Game?

The best global P&P strategy for your game — and your players — depends on a near-infinite number of variables, from your type of game, the type of in-game items for sale, player concentrations, and so on. This means that the true best approach is to iteratively test, measure your results, and listen to your players at every step of your journey. 

My advice is to take a crawl-walk-run approach, starting at the top of the list of strategies above, and making your way down the list until your ability to drive profits clashes with your ability to keep players happy. Once you find the right global P&P strategies, the result should be a more fair experience for your players and higher profits for you.

If you’d like help with monetizing your game D2C including advice on your global P&P strategies, request a FastSpring demo or check out FastSpring for gaming.

The post A Crawl-Walk-Run Guide to Global Pricing and Packaging for Games appeared first on FastSpring.

• Amsterdam.
• Austin.
• Belfast.
• Dublin.
• Halifax.
• Santa Barbara.

FastSpring has been represented by an in-person sales team in Singapore for almost two years, and that team has quickly grown FastSpring’s presence while embedded in the local technology community. 

Growing demand for FastSpring’s merchant of record services in the dynamic and thriving Asia-Pacific region has led to the subsequent growth of our Singapore team, which will now be able to serve our APAC customers even better from a dedicated workspace. 

Leo Ng [foreground] takes a selfie with [background, left to
right] Tengxiong Yao, Jay Jia, and Jeslyn Ong.

The Singapore team now has a private office space within the bustling WeWork coworking location at 60 Anson Rd, Singapore 079914, Unit #17-135.

Related: FastSpring recently won the 2025 Golden Sail Award for Outstanding Global Expansion Ecosystem Service at GICC, one of China’s most recognized global business summits.

FastSpring remains focused on deep, local integration with tech communities all over the world to ensure we remain in touch and in tune with the customers we serve in the SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, AI, eLearning, and other digital goods spaces. 

FastSpring powers global payments for software companies, video game publishers, and other digital goods businesses. As a merchant of record, FastSpring provides a fully managed payment solution including checkout, fraud mitigation, comprehensive sales tax and VAT compliance, and more. Founded in 2005, FastSpring is a privately owned company headquartered in the U.S., with offices in Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the U.K.

Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

To view our homepage in simplified Chinese, click here.
若想浏览 FastSpring 中文官网，请点击此处。

To sign up for a personalized demo using a form in simplified Chinese, click here.
若希望使用中文提交表单并预约产品演示，请点击此处。

The post FastSpring Expands APAC Presence and Brings Together Singapore Team With New Office Location appeared first on FastSpring.

We are honored to receive the Golden Sail Award for Outstanding Global Expansion Ecosystem Service, further solidifying our reputation as a trusted growth partner for Chinese and APAC companies going global.

FastSpring’s Senior Account Executive Jay Jia was present to receive the award for FastSpring, accompanied by Account Executive Leo Ng and Sales Development Representative for APAC Jeslyn Ong. 

Jay received FastSpring’s Golden Sail Award for Outstanding Global Expansion Ecosystem Service.

Jeslyn, Leo, and Jay in the FastSpring booth, excited about our award!

Related: Are you an APAC mobile app developer wanting to take your app global? Learn more about the many things that entails — and what FastSpring can handle for you — in 5 Moves for Mobile App Makers in APAC to Maximize Revenue.

About the GICC Golden Sail Awards

The GICC is one of China’s most recognized global business summits, held annually in Beijing. This year, the event drew over 160,000 professionals and 3,000 leading enterprises from industries such as technology, SaaS, ecommerce, and digital services.

The event’s awards celebrate outstanding companies driving innovation, globalization, and cross-border business growth, highlighting those contributing to China’s global digital transformation and “going global” success stories.

Other award categories include Outstanding Global Expansion Brands, Outstanding Cross-border Technology Solutions, Outstanding Global Expansion Ecosystem Services, Outstanding Cross-border Marketing and Operations, Outstanding Global Expansion Potential, and more.

Partner With FastSpring for Global Growth

If you’re looking for a merchant of record that will partner with you to grow your business internationally, FastSpring can help. 

We provide an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, AI, eLearning, and other digital goods, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. 

Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

To view our homepage in simplified Chinese, click here.
若想浏览 FastSpring 中文官网，请点击此处。

To sign up for a personalized demo using a form in simplified Chinese, click here.
若希望使用中文提交表单并预约产品演示，请点击此处。

The post FastSpring Wins GICC 2025 Golden Sail Award for Outstanding Global Expansion Ecosystem Service appeared first on FastSpring.

• Hungarian Forint (HUF) — Hungary.
• Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) — Indonesia.
• Saudi Arabian Riyal (SAR) — Saudi Arabia.
• Emirati Dirham (AED) — United Arab Emirates.

These currencies, along with more than 20 others, are live on across the FastSpring platform now. You can display prices, accept payments, and settle transactions in these local currencies, allowing you to offer buyers a more trusted and seamless checkout experience.

Why Local Currencies Matter

Local currency support helps create a more familiar purchase flow, especially when paired with the right payment methods. It’s a simple way to meet customer expectations in key growth markets, differentiate from competitors, and lay the groundwork for regional expansion. Additional benefits include:

• Reaching more buyers: Increase confidence and reduce drop-off by pricing in the buyer’s native currency.
• Differentiating your brand: Show customers you understand their market with localized pricing.
• Gaining regional insights: Use currency-specific data to inform pricing, forecasting, and performance analysis.

For more insights into local currencies and payment methods, take a look at our recent blog post. For details on the payment methods we support and how this update affects available payment methods, take a look at our payment methods documentation.

FastSpring offers more than just localized currencies — we offer a complete global payment solution that helps SaaS, software, video game, mobile apps, and other digital product businesses grow internationally. As a Merchant of Record, we handle VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, subscription management, consumer support, and much more. Interested? Interested? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post FastSpring Adds Support for 4 New Currencies to Expand Global Footprint appeared first on FastSpring.

Mobile app installs in Asia have grown 10x since 2017. And one in five global app ad dollars now comes from Asian companies, as APAC companies target users in Western markets as well as emerging economies in Latin America and Africa. 

TikTok, born in China, is now a billion-download phenomenon across 150+ markets. 

The message is clear: APAC founders can go global.

But growth outside the region isn’t automatic. Cultural differences, varied payment preferences, and rising user acquisition (UA) costs can trip up even great apps. 

Here are five lessons to help APAC developers and founders expand successfully into global markets.

Lesson 1: Localize Beyond Translation

Localization isn’t just language — it’s currency, culture, and user experience. For example, a Udonis article reports that 87% of consumers prefer content in their native language, and one app saw downloads double in 40 days after localizing its App Store listings.

Effective localization goes beyond translating text. It means adjusting visuals, formats, and features to align with local norms. Ensure your app supports local currencies, date formats, and units so that prices and details make sense to the user. 

Adapt your marketing creatives and in-app imagery to resonate with cultural expectations (because what works in Tokyo might not work in Paris). 

A great example is how ByteDance approached TikTok’s global rollout to push fast adoption in international markets. The same Udonis article points out how ByteDance went far beyond interface translations by running country-specific challenges and trends in each market to make the app feel homegrown.

Pro tip: Test a “minimum viable localization” approach — start with app store pages and key flows, then expand once traction is proven.

Lesson 2: Match Monetization to Local Preferences

Subscription behavior looks different across regions. In Asia, monthly subscription retention is only around 75% versus around 85%-89% in the West, but annual plans perform just as well as global averages. 

That means Asian users are less loyal to monthly plans but stick with yearly commitments. Adjust your offerings accordingly by promoting discounted annual plans in APAC, while leaning into monthly trials and flexibility in North America and Europe.

Payment methods also make or break conversions.

In Europe, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services like Klarna are expected checkout options, with 85M+ active Klarna users. 

Brazil’s Pix now outpaces credit cards, processing 64B transactions in 2024. 

And in China and India, users expect Alipay, WeChat Pay, or UPI.

