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Cyber Weekend — the collective weekend made up of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all the sales in between — is a massive driver of sales for digital technology companies, just as it is for physical consumer goods.
Because FastSpring is a merchant of record that serves thousands of digital companies that in turn serve both B2B and B2C markets, we have the aggregated sales data to show just how important this key sales weekend is for SaaS and software businesses, and we’ve again analyzed it to share with you.
If your software business is not yet optimizing sales for Cyber Weekend, November, or Q4 in general, this may be your sign to do so ASAP.
Check out the below data points to learn:
- What U.S. sales trends for SaaS and software look like throughout the year.
- What the same trends look like around the globe, based on eight major markets.
- What FastSpring can do to help you take advantage of the best buying season of the year.
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 games, mobile apps, AI, eLearning, 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.
Our Data and Methodology
When the Data Are From
This report uses data from the most recent complete five years — 2021 through 2025 — taking averages for the months across that five-year span to avoid any outliers skewing the results. While this means that each new version of this report is only a little different from the previous year’s version, this averaging method helps view useful trends on an ongoing basis.
To clearly show changes from month to month or quarter to quarter, we use a seasonal index (more on that in the How section below).
Where the Data Are From
Even though FastSpring serves thousands of companies in over 200 countries, we’ve limited the data in this report to eight major markets around the world to help us keep this report consistent and repeatable year after year.
Those markets are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Besides showing the data for this group as a whole, we also break out data for just the U.S. since it’s such a large market for software and SaaS sales.
Note that the data represent where the sales take place — not where the businesses are located — so that you can see what buyer trends look like in each market.
What Data We Measured
FastSpring supports SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, AI, and other digital goods businesses, but to show a useful data set, this report is narrowed to only include software and SaaS sales.
We also used U.S. dollars as the currency when calculating our figures, but since we used a seasonal index, all values below are represented as percentages against an average; no actual dollar amounts are displayed.
How We Measured the Data
The baseline for each dataset below is created by calculating a monthly or quarterly average for each year.
Once that period’s average is established, we compare each period’s actual number to the average to get a percentage.
To use a very simplified example, if four quarterly totals were to be Q1 = $2,000, Q2 = $1,000, Q3 = $2,000, and Q4 = $3,000, then the quarterly average for the year would be $2,000.
Then, comparing that Q4 $3,000 quarterly actual amount against the year’s average quarter amount of $2,000, Q4 would show a percentage of 150%, meaning it saw results 50% above the average.
That data was combined across five years to further get five year averages, helping to avoid any outliers causing spikes or skews in the dataset.
Year-End Trends for US SaaS and Software Purchases
We’ll start with the single-market subset of U.S. software and SaaS purchases, showing monthly and quarterly averages across the last five years.
5YR Average US SaaS and Software Sales by Month
As you might guess, the highest month of the year for software and SaaS sales is in fact November, with sales coming in at 112% against the month average of 100%.
The next highest months of the year are March at 106% and December at 104%.
5YR Average US SaaS and Software Sales by Quarter
Similarly, the highest-performing quarter of the year for SaaS and software sales is Q4, coming in at 105% against the quarter average.
Year-End Trends for Global SaaS and Software Purchases
Global trends (in this case, composed of eight major markets from around the globe) largely echo what is seen in the U.S. market for November and Q4, sometimes even far outpacing the spikes seen in the U.S.
Check out the below data from the U.S., Canada, Germany, the UK, Brazil, India, Australia, and China for a clearer picture of software and SaaS sales trends throughout the year.
5YR Average Global SaaS and Software Sales by Month
November is again the peak month for global SaaS and software sales, with monthly sales at 118%, considerably higher than in just the U.S. (where, as mentioned above, the peak was only 112%).
March (106%) and December (103%) are the next highest months for software and SaaS sales, with March pulling ahead of December by a little more in this year’s report compared to last year’s.
It’s widely accepted that Black Friday and Cyber Weekend were originally anchored to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, but those seasonal sales bumps have caught on worldwide. China observes a shopping holiday for Singles Day on November 11 (11.11), and Germany is one of more than a few countries that have started observing Black Friday and Cyber Monday — or even an entire Cyber Week.
These shopping holidays around the world help explain how global SaaS and software sales peak in November right along with the U.S.
5YR Average Global SaaS and Software Sales by Quarter
When sales are averaged together into quarters instead of months, the spike seems slightly less pronounced, but it is still there. Q4 for the combined eight countries in our report still shows a lift of 7% over the quarterly average for the year, which is high enough that Q1, Q2, and Q3 each fall at or slightly below that 100% average.
Because there is such a noticeable difference when comparing the November bump of +17% to the Q4 bump of only +7%, the data reinforces that to get the best return on your efforts, SaaS and software companies should focus specifically on November — not just Q4 generally — when driving marketing and sales efforts toward the year’s prime buying window.
