International Payment Gateways: An In-Depth Guide and 10 Payments Options

Estimated read time: 15 minutes, 45 seconds

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, so they 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 10 of the top payment solutions, starting with a deep-dive into our solution, FastSpring.

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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 be bad, and your fees associated with those transactions will also suffer.

International payment processors take on the responsibility of staying in good standing with various payment schemes so you don’t have to.

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 takes the lead to resolve it for you.

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

Calculate tax, add tax to the final amount, and pay those taxes to the local government.
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 responsible for everything from paying taxes to fraud prevention to remaining compliant with scheme and jurisdictional rules and regulations.

If taxes don’t get 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:

What countries they let you transact in (it will differ with each payment gateway provider).
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 Companies

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

For example, SaaS companies didn’t always have to pay the same taxes as other businesses did, but now most countries are requiring it. Plus, most states, provinces, territories, and countries change the amounts of taxes that need to be collected and how you have to pay those taxes every year. This is a lot to keep track of, and most regions charge you hefty fines if you don’t pay the right amount of taxes on time.

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, ACH, SEPA, Amazon Pay, Pix, AliPay, 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 language translations at checkout.

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.

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 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 has a legal entity in the same country as the buyer. FastSpring works with payment processors who specialize in global transactions so that all of your transactions are processed in the same location as your customer.

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.

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

Dynamic currency and tax updates based on the user’s location. You can set the price in different currencies or let FastSpring automatically convert prices to the local currency.
Translations at checkout. You can let each buyer select their preferred language from a dropdown menu, or you can lock the language and FastSpring will automatically select the appropriate language based on the buyer’s location.

Complete visual customization. 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 create a custom, fully branded checkout experience. (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 in your website, insert a popup modal on top of your webpage, or send customers to a secure FastSpring storefront. This gives you the flexibility to choose the solution that’s best for your team and customers.

Reduce Involuntary Churn With Proactive Dunning Management

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 send out email reminders when a customer’s card is about to expire. You can use our pre-made email template or customize your own message.
Multiple, scheduled retries and follow-up notifications. After the initial payment retry and notification, you can schedule notifications to be sent two, five, seven, 14, and 21 days after the initial failure. Before sending out each reminder, FastSpring will retry the payment.

Customer Emails: Charge Failed, Payment Overdue, Trial Reminder

Easy to access self-serve portal. FastSpring provides a self-serve portal where your customers can view their order history, change their subscription, and update payment or bank account information. 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 buying 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 start up the service again without going through the entire onboarding process again.

Handle Complex Billing Logic and Free 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 flexible options for free trials, billing periods, and payment. Here’s an overview of the options you have with FastSpring’s recurring billing feature:

Free trial periods of any length.
Free trials with or without gathering payment information upfront.
Prorated subscription payments.
Variable billing intervals.
Usage-based billing.
Upgrade at renewal or in the middle of a cycle.
Customers can change the billing date at any time (or you can lock the billing date).
Prepaid recurring billing.
Subscription bundled with a one-time purchase at sign up.
Refunds applied to the next payment.
And many more.

Most of these options can be set up with just a few clicks and zero code.

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

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

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. This makes it easier to plan your budget and scale. Instead of charging per feature, our team works with you to find a simple, flat-rate price based on the volume of transactions you move through FastSpring. You’ll have access to every aspect of FastSpring.

FastSpring is more than just an international payment gateway — we’re your merchant of record. Sign up for a free account or request a demo today to discover how we can help you go farther, faster.

9 Other International Payment Gateways and Other Payments Options

Verifone

Verifone (formerly 2Checkout) is a 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:

Customizable UI and pre-built checkout flows.
Simple subscription management.
Fraud prevention and risk management.
Flexible billing logic.
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 a 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. PayPal’s services include:

QR code and POS systems.
Invoicing.
Installment payment management.
Support for preferred payment methods (other than PayPal’s digital wallet).
Crypto payments.
Chargeback protection (only available for business accounts with Advanced Credit and Debit Card checkout).

As a payment processor, PayPal uses one merchant account for all of its customers and then pays you out of that account.

Braintree

Braintree by PayPal is another online payment gateway solution that doesn’t offer MoR services. The main difference between Braintree and PayPal is that Braintree provides you with your own merchant account. Braintree also offers a few more services (like subscription management). Braintree’s features include:

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

Braintree supports payment from debit and credit cards, PayPal, Venmo (in the US), Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Authorize.net

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

Monthly billing management.
Virtual point of sale.
Payment processing.
Advanced fraud detection suite (AFDS).

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

Adyen

Adyen is an end-to-end payment processing 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, and hospitality.

WorldPay (Formerly by FIS)

Screenshot of international payment gateway Worldpay's homepage, dark blue with red and white text and light blue dots with lines connecting them.

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:

Pay by email link.
Multi-currency support.
Support for many alternative payment methods, including mobile payments, ewallets, 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 management.
Fraud detection.

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.
Payouts.
Fraud detection.
3D secure authentication.

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, Download, or Video Game?

Let FastSpring be your merchant of record!

FastSpring lets you manage every aspect of global SaaS payments from one platform — without managing tons of different software solutions. We take on taxes, regulation compliance, customer support, and much more for you.

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

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

Katie Stephan

Katie Stephan is the Senior Content Strategist at FastSpring. Besides her extensive marketing experience, she has an MFA in creative nonfiction writing and has served her local communities as a college writing instructor.