The point is to meet users where they are. If you only offer USD + credit cards, you’ll miss out. Platforms like FastSpring help by supporting local currencies and payment methods without requiring you to set up entities in each market.

Lesson 3: Use Hybrid Monetization to Maximize Revenue

Relying on just ads or just subscriptions limits growth. Hybrid models that mix ads, subscriptions, and in-app purchases (IAPs) are now mainstream. AppsFlyer reports that 43% percent of gaming apps use a hybrid model, and the concept applies beyond games. 

Consider the case of Viva Republica, the South Korean fintech behind the Toss app. Traditionally, finance apps avoided ads for fear of ruining UX, but according to a Think With Google article, Toss experimented with adding non-intrusive, native ads into its app’s rewards section. 

The result? A nearly 3x growth in ad revenue within a year and the company’s first-ever profitable quarter, all while keeping users happy with the experience. 

For APAC apps expanding globally, a freemium hybrid approach works well:

1. Free tier with ads or limited features.
2. Premium tier with no ads + extras.

This lets you capture both budget-conscious and high-value users. The key is thoughtful execution. Ads should enhance — not annoy — and premium tiers must deliver real value.

Lesson 4: Acquire Users Strategically

User acquisition (UA) costs vary dramatically by region. In 2024, the average cost per install (CPI) was ~$5 in the U.S. vs. just $0.30 in LATAM — a 17x difference! Within APAC, costs can vary as well: An install in Japan or Australia typically costs a lot more than one in India or Vietnam. 

These variations mean you should allocate your UA budget carefully. 

Balance your spend across high-value but expensive markets (e.g., the U.S.) and lower-cost growth regions (e.g., Southeast Asia, LATAM).

Adapt your acquisition channels. In China, for example, you’re more likely to rely on local Android stores and WeChat; in Europe, experiment with carriers or BNPL partnerships; in the U.S., TikTok and influencer campaigns are strong bets.

And make sure to localize your creative pieces. What resonates in Seoul won’t land the same way in San Francisco.

Retention is as critical as acquisition. Remarketing campaigns in APAC now outpace new UA efforts, because keeping an existing user is cheaper than winning a new one. Track 7-day and 30-day retention by region and double down on re-engagement tactics where needed. 

Lesson 5: Get Started With Direct Monetization (and Stay Compliant)

App store commissions eat 15%-30% of your revenue. With regulatory shifts loosening Apple’’s and Google’s grips on the market, more developers are embracing direct monetization (also known as “app2web”) models by selling subscriptions or in-app purchases (IAPs) via web stores or in-app webviews. 

The most obvious benefit here is higher margins (20%-30% more per transaction).

Ownership of customer data is also hugely valuable for optimizing your UA and monetization strategies further. 

Direct monetization does come with added responsibilities, however, in the form of global taxes, compliance, fraud, and payment routing. 

This is where partnering with a merchant of record like FastSpring pays off. We handle VAT, local invoicing, local payment methods (from Klarna to Pix), and compliance across the globe, letting small teams expand globally without needing to become tax or legal experts. 

Optimizing your checkout also builds trust. Mobile-friendly design, local currencies, transparent pricing, and familiar payment logos reduce abandonment and improve conversion.

Capitalize on a $600B Opportunity — and FastSpring Can Help

New global app success stories will continue to rise out of APAC. The opportunity is massive: The mobile app economy is projected to hit around $600B+ through 2025. To seize it, remember to:

1. Localize deeply.
   
2. Match monetization to regional habits.
   
3. Diversify with hybrid models.
   
4. Acquire users strategically.
   
5. Go direct and simplify compliance.

APAC founders are already known for speed and innovation. With the right mix of localization, monetization, and smart UA, your app can make the leap from regional success to global phenomenon.

Need an app-to-web payments solution to monetize your mobile app? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for mobile apps, SaaS, software, video games, and other digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. 

Get started today: Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post 5 Moves for Mobile App Makers in APAC to Maximize Revenue appeared first on FastSpring.

Many companies that expand globally reach a point where they can’t properly support their international customers with their current payment platform. They’ll start noticing issues like low conversion rates, low authorization rates, more chargebacks, and an overall plateau in global growth. That’s when many start looking at other solutions such as international payment gateways. 

Even the best international payment gateways can help with some of these issues, but that’s only one piece of the puzzle. To accept payments internationally, you also need to offer local payment methods, collect and remit VAT and sales taxes, adhere to local transaction laws and regulations, and much more.

In this post, we clarify what an international payment gateway is, how it fits into the payment processing landscape, and how to choose the best one for your business. Then we compare nine of the top payment solutions, starting with a deep-dive into our solution, FastSpring. 

Table of Contents

• What is an international payment gateway?
• Factors to consider when choosing the best international payment gateway.
• FastSpring: Merchant of record for global SaaS companies.
• 8 other international payment gateways for SaaS and non-SaaS businesses.

FastSpring handles everything from maintaining high authorization rates to filing and remitting monthly and quarterly sales tax and VAT for SaaS companies. Sign up for a free account or request a demo today to see how FastSpring can help you expand globally.

FAQs About International Payment Gateways 

What Is an International Payment Gateway?

Traditionally, payment gateways and payment processors were offered as two separate services, and you would have different providers for each service:

• Payment gateways quickly and securely transfer the payment details from the checkout software to the payment processor.
• Payment processors verify that all necessary information is present and in the correct format and then carry it to the issuing bank or credit card network for final authorization. Some payment gateways integrate with multiple payment processors behind the scenes to optimize performance.

Fast forward to today, and these two services are often offered together, which is why many companies use these terms interchangeably.

For the remainder of this post, if we mention one, we assume the other is included.

Why Do You Want Your Payment Processor to Be International?

International payment processors let you immediately start accepting preferred payments from around the globe. Without an international payment processor, you could be locked out of cross-border transactions, your approval rates will suffer, and your associated transaction fees and processing fees will also suffer.

International payment processors take on the responsibility of staying in good standing with various payment schemes across different countries and localities, so you don’t have to.

Related: International Recurring Payments (How We Handle It for You)

Factors to Consider When Choosing the Best International Payment Gateway

When choosing an international payment gateway, the most important thing to consider is whether or not they also act as your merchant of record. 

A merchant of record (MoR) takes on the liability of SaaS transactions for you, which means they handle payment processing, collecting and remitting taxes, staying compliant with local laws and regulations, chargeback management, and much more. If something goes wrong in any of these areas, your MoR is liable and takes the lead to resolve it for you.

If your payment gateway does not act as your MoR, then you’re on your own to:

• Calculate tax, collect tax from your customers, and remit those taxes to the local government — everywhere you do business.
• Understand and adhere to local transaction laws and regulations.
• Improve conversions with an optimized checkout flow.
• Handle chargebacks and fraud.
• And make myriad more checkout, payment, and risk decisions.

Many payment processors will provide an API or built-in integrations with other solutions that will help you with those things. However, you’ll have to manage that entire software stack and you’ll still be held liable for everything from paying taxes to fraud prevention to remaining compliant with regulations everywhere your customers live. 

If taxes aren’t paid correctly, for example, you may face huge fines or be prevented from transacting in that region. 

Once you’ve determined if the payment gateway also acts as an MoR, there are two other factors to consider:  

1. What countries they let you transact in (it will differ with each payment gateway provider).
2. How they maintain high authorization rates (there are many reasons a payment can fail, even if you have a good relationship with the card network).

Next, we’ll take a deep dive into how FastSpring acts as your MoR, then we’ll compare nine other international payment gateway providers.

FastSpring: Merchant of Record for Global SaaS, Software, Gaming, and Mobile App Companies

Expanding your business globally is a very complex process that includes everything from localizing your website to learning about each region’s laws and regulations. To add to the complexity, many of these systems and regulations constantly change. 