5YR Average SaaS and Software Sales by Month per Country
We know you’re likely curious what each of the eight countries’ sales look like across each month, and there are some very notable differences.
Below, we break out each of the eight countries across the year to illustrate what those fluctuations look like across five years’ worth of data averaged across each month of the year, including the United States (US), Canada (CA), Germany (DE), the United Kingdom (UK), India (IN), Brazil (BR), Australia (AU), and China (CN).
Besides the Chinese shopping holiday in November that we already mentioned above, sales in China are also boosted by the 418 (April 18) and 618 (June 18) shopping holidays.
Learn more about major shopping holidays in China here.
How to Maximize International Cyber Weekend Sales (and How FastSpring Can Help)
The stats above make it clear that Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and perhaps even the entire month of November in general are an important window in which to maximize your software sales as the calendar year nears a close.
Here are a few tactical strategies you can implement to really get the most out of this key sales time.
Localize the Purchase Experience
If you have cross-border transactions set up but aren’t already offering payment options that are tailored to each local audience, it’s a good idea to get that set up before any major buying times.
Having a localized payment experience for each of your buyers — including automatic conversions to local languages and currencies, offering dozens of the most popular regional payment methods, and intelligent payment routing to regional payment gateways to help reduce failed payments — is critical for reducing any friction in the buying process.
Not having these features that go into localized checkout and pricing can make buyers hesitate, which you definitely don’t want during rushes when they’re otherwise ready to buy.
FastSpring already supports the above features, including the most popular regional payment methods such as UPI in India, Pix in Brazil, and Kakao Pay in South Korea. Learn more about FastSpring’s global payments here.
Take Advantage of Custom Discounts, Offers, and Coupons
Regardless of what time of year you offer them, customizable offers and coupons can be a huge driver of increased sales, so your payments platform needs to include the features required to run these kinds of programs. This can include the ability to:
- Offer percentage discounts on individual items.
- Preapply coupons via custom links.
- Stack multiple coupons.
- Create and offer product bundles to increase order values.
- Customize discounts in targeted geos, such as using GeoIP-based elements on your marketing site to promote region-specific discount codes.
From there, you can use those tools to further your offers strategy by:
- Providing custom coupon codes to your affiliates and partners, which can work better than generic codes that are shared everywhere.
- Offering more aggressive discounts in target regions where you want to break into new markets.
- Bundling products for special holiday offerings that incentivize customers to add more to their purchases.
Ensure Taxes Are Taken Care Of
Besides making sales easy for buyers, there are a few ways to make sales easy for you and your SaaS business too — one of which is opting for the easiest tax calculation, collection, and remittance system possible.
If your payments partner is a merchant of record — which is a much more robust payments solution than, say, a simpler payment service provider — then taxes such as VAT, GST, and other sales taxes will be taken care of for you.
That means the platform should calculate the tax amounts that are shown to buyers, then collect those taxes as part of the transaction, and then finally remit those taxes on your behalf.
If you don’t use a merchant of record to sell your downloadable software or SaaS products internationally, you’ll need to either keep up with international tax laws and maintain your ecommerce system accordingly, or you’ll need to opt for yet another set of systems and experts to handle all of those pieces for you.
With FastSpring, managing those taxes is already built into our system.
Taking taxes off of the list of things you need to worry about during the busiest sales weekend of the year can make that weekend run even smoother, while letting you focus on your own product and how well it’s selling.
Track Results Closely With Robust Reporting Tools
Throughout peak buying times, make sure you have strong reporting and tracking tools set up so you can keep an eye on things as sales start rolling in.
This can include anything from setting up campaign data and tracking info, to ensuring your payments provider has a robust reporting platform where you can monitor sales and drill down into specifics such as revenue and subscription data throughout the week or weekend.
Prepare Your Consumer Support System
Inevitably, when sales increase, so can support inquiries. Prepping your support team or support system before any major sales surges can help ensure that yet another important part of the ecommerce engine runs smoothly throughout the period.
This can include training your support team to handle the most common issues as efficiently as possible, or working with your support partners to set them up for the same success.
FastSpring users benefit from award-winning support for both their businesses and their buyers, which makes sales surges even easier to handle.
Get more Cyber Weekend preparedness tips from one of our Senior Platform Support Specialists here, or check out FastSpring’s support portal here.
Partner With FastSpring for Success All Year Long
For over 20 years, FastSpring has been a trusted payment provider that can help you easily grow your business internationally. As a merchant of record, we provide an all-in-one payment platform that includes VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, award-winning consumer support, and more — making us an excellent partner for SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, AI, and other digital goods businesses.
Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.