The tax landscape for digital goods companies has dramatically shifted. Where once businesses selling SaaS, software, and apps faced fewer obligations than traditional brick-and-mortar stores, they now often contend with more stringent tax requirements. To complicate matters further, tax rates and filing requirements at the local level can change regularly and without warning. Businesses must diligently monitor these shifting regulations to prevent significant penalties from late, missed, or incorrect payments. 

And this is just one piece of what you need to manage international transactions. 

With FastSpring, you can scale almost instantly to over 200+ regions, because we:

• Stay in good standing with dozens of payment providers around the world so you can accept popular local payment methods (including but not limited to Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH bank transfers, SEPA, Amazon Pay, Pix, AliPay, UPI, and more).
• Collect and remit indirect tax (including GST, VAT, SST, etc.) for every transaction and file all necessary tax returns for you. 
• Take on the responsibility of adhering to local transaction laws and regulations. Our team of legal experts stays up to date on all relevant legalities and makes sure all the necessary procedures are in place for collecting payments. 
• Handle currency conversions and checkout localization.

FastSpring is fully compliant with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Additionally, we renew our level one certification (which is the highest level possible) with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) every year. FastSpring also conducts an annual SOC 2 Type II assessment.

Visit FastSpring’s Trust Center for more information.

In the following sections, we cover in detail how FastSpring helps you: 

• Achieve high authorization rates in 200+ regions with advanced payment failure handling and local payment methods.
• Increase conversions with an optimized checkout experience.
• Reduce involuntary churn with proactive dunning.
• Handle complex billing logic and free trials without code.
• Scale quickly with transparent flat-rate pricing.

Achieve High Authorization Rates in 200+ Regions with Advanced Payment Failure Handling and Local Payment Processing

Many companies are able to maintain high authorization rates in their home country but quickly see a decline in authorization rates when they expand internationally. 

This is because transacting globally is much more complicated — so more things can go wrong. 

For example, the card network or issuing bank could mark the transaction as suspicious (and therefore deny authorization) because the seller isn’t in the same country as the buyer.

It can be very difficult — and a drain on resources — to identify what’s making the payments fail and find a way to solve those issues on your own. 

As your payment processing solution and MoR, FastSpring takes care of maintaining high authorization rates for you. Here are two ways that we maintain high authorization rates. 

1. Payment Processor Rerouting

While payments can fail for simple reasons like low funds or inaccurate payment details, payments can also fail because of network or system failures. If a payment fails on the first attempt, FastSpring tries again using a secondary processor. While this won’t solve issues like low funds, it often solves the issue of network or system failures. 

2. Local Payment Processors

Card networks and issuing banks are more likely to authorize transactions when the payment processor is in the same country as the buyer. FastSpring connects with multiple international payment gateways and uses intelligent payment routing to send payments through the gateway that offers the highest authorization rates for that location (and payment method).

Increase Conversions With an Optimized Checkout Experience

Before the payment details are even sent to the payment gateway, there are many reasons a customer may abandon the checkout process. For example:  

• They have to create an account in order to purchase and don’t want to.
• Additional fees and taxes are added but not clearly labeled, so the customer doesn’t know why the price is different.
• The checkout screen isn’t clearly labeled as secure, so the customer doesn’t feel safe entering personal information.
• Checkout translation and localization is incorrect, inconsistent, or missing, so the customer questions the store’s legitimacy.

FastSpring helps you reduce checkout abandonment and improve conversion rates with:

• Localized checkout. FastSpring can automatically convert currency for you, or you can choose your own fixed price for each product in each currency. You can let FastSpring select the language and local currency based on the customer’s location, set your own language and currency for each, or allow customers to select their preference from the 21+ languages and many local currencies FastSpring supports.

• Complete visual customization with Store Builder Library (SBL). Most payment gateways only provide checkout templates with a few basic options for customization (like adding your logo or choosing from a preset list of colors). FastSpring gives you the tools, functionality, and personalized support needed to customize, brand, and streamline your entire checkout flow. (We also provide a pre-built template that is optimized for high conversion rates.)
• An embedded, pop-up, or web storefront checkout. With FastSpring, you can embed checkout directly on your website, insert a popup 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. 

Reduce Involuntary Churn With Proactive Dunning Management and Revenue Recovery

Successfully converting potential buyers to paying customers is just the first step. For SaaS businesses, additional payment issues often come up between that initial purchase and subsequent billings. The most common way to deal with payment failures is to simply notify the customer; however, you’ll need to do more — like send out multiple reminders — if you want to significantly reduce involuntary churn.

FastSpring provides flexible dunning management, which includes: 

• Proactive reminders to update payment information. FastSpring will notify customers with flexible, custom email reminders when their debit or credit card is expiring. You can use our pre-made email template or customize your own message to be sent two, five, seven, 14, and 21 days after the initial failure.
• Multiple automatic payment retries. Before sending out each reminder, FastSpring automatically retries the existing payment method, minimizing disruption for customers and protecting your business from unnecessary failed transactions. 

• Easy to access self-serve Customer Account Portal. FastSpring provides an easy-to-access website where your customers can view their complete order history and manage their subscriptions and payment methods. This self-serve website is entirely managed by FastSpring, but the appearance of the portal will match the branding of your checkout to provide customers with a cohesive and user-friendly customer experience.

You can choose how many reminders it takes before the customer’s service is paused. We’ve found that allowing the service to continue through the first several reminders reduces involuntary churn and provides a better user experience. 

After the final reminder, you have the flexibility to choose whether to pause or cancel their service if they fail to update their payment information. Pausing their service makes it easier for them to restart service without going through the entire onboarding process again. 

Handle Complex Billing Logic and Trials Without Code

Building out recurring billing logic internally is often a drain on developer time, and it’s difficult to maintain. While some international payment gateways will support subscription billing, most providers only offer basic options (e.g., a free trial that automatically turns into monthly billing).

FastSpring, on the other hand, offers a wide variety of flexible subscription management options for free trials, billing periods, and payment — built specifically with SaaS and digital product companies in mind. Here’s an overview of the options you have with FastSpring’s recurring billing feature: 

• Free or paid trial periods of any length.
• Trials with or without collecting payment information upfront.
• Upsells, cross-sells, one-time add-ons, and discounts.
• Prorated billing to accommodate mid-cycle upgrades — or downgrades.
• Automatic weekly, monthly, yearly, or custom recurring billing cycles.
• Automatic or manual renewal.
• Automatic failure handling, notifications, and retries to reduce involuntary churn.
• B2B digital invoicing.
• And many more.

Most of these options can be set up in just a few clicks, without writing any code.

If you need custom subscription logic, you’ll have access to our API and webhooks library. Plus, our experienced developers are readily available to help you create the best solution for your business model.

Don’t forget: Without a global MoR like FastSpring, you’re responsible for ensuring your recurring billing models follow any and all local transaction laws and regulations. FastSpring handles this — and takes on the associated liability — for you.

Note: If you already have subscriptions set up on another ecommerce platform, our team can help you migrate over to FastSpring. Learn more here.

Related: Create, Manage, and Localize Your Digital Invoices

Scale Quickly With a Single Comprehensive Package 

With most payment processors, you’ll have to add additional software to your stack to manage recurring billing, taxes, dunning, etc. Additionally, many payment processors charge extra for each feature beyond processing payments. This makes it difficult to know what you’ll be paying, and the costs can rack up quickly as you grow.

FastSpring doesn’t charge extra for each feature. With FastSpring, you get access to the entire platform — and all services — for one simple, flat-rate price. Instead of charging per feature, our team works with you to find an affordable, monthly fee based on the volume of transactions you move through FastSpring. Plus, you won’t need to pay for or manage any additional software or headcount to handle things such as sales tax and VAT.

FastSpring is more than just an international payment gateway or payment services provider — we’re a merchant of record that can help grow your business internationally. 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.

8 Other International Payment Gateways and Other Payments Options

Verifone

Verifone (formerly 2Checkout) is a secure payment platform for digital goods and retail. Their solutions include: 

• Subscription management.
• Reporting and analytics.
• Global tax and financial services.
• Risk management and compliance.
• Partner sales channel management.

Some of these features are offered for an additional price as an add-on. Verifone is the only other option in this list that offers MoR services. They let you choose between an MoR model and payment service provider model. 

Stripe

Stripe is a popular cross-border payment processing platform that offers many different solutions, including: 

• A prebuilt or customizable payment form and checkout flow.
• Simple subscription management.
• Fraud prevention and risk management.
• Online invoicing.
• In-person payments.

Stripe can also assist you in issuing virtual and physical cards and help you manage business spend. It’s also fairly easy to set up and integrate with other systems. However, Stripe does not act as an MoR, and many of their features are à la carte and must be bundled, which can create a higher cost than it initially appears.

PayPal

PayPal is both a payment processor and a popular digital wallet (not an MoR). PayPal supports online businesses and brick-and-mortar businesses, with services including: 

• QR code and POS systems.
• Invoicing.
• Installment payment management.
• Support for preferred payment methods (other than PayPal’s digital wallet).
• Crypto payments.
• Risk management and chargeback protection.

PayPal now also has Braintree under its umbrella as PayPal Enterprise Payments.

Authorize.net

Authorize.net offers payment solutions for ecommerce merchants and in-person sales. Authorize.net’s products include: 

• Recurring payments.
• Virtual and mobile point of sale.
• Online payment processing.
• Advanced fraud detection.
• Simple checkout button.

They offer a package for payment gateways, or you can choose a bundle that includes a merchant account (different from a business bank account). Authorize.net serves companies in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

Adyen

Adyen is an end-to-end payment processing, data, and financial management solution. Here’s an overview of Adyen’s features:

• Online and in-person debit card and credit card payments.
• Fraud detection.
• Intelligent payment routing.
• Automated dunning.
• Subscription management.

Adyen serves companies offering digital goods, transportation services, retail, food and beverage, hospitality, and SaaS and subscription businesses. 

WorldPay (Formerly by FIS)

WorldPay, a global payment processing solution, announced in February 2024 that it had separated from Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. to become its own independent company. WorldPay’s features include:

• Hosted payment page.
• Multi-currency support.
• Support for many alternative payment methods, including mobile payments, digital wallets, pre-pay, and more.
• 24/7 support in most global regions.

While WorldPay can give you instant global reach, payment processing is just one of their many offerings, so you may not receive as personalized attention as if you used a more specialized payments company or MoR. 

Amazon Pay

Amazon Pay lets your customers use the account they’ve already set up on Amazon to pay you. When customers go to checkout on your ecommerce site, they’ll see Amazon Pay as an option and will be able to use the payment options and contact information already stored in their account. Amazon Pay includes: 

• Payment processing.
• Optimized checkout flow (modeled after Amazon’s own checkout experience).
• Recurring billing and subscription management.
• Fraud protection.
• Express payouts.

You do not need to become a seller on Amazon Marketplace to use Amazon Pay. Amazon Pay may be a good option for small businesses and online stores that are just getting started. 

Note: You can accept Amazon Pay with FastSpring. 

Checkout.com

Checkout.com offers: 

• Payment processing.
• Fraud detection.
• Chargeback protection and dispute management.
• Customizable checkout blocks and mobile SDK.

They also offer flexible incoming payment options that let you choose how to allocate money from split payments to commission fees. Checkout.com partners with over 50+ other vendors so you can build your global payment system. 

Looking at International Payment Gateways for Your SaaS, Software, Video Games, or Digital Products Business? 

Let FastSpring be your merchant of record!

If you’re looking for an international payments solution that lets you manage every aspect of global SaaS payments from one platform — and handles taxes and compliance for you — FastSpring can help.

Our all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, and digital products businesses includes VAT and sales tax management, payment and checkout localization, and customer support — so you can focus on building a great product. Interested? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

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

The post International Payment Gateways: An In-Depth Guide and 9 Payments Options appeared first on FastSpring.

So, what can digital goods companies do to break into these markets effectively? 

Supporting country-specific debit networks, mobile wallets, and bank transfer schemes gives buyers seamless and trusted payment options. In turn, businesses gain access to the entire global market, boosting conversion and revenue along the way.

But don’t take our word for it; the results from a Baymard study speak for themselves:

• Businesses that enable regionally preferred payment methods see 21% higher growth rates than those that don’t.
• Websites that localize pricing twice the conversion rate of those that do not.
• 76% of shoppers prefer sites that display pricing in their home currency, which directly impacts buying decisions.

Global Payments: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

While credit cards are the default in most Western markets, they are far from the norm in high-growth regions like India, Brazil, and Asia-Pacific. In these markets, the rise of mobile-first economies has fundamentally changed how consumers pay for goods and services.

Take India, for example. With over 700 million Internet users and counting according to a Nielsen study, India has leapfrogged traditional banking models in favor of mobile-driven financial services. Credit card penetration remains strikingly low — fewer than 5% of Indians own a credit card according to Times of India — due to strict banking requirements, limited access to credit, and a consumer preference for real-time, bank-linked transactions. 

Instead, UPI (Unified Payments Interface) has become the dominant force, processing over 75% of all digital retail transactions. UPI’s success is primarily due to its seamless, mobile-first experience, allowing users to make instant payments via mobile apps like Google Pay and Apple Pay without requiring a credit card. 

For businesses looking to capture the Indian market, supporting UPI has become a requirement.

The shift away from credit cards isn’t unique to India. Digital payments have also taken center stage in Brazil, with Pix emerging as the country’s most-used payment method. Launched by the Central Bank of Brazil, Pix now has 153 million users and has been adopted by 68% of mobile wallet users in the country. The appeal? Instant, fee-free transactions that work 24/7. 

For businesses selling in Brazil, integrating Pix is critical to reaching the majority of digital consumers who prefer bank transfers over traditional card payments.

Beyond Pix, Brazil’s payment ecosystem also relies heavily on local card networks like Elo and Hipercard, which serve a broad consumer base and can be offered only if you have local acquiring. Elo is the third-largest card scheme in the country, while Hipercard remains widely used, particularly among lower-income consumers who may not have access to international credit cards. Companies that fail to support these preferred payment methods risk high cart abandonment rates and lost revenue.

A Merchant of Record Handles Local Payment Methods for You

Partnering with a merchant of record (MoR) with a focus on the right local payment methods opens up emerging markets to companies looking for growth. With FastSpring, companies gain instant access to these key benefits:

• Local Acquiring and Card Schemes:
  • Higher Conversion Rate: Get improved transaction success rates, due to local acquiring.
  • Access to additional market share: Around 20% of Brazilian customers use local cards like ELO.

As global digital commerce expands, one-size-fits-all payment strategies no longer work. Businesses that fail to tailor their payment options to match consumer behavior in these high-growth regions will struggle to scale. 

By integrating UPI in India, local cards in Brazil, and other country-specific payment methods around the globe, companies can unlock new revenue streams, improve conversion rates, and build trust with their global customer base.

FastSpring’s Expanded Local Payment Support

At FastSpring, we know that seamless transactions drive conversion and revenue. However, not all payment methods drive the same results in every market. That’s why we take a data-driven, market-specific approach to expanding our global payment capabilities. We focus on methods that improve approval rates and cross-border transaction successes by aligning our strategy with how customers in each region prefer to pay.

Our goal is simple: to give you the payment methods that generate meaningful revenue. To do this, we continuously analyze payment data, market trends, and consumer behaviors to identify where demand is shifting. That’s why we’ve expanded our support to include:

• UPI in India: Meeting the needs of a mobile-first economy where credit cards are rare and real-time, bank-based payments dominate.
  
• Pix and Brazilian Local Cards (Elo & Hipercard): Unlocking Brazil’s vast digital economy by supporting the most widely used bank-transfer system (Pix) alongside local card networks.
  
• New Taiwanese Dollar (TWD) Currency Support: Expanding cross-border sales potential in Taiwan’s growing digital economy.

But we don’t stop at just adding payment options — we go one step deeper. 

We collaborate with our payment partners to understand the nuances of different industries and how customer preferences vary even within the same country. 

While Konbini is Japan’s most commonly used payment method, gaming customers overwhelmingly prefer PayPay. The same applies in South Korea, where Toss has gained more traction in gaming than Naverpay. By tailoring our offerings based on real-world payment behavior, we help businesses maximize approval rates, reduce friction at checkout, and drive higher conversions.

Expanding global sales isn’t just about accepting more payment methods — it’s about accepting the right ones. With FastSpring, you get a partner that helps your business position itself for success in the world’s fastest-growing digital markets.

Trusted Payment Methods Reduce Friction

Beyond our expanded payment support, FastSpring continues to provide comprehensive payment solutions that cater to global businesses:

• Automatic Currency and Payment Method Localization: Our system dynamically presents customers with the most relevant payment methods and currencies based on their location, increasing trust and conversion rates.
• Expansive Support for Global Currencies and Payment Methods: This includes AliPay, Pix, WeChat Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and more, ensuring businesses can process payments seamlessly in high-growth regions.
• Data-Driven Optimization: FastSpring analyzes payment trends to continually refine and expand its payment offerings, helping businesses stay ahead of market demands.

By providing trusted payment methods, reducing friction, and delivering a localized experience, businesses can enhance customer confidence, streamline transactions, and foster brand loyalty.

Go Global With FastSpring

Expanding into new markets doesn’t have to be complex. With FastSpring’s expanded payment capabilities, you can offer the right payment methods at the right time to tap into high-growth economies, reduce cart abandonment, and increase revenue.

Ready to maximize your global reach?

Partner with FastSpring and make every transaction count.

The post Use FastSpring’s Expanded Local Payment Methods to Grow Revenue in New Markets appeared first on FastSpring.

To succeed in these regions, businesses must support local payment methods–like debit networks, mobile wallets, and bank transfers that locals already trust. Doing so removes friction, increases conversion rates, and drives new revenue.

That’s why we’re launching several key updates in our Spring 2025 release, including:

• UPI Support.
• New Taiwan Dollar (TWD) Support.
• Hipercard and Elo Support in Brazil.
• Checkout Conversion Dashboard.
• Improved Checkout Customizations.

UPI Support Opens the Door to 350M+ Digital Buyers

As a mobile-first economy, and with Indian regulations that are unfriendly to foreign-made payment methods, India’s digital consumer market is heavily reliant on government backed payment rails like UPI. Easy-to-use on mobile, and used by more than 90% of India’s online buyers, UPI eliminates purchase friction for buyers and opens up the vast majority of the Indian market to outside companies. 

With UPI, FastSpring users can:

• Replace low-converting card payments with instant, secure UPI transactions.
• Comply with Indian financial regulations and avoid foreign card blocks.

Learn More about UPI.

Offer Localized Experiences in Emerging Markets With Local Brazilian Cards and TWD in Taiwan

Websites that localize pricing have twice the conversion rate of those that don’t. To further help businesses who are expanding across the globe, we’ve added additional payment methods in Brazil with support for local cards like Elo and Hipercard on top of the domestic only Visa and MasterCard cards as well as enabling TWD in Taiwan. (Coming Q2 2025)

Learn more about Brazilian Cards and TWD.

Track Conversions in Real Time With the Checkout Conversion Dashboard

When selling products, understanding key points in the buyer journey is essential to improving conversion rates. With FastSpring’s new Checkout Conversion Dashboard, get a clear visualization of your users’ checkout conversion journey through monitoring user Sessions, Orders, and Completed Orders. Plus, pinpoint where buyers drop off and why.

With Checkout Conversion Dashboard, FastSpring users can:

• Visualize performance of products across an Area and Funnel Chart.
• Filter data by timeframe, product, country, and segment.
• Understand key points in the buyer journey like Sessions, Orders, and Completed Orders.

Learn more about Checkout Conversion Dashboard.

Improve Conversion Rates With Popup Checkout Themes and New Embedded Options

Brand cohesion throughout the entire purchase journey is a key lever in improving conversion rates. To better support our users, we’ve released the first of our new themes: Dark Theme. This brings a dark mode checkout to our modal popup offering that can be enabled by a simple toggle in checkout settings. Plus, we’ve streamlined our embedded checkout to simplify data entry and remove unnecessary checkout steps.

With the Spring Checkout Improvements, FastSpring users can:

• Match their checkout theme to their site’s branding for a more cohesive buyer experience.
• Reduce required steps in embedded checkout with a single field for MM/YY, fewer input fields, and improved usability icons (Coming Q2 2025)

Learn more about Checkout Customization.

With support for region-specific payments and tools to improve every step of your funnel, FastSpring makes it easier to scale globally, no matter the market you’re expanding into. Ready to learn more? Schedule some time with FastSpring today.

The post FastSpring Launches Support for Indian Payment Method UPI and More Market Expansion Features With Its Spring Product Releases appeared first on FastSpring.

Or, you can simplify the system with one global merchant of record. 

When Excire became a popular enough product line that it was being sold in both Europe and the U.S., Managing Director Mathias Martinetz and CTO Thomas Käster knew their current online checkout setup — having one solution for Europe and one for the U.S. — was not efficient. 

“And we had a lot of manual work,” Mathias says. “Basically, each and every sale had to be manually organized and given to our tax advisor.”

And if they wanted to continue scaling their business and expanding into more countries, they needed a better system. 

That’s when they discovered the merchant of record model and, subsequently, FastSpring.

Completely switching online commerce systems can be daunting, especially when switching from one type (such as a very basic online checkout or web shop system) to another (such as a comprehensive merchant of record). But Mathias and Thomas did their due diligence, and they’re glad they found FastSpring.

Here’s what they did to ensure they’d find the right merchant of record (MoR) and have a successful transition.

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, video game, 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.

Excire Needed a Simpler Payments and Taxes System

Excire is an award-winning line of photo and video management software products that help photographers organize, find, and cull their photos at lightning speed. With Excire Foto as a standalone product or with Excire Search as an Adobe Lightroom plugin, photographers can leverage meta data and AI for keyword search, facial recognition, grouping shots, image analysis, and more.

As the product line grew in popularity and the team was able to move from only selling Excire in Europe to selling it in the U.S., they found themselves with two separate shop systems. 

“As we were growing and wanted to grow more, we were looking for a solution that would allow us to have only one shop, but that could also be used around the world,” Mathias recalls. 

Thomas adds, “We encountered some technical challenges, which is to be expected when managing an ecommerce system independently. Additionally, we faced issues with our tax workflows, which were no longer sufficient to support the level of growth and scaling we had already achieved.”

They appreciated the value of offering localized currencies and payments to buyers, but as it was already unwieldy to have two online shops for two regions, they didn’t want to add more shops as they moved into new regions. They also knew they didn’t like managing all the sales taxes the way they had been, and that more growth would only make that even more difficult.

There had to be a better way, so they started looking around to see what other companies were using. 

Similar Software Companies Recommended FastSpring

Mathias and Thomas reached out to some contacts of theirs at another software company, and that company referred them to FastSpring. 

“The interesting thing for us is,” Thomas says, “if I see similar companies using FastSpring in the same way as we’d like to use it, that’s a good sign that FastSpring was the right decision for us.”

Without having to think for very long about it, they can easily list a handful of software companies in their industry who also use FastSpring, which makes them even more confident about their decision. 

Talk to Similar Businesses About THEIR Experiences

Besides just noting that many businesses like theirs were already using FastSpring, Mathias and Thomas recommend asking them for more information about what it’s actually like to use a particular payments platform or merchant of record. “Get their experience,” Mathias advises. 

Thomas adds, “In the end, you never know, right? When you decide to switch off an existing technical system completely and onto a completely new system, you never know if it will be the right decision.” So besides just observing what your own competitors are using, reach out to businesses you’re friendly with and “Talk a lot to the people.”

Pay Attention to the Responsiveness of Each MoR’s Team as You Begin Reaching Out

Excire was fortunate to have a very short list of possible ecommerce solutions, as FastSpring seemed like the clear winner just based on how many other companies were already using it. 

But if you have a few options on your list — or if you want to validate that the one you’re leaning toward is eager to meet your needs – you can learn a lot from how a possible vendor’s team responds to your initial inquiry. 

This may seem counterintuitive, as most people and organizations will be eager to ensure the first experience you have with them is excellent. And Thomas says that it’s not always easy to make a decision based on those first impressions. 

But he clarifies, “Even from a first impression, the FastSpring team does a better job than the competitors.” The Excire team had also approached an MoR company that had a team based in Germany, so Thomas and Mathias could speak with that team in their native language. 

“But the first contact with them was not as good as the first contact with FastSpring,” he continues. Besides the technical requirements he wanted to ensure were met, “The way the team took care was very important for the final decision to go with FastSpring.”

Define Your Needs Clearly and Communicate Them to Potential Vendors

Observing competitors, talking to similar businesses, and initiating contact with various vendors are all important parts of the external planning phase when evaluating a new ecommerce system, but there’s an important internal planning phase too. 

As Chief Technical Officer, Thomas is very hands on with the technical aspects of their various systems, so he knows how important it is to know what you need and communicate that to potential payments platforms. 

He explains it this way: “Summarize and describe your own necessities, or the aspects that are most important to you. Especially, what are the requirements of such an ecommerce system? When you explain it in the best way you can, then you’ll get the best, most concrete answer from the FastSpring team.”

There were several sessions back and forth between the Excire team and FastSpring as they worked through the technical details of what their team needed and how FastSpring could meet those needs. Thomas said those sessions helped them “come to the point where we were really sure about our decision to go with FastSpring.”

He continues, “I guess this is something every company needs to do on its own first: to check all the aspects that are important to them, and to communicate those aspects in a clear manner.” 

Besides wanting to combine their international payment systems into one simpler system that could continue expanding their global sales, Thomas and Mathias were also looking closely at competitive pricing, payment failure systems, ease of international pricing management, newsletter systems, subscription capabilities, and integrations. 

The Excire team also found FastSpring’s pricing better than the other merchants of record they evaluated.

Upgrade to a Merchant of Record Like FastSpring

It was looking at and talking to companies similar to Excire that tipped off Mathias and Thomas to the merchant of record model as the answer to their global payments and taxes question.

“That’s how we found out that the solution could be a merchant of record,” Mathias says. “So that’s how we got more into it and found out that there is an advantage: that all tax and currency related activities can be handled much, much easier than if we would do it on our own.”

Switching from separate systems for different regions to one global solution would be an upgrade, but finding an ecommerce model that also managed sales taxes and VAT for Excire sales would provide an even greater improvement to their operations.

FastSpring has also made many of the smaller, day-to-day management tasks easier. For example, Mathias says that “We can easily define prices worldwide; that’s quite smooth. And it was helpful to implement a subscription model, right, Thomas?” 

“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Thomas adds.

When Excire initially launched on FastSpring in 2023, they ran into some challenges with email and analytics integrations. The FastSpring team worked hard to meet Mathias’ and Thomas’ needs, prioritizing additional help for the Excire store integrations and finding ways to meet their needs.

Thomas says of their more recent subscription launch, “This kind of integration was very easy.” He says that their integration requirements may be more complicated to fulfill than some companies’, but that the communication between FastSpring and their licensing vendor has been “really easy and robust.”

Partner With FastSpring to Simplify Your International Software Sales

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 How Excire Simplified Their International Software Sales (and Taxes) With FastSpring appeared first on FastSpring.

However, navigating these expansion journeys requires strategic planning, local market knowledge, and the right technology infrastructure.

In this guide, we explore five proven strategies that successful LATAM companies have used to establish their presence in Western EU and U.S. markets, with practical insights on overcoming common challenges.

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

5 Ways LATAM Companies Can Accelerate Their Growth in US and EU Markets

1. Localize Your Payment Infrastructure

One of the most critical factors for successful market entry is adapting your payment infrastructure to meet local expectations and requirements.

Why it matters: Payment preferences vary significantly across regions. While cards dominate in the U.S. (with credit and debit cards accounting for a total of 62% of all payments), European consumers often prefer local payment methods like iDEAL in the Netherlands or Klarna in Sweden.

Success strategy: 

Implement a flexible payment platform (such as a merchant of record) that supports:

• Multiple currencies with dynamic pricing.
• Region-specific payment methods.
• Local tax compliance automation.
• Subscription management across different regulations.

2. Adapt Your Go-to-Market Strategy for Each Region

The marketing and sales approaches that work in LATAM markets often need significant adjustment for Western markets.

Why it matters: Business cultures, buying processes, and customer expectations differ substantially between regions. U.S. businesses typically have faster decision cycles but demand more comprehensive support, while EU organizations often have longer, more committee-driven purchasing processes.

Success strategy:

• Develop region-specific value propositions.
• Adjust pricing strategies based on local market conditions.
• Create localized content marketing strategies.
• Build region-appropriate sales cycles.

3. Navigate Complex Regulatory Landscapes

Companies often face significant regulatory hurdles when expanding to EU and U.S. markets.

Why it matters: Western European markets operate under GDPR, while different U.S. states have varying data protection laws. Additionally, each region has specific requirements regarding financial transactions, business registration, and consumer rights.

Success strategy:

• Implement comprehensive subscription management systems with built-in compliance.
• Automate tax collection and reporting.
• Develop clear data handling policies that meet different regional requirements.
• Partner with experts who understand multi-regional compliance.

4. Build Strategic Partnerships in Target Markets

Successful LATAM companies rarely enter Western markets alone — they leverage strategic partnerships.

Why it matters: Local partners provide invaluable market knowledge, established distribution channels, and credibility in new markets where your brand may be unknown.

Success strategy:

• Identify complementary businesses in target markets.
• Create joint offerings that leverage each company’s strengths.
• Establish integration partnerships with popular local platforms.
• Consider channel sales models where appropriate.

5. Implement Scalable Subscription and Pricing Models

The subscription economy has revolutionized how software and digital services are sold globally, but requirements vary significantly by region.

Why it matters: Different markets have varying tolerance for pricing levels, subscription terms, and billing frequencies. Additionally, managing subscriptions across multiple currencies and tax jurisdictions presents significant operational challenges.

Success strategy:

• Create flexible subscription management systems.
• Implement smart dunning processes to reduce voluntary and involuntary churn.
• Automate currency conversion and regional pricing.
• Build analytics dashboards to track performance by region.
• Design subscription models that align with regional expectations.

The Technology Foundation for Global Expansion

At the core of successful international expansion lies the right technology infrastructure. Many LATAM companies falter not because their product isn’t competitive, but because their backend systems can’t handle the complexities of multi-regional operations.

Key technology requirements include:

• Supporting regional payment methods.
• Multi-currency support with automatic exchange rate updates.
• Global tax calculation and compliance automation.
• Localized checkout experiences.
• Subscription management across different regulatory environments.
• Fraud prevention adapted to regional risk profiles.

Ready to Take Your LATAM Business Global?

Expanding from Latin America into Western European and U.S. markets represents a tremendous growth opportunity, but it requires careful planning and the right infrastructure. The most successful companies recognize that payment processing, subscription management, and compliance aren’t just operational details — they’re strategic advantages when implemented correctly.

FastSpring’s all-in-one merchant of record platform is designed specifically to help companies like yours navigate international expansion with confidence. Our platform handles the complexities of global payments, subscription management, tax compliance, and fraud prevention, allowing you to focus on what you do best: building great products and services.

Talk with a FastSpring expert today to create your customized global expansion strategy and learn how our platform can accelerate your growth in Western European and U.S. markets.

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

The post 5 Proven Strategies for LATAM Companies to Successfully Enter Western EU and US Markets appeared first on FastSpring.

A good ecommerce website should be structured in a way that successfully communicates product features, value proposition, and market placement while eliminating distractions in order to reduce the time for the visitor to make up their mind.

The goal is to reduce friction in order to make it easy — or easier — to purchase. There are a few simple ways to help make this happen.

6 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

1. Appearance and User Experience of Your Website

Websites should be easy to navigate, featuring user-friendly, branded color schemes and fonts. They should balance text, images and illustrations, and empty spaces. We recommend following industry and product-specific design trends while keeping your branding in mind.

2. Menu and Pricing Page

Your website menu should be easily identifiable, with a direct link to a product page and a pricing page. 

The pricing page is a key element to the ease of purchase. For SaaS companies, most pricing pages will offer different tiers. Each tier should clarify what features are included.

The goal is to drive customers not just to purchase, but to purchase the most suitable product, which is why sellers should also highlight a “top pick.”

Pricing pages are also where sellers can highlight testimonials, link to FAQ and cancellation policy pages, and display other elements strategic to the purchase. 

Need more pricing page recommendations and examples? Check out our blog for Pricing Strategies to Combat Stagflation or Best-in-Class SaaS Pricing Pages: 2022 Report.

3. Purchase Clicks

Reducing the number of clicks needed to complete a purchase is important for simplifying the buying process. This minimizes the time visitors take to decide by providing a seamless buying journey. 

Some sources say that the fewer clicks, the better. However, this may vary depending on your business. Experts recommend using heatmaps to understand how your audience is interacting with your website and making decisions based on that. 

4. Checkout Process

The checkout process should be simple while also increasing the buyer’s confidence in the purchase. FastSpring offers three customizable checkout options: the web storefront, the popup storefront, and our latest and more native checkout type, the embedded storefront. All checkouts allow you to add a logo, specify the amount of customer information required, and much more.

We process payments securely on your behalf, giving your buyers access to a wide range of payment options to choose from, which are displayed based on their location.

5. CTAs

Clear and strategically placed calls to action (CTAs) are also important. These buttons need to provide a clear indication of the action they will trigger when clicked. 

Single buttons are preferable to multiple buttons. For example, the most successful designs don’t include a “Go back” option but only allow users to move forward in the process.

The placement of buttons depends on what you want the user to see first. Since left-to-right reading people generally read in an F-shaped pattern, and since most users are right-handed, the button should be placed in the bottom right corner if it needs to be at the end of a section.

We recommend encouraging the buyer to make a purchase whenever feasible. Having a Buy button on the homepage — and potentially on every page — is a great way to enhance conversions.

6. Website Localization

Website localization is very important when it comes to targeting a larger audience and increasing the confidence and trust of visitors. 

• Language Localization: Most sellers will simply route their customers to the localized website based on their IP address. Others will have a menu with the option to select a different language or region. FastSpring allows merchants to customize the checkout language (as well as the language used for buyer emails) in order to provide a localized experience. 
• Currency Localization: It is important to rely on a partner like FastSpring that will localize the payment experience for your buyers, both on the pricing page (using our Store Builder Library options) and on the checkout (by offering the local currency and relevant payment methods options). 

You can discover more about our language and currency localization options here. 

Ongoing Conversion Rate Optimization

Once a customer arrives on your website, maximizing conversion chances is crucial. An effective ecommerce site clearly communicates product features and value propositions while minimizing distractions. By simplifying navigation, using clear CTAs, and optimizing the checkout process, you create a seamless experience that encourages quick and confident purchases. This approach enhances user satisfaction and boosts conversion rates, contributing to sustained business growth. 

Each business and customer is unique, so continuously A/B test website changes and analyze data to find the best solutions for you.

Not yet benefiting from the award-winning support FastSpring provides for software companies and their customers? 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.

The post 6 Essential Strategies for Maximizing Conversion Rates appeared first on FastSpring.

Pricing your software as a service (SaaS) can be hard enough even during the best of times, but figuring out how to dial in the right pricing to drive more revenue in times of stagflation can be even more challenging.

This article offers tips for optimizing pricing and packaging of your SaaS products in a less-than-stellar economy:

• What is stagflation?
• Using your pricing model to fight stagflation.
• Optimizing your SaaS Pricing Strategy for new MRR vs. net revenue retention.
• Test creative SaaS pricing model combinations to unlock revenue.
• Inflation isn’t flat: Vary your strategy.
• How FastSpring can help.

FastSpring helps SaaS and software companies sell around the world. Our all-in-one payment platform includes a best-in-class localized checkout, subscription management, global tax management, reporting and analytics tools, and more. Sign up for a free account or request a demo to learn more.

What Is Stagflation? 

Succinctly put, stagflation is an economic condition affected by three key factors:

• Low growth. 📉
• High inflation. 📈
• High unemployment. 📈 

This means there’s more pressure than ever on: 

• The wallets of prospects you want to attract. 🧲
• The wallets of existing customers you’d like to see upgrade. ⬆️

That’s why carefully considering your SaaS pricing model becomes crucial if you want to continue growing your business in a tight economy. 

Using Your SaaS Pricing Model to Fight Stagflation 

The easiest answer is to raise your prices, and you wouldn’t be alone if you did so.

Over a third of FastSpring’s SaaS, software, and digital goods customers raised prices in the last year. 

Interestingly, SaaS companies tend to raise prices higher than the rate of inflation.

Pulling this lever — no surprise — generally works to increase revenue, even though it can be a tricky move to make when many customers have less money to spend in a stagflation economy.

But reconsidering pricing and packaging is also one of the most under-optimized levers in SaaS. 

Why Raise Prices? Why Not Try Something Else? 

There are plenty of other levers you could pull to try to increase revenue when the market is tight, besides increasing your pricing. 

Increasing acquisition, increasing conversion rates, and reducing churn are all possible options. 

However, all of those options take a lot of work in the form of cross-functional time and energy to implement them. 

If you consider the effort and resources that need to be invested in increasing acquisition or decreasing churn through strategies such as product-led growth (PLG) or bolstered customer success efforts, it can become a slow and potentially overwhelming process, illustrated here by medium and large t-shirts:

Each of those medium and large t-shirts represent the amount of effort, resources, etc. it takes to implement PLG and customer success efforts in a way that will increase customer acquisition and decrease churn.

But product pricing changes take very little effort and can be done very quickly, as signified by the small t-shirt above. 

As Patrick McKenzie points out, it can be as simple as replacing a smaller number with a bigger number:

All things considered, changing your pricing may be the easiest, simplest change you can make when your business needs to increase revenue quickly.

Optimizing Your SaaS Pricing Strategy for New MRR vs. Net Revenue Retention: The Growth Mustache

As you consider implementing different pricing, an additional factor to keep in mind is whether you want to optimize for new MRR, or for net revenue retention — or both.

Enter the “growth mustache.” 

The growth mustache is a sideways bracket that a former CFO of mine always referred to. (I added the “mustache” descriptor, because, well, it looks like a mustache to me.) 

Growth is driven by new monthly recurring revenue (MRR), or new customers coming in, and by net revenue retention (NRR), or how much of your existing customers’ MRR or ARR you are retaining or growing. 

And if your NRR is over 100%, that’s a multiplier to your profits, but it’s also a multiplier to your valuation.

Generally, there’s operational leverage with different pricing and packaging, but you also know you’re in an environment where customers may have less money coming in and more money going out. How you change your pricing could affect your ability to gain new customers, retain and grow existing customers, or both, so keep this in mind as you start making changes.

Test Creative SaaS Pricing Model Combinations to Unlock Revenue

Once you’ve decided that changing pricing options is the route to go, there are still a lot of ways you can experiment. Pay-as-you-go plans, per-feature pricing, freemium pricing models, flat-rate pricing versus usage-based pricing, per user plans — which is right for your SaaS business?

Here are a few options to consider, for starters: 

• SKUs:
  • Platform tiered plans
  • Product(s) tiered plans
  • Persona tiered plans
  • Single add-ons
  • Bundles of add-ons
• Entitlements:
  • Features
  • Usage
  • Support
• Pricing:
  • Price
  • Recurrence
  • Geography
  • Payment method
  • Discounts
  • Free trials

Look within those options for ways you can increase your operational leverage. 

For some, that means coming up with a buyer persona-based pricing plan that has a slightly higher average revenue per user (ARPU).

For others, that means including a new add-on that allows them to raise the price more.

For others yet, it may mean switching from a flat-rate pricing model or user-based pricing to a more dynamic feature-based or usage-based pricing structure.

Track the Effects of Any Changes to Your SaaS Pricing Strategy

Carefully monitor the effects of any changes to your SaaS pricing model using reporting and analytics tools. This is to ensure you know whether the changes are helping or harming your SaaS business revenue, your number of users, and other key metrics. It’s important to know exactly which metrics are important on their own or in combination. 

For example, if the customer base shrinks a little when there’s an increase in price point, but the remaining active users are paying a higher price and generating more revenue overall, some businesses might be thrilled with that change. 

But know which changes are important to your business model. A well-established SaaS business may have very different priorities than a startup has.

Success Is Spelled With 3 S’s

Often when we think of pricing and packaging, we couple our ability to make more revenue with our ability to create something new.

Take for example the innovation S curve: We make something; it grows in adoption; it plateaus. And it’s easy to get caught in the thinking that the only way to get a new revenue stream is to create a new product entirely. 

We can decouple that thinking and start thinking that new revenue S curves can be created by changing the packaging, plans, add-ons, and more, just by giving users new ways to purchase from you and use your platform.

If we further take into consideration a usage metric based on a value metric that has overages, those new plans and add-ons themselves can increase ARPU over time. 

SaaS Pricing and Packaging Add-Ons

Add-ons offer an easier path to increasing average revenue per user for both existing and new customers on a budget, because they can pick and choose what to purchase from you — rather than paying, say, flat-rate pricing for a larger package that includes a set of features they don’t want or need.

For example, are there existing entitlements you can sell as add-ons without creating any additional engineering work? Can one of those functions be sliced out to create a new SKU without making an entirely new product? 

Add-ons come in many varieties, so you can have many different add-ons or create multiple bundles of them. 

They come with risk — because they can depress your upgrade MRR if fewer people are upgrading to a larger package — but add-ons can be a powerful driver of NRR.

To mitigate that risk, carefully measure your upgrade and downgrade rates as you begin making changes to your packages and add-on offerings.

Additionally, you can also wait to pitch add-ons until after users have signed up for your core product. Once they’re using your product and like it — and once any additional purchases they make would qualify as upsells, which helps your net revenue retention numbers — pitch them add-ons that would further enhance their experience of using the product.

This allows customers to enter your SaaS product at a lower price point, and then it can help you build your MRR and ARPU through those upsells. 

And a lower initial price point can also help you gain an advantage when going after market share, too — especially if you can undercut competitors’ pricing a little.

Creating a New Pricing Tier to Drive Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)

Is it possible that the ARPU-boosting tier you need is one that exists between your existing plans? 

For example, if you have a tiered pricing model with $25, $150, and $300 options, maybe the right pricing tier to drive more revenue is somewhere in between, around $75. 

As mentioned above, if you choose to try this, track your results carefully! You may find a lot of $25 users will upgrade to the $75 plan to take advantage of a slightly bigger set of features, because while they never would have jumped from $25 to $150, a $75 option on your pricing page looks much more reasonable to them. But if you find lots of $150 users are also downgrading a tier to save money, it may not be worth it to maintain the new $75 plan. 

Segmenting SaaS Plans to Clarify the Value of Your Product and Increase ARPU

Another possibility is to segment your packaging based on very specific customer needs. 

For example, WP Engine is a managed WordPress platform that manages all kinds of sites, but they saw an opportunity to target WooCommerce users specifically, so they created a package that targeted just that audience. 

This allowed them to highlight customers’ needs within this one segment to capture their attention and get more signups. Over time, WP Engine was able to add more product value for those users, which increased WP Engine’s revenue.

Payment Frequency Increases Leverage

An annualized pricing option gives buyers the benefit of a discount by paying for a year up front, but it also gives you the benefit of reducing your churn rate while improving a customer’s overall lifetime value, or LTV. 

To further leverage this strategy, you can provide more aggressive annual pricing discounts for new subscribers or for those subscribers willing to switch from monthly fees to annual fees.

Intro period pricing can also make adoption easier for users. 

Tip: If you’re offering an Enterprise plan and the price point starts looking a little more expensive when paid for annually, try to keep that price below $5000. Many procurement departments have a policy of requiring team members to get approval for any purchases larger than that, so if you can keep prices below that threshold, it’s easier for users to easily make that purchase via credit card without jumping through internal hoops at their own companies. This can vary and isn’t a rule, but it’s a good guideline to try out.

Inflation Isn’t Flat: Vary Your Strategy

As you consider changing your SaaS company’s pricing strategy, potential customers’ willingness to pay isn’t the only thing to keep in mind. Inflation can vary a lot in a relatively short amount of time, and that variation can be further varied in every country or region. 

Financial headwinds as they relate to various geographies can mean that localization becomes more important if you offer your saas product internationally. 

Remove Unnecessary Purchasing Friction With Localization

Localization typically involves multiple aspects, including but not limited to:

• Accepting the preferred payments of the regions you’re selling into.
• Localizing the pricing. 
• Localizing the currency. 

Each of those comes with its own additional benefit not just for buyers, but for your profit margin as well.

If you’re not accepting the preferred payment method of the countries or regions you’re selling into, you could be leaving 5-10% on the table. For example, SaaS companies focusing on penetrating Europe should consider accepting SEPA direct debit payments as a payment method, since it’s a very common payment method there.

Localizing pricing converts at 2x for B2C SaaS companies. Just make sure you have a good justification for different pricing in different countries or regions, in case a potential customer manages to see more than one price.

Local currencies are easier to get approved and for the target market to understand. When new customers see your SaaS fees displayed in a currency they’re used to, it makes it that much easier for them to buy, removing the purchase friction of conversion math before making a decision. 

How FastSpring Can Help

FastSpring helps SaaS and software companies sell around the world. Our all-in-one payment platform includes a best-in-class localized checkout, subscription management, global tax management, reporting and analytics tools, and more. 

Learn how using a merchant of record can help you scale your digital goods, software, or SaaS business faster and remove many of the headaches of breaking into new markets and transacting across borders.

Sign up for a free account or request a demo to learn more.

The information in the above article was recently presented by David Vogelpohl in a webinar hosted by Cumul.io. Watch the original presentation on their YouTube channel.

Want more info on SaaS product pricing and packaging in a stagflation economy? Check out our previous presentation (and podcast episode) with account executive Tony Markov and former FastSpring CPO Kurt Smith, Pricing Strategies to Combat Stagflation.

More articles about SaaS fees and pricing you may be interested in: 

• Is usage-based pricing right for your SaaS?: What UBP is and why it may matter to your SaaS business.
• Pricing your SaaS by audience by using FastSpring: More on usage-based pricing, segment-based pricing, and user-based pricing for SaaS companies.
• Seven best SaaS pricing page examples (plus 5 SaaS pricing strategy questions to consider): Data from thousands of SaaS companies suggests the pricing page is the second most important page on your site; here are some excellent examples. 
• Subscription vs. pay per use for your SaaS product: The difference between a single-purchase model and a subscription model, and when to change your SaaS pricing model accordingly. 
• SaaS billing best practices: 10+ subscription strategies for SaaS and software companies: Learn how seven SaaS companies grew their businesses, and get eight more ideas for how to find the right pricing for your own SaaS product.

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