Multi-Currency Support: Sell Globally from Day One

Your first international customer just signed up, and they're asking why they have to pay in dollars. Currency conversion fees eat into their budget, and the psychological friction of foreign pricing makes your product feel less accessible. You could calculate exchange rates manually, but they fluctuate daily, and your billing system lacks currency-handling logic anyway. Multi-currency support removes this barrier. Configure prices in the currencies your customers use, and let the checkout flow present the right price automatically.

The frustration shows up in support tickets and abandoned checkouts. A prospect in Germany sees $49/month and has to do mental math to understand what that means in euros. Then they wonder about the conversion fee their bank will charge. Then they question whether a product that can't be priced in their currency is really built for their market. Each friction point reduces the likelihood they'll complete the purchase.

This isn't about convenience; it's about credibility. When you display prices in a customer's local currency with round, intentional numbers, you signal that you've thought about their market. You're not an American company grudgingly accepting foreign credit cards. You're a global business that serves customers where they are.

Why Conversion Isn't Enough

The simplest approach to international pricing is letting your payment processor handle currency conversion. The customer pays in their local currency, and Stripe or your processor converts it to your settlement currency at the current exchange rate plus a conversion fee.

This approach works technically, but it fails commercially. The customer sees a price like EUR 45.23, which looks accidental rather than intentional. The amount changes with exchange rate fluctuations, so a customer who checked your pricing yesterday might see a different number today. And the conversion fee, typically 1-2%, either eats into your margin or gets passed to the customer as an additional line item.

Intentional local pricing looks different. You set EUR 49/month because that's a clean, marketable price in the European market. The price doesn't fluctuate with exchange rates because it's not derived from your USD pricing; it's set independently for that currency. Customers see the same number every time they visit your pricing page, and the number feels deliberate.

The psychological research on pricing supports this approach. Customers respond more positively to round numbers and consistent pricing than to mathematically derived amounts. The conversion fee savings are real but secondary to the trust and professionalism that intentional pricing conveys.

Setting Prices Across Currencies

Multi-currency support means configuring distinct prices for each currency you want to support. This isn't a multiplier applied to your base currency; it's independent pricing for each market.

The independence matters because markets have different value perceptions. What customers are willing to pay in the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia varies by local purchasing power, competitive alternatives, and cultural expectations. A $99/month price might translate to EUR 99, GBP 79, or JPY 9,900, not because of exchange rates but because those are the right prices for those markets.

When setting international prices, consider purchasing power parity as a starting point but not a rigid formula. PPP suggests what an equivalent amount of money buys in different economies, but software pricing doesn't follow PPP perfectly. Your costs are mostly fixed regardless of where customers are located, and customers in lower-PPP markets may still pay premium prices for products that deliver premium value.

Research your competitive landscape in each market. What do similar products charge in euros? In pounds? In yen? Price relative to local alternatives, not just relative to your own USD pricing.

Automatic Currency Detection

Configuring prices in multiple currencies only helps if customers see the right one. Salable's checkout flow detects the customer's likely currency based on their browser locale and IP geolocation, presenting prices in that currency by default.

The detection isn't deterministic. A customer in France using an English-locale browser might be an expat who prefers EUR or an American traveller who prefers USD. The checkout should show the detected currency but let customers change it if needed. A simple currency selector, often displayed near the price, lets customers choose their preferred option without hunting through settings.

For products where the customer's location has compliance implications, you might require certain currencies for certain jurisdictions. EU customers paying for services with VAT implications might need to transact in EUR regardless of their preference. Your checkout flow should handle these edge cases without breaking the general experience.

Managing Exchange Rate Risk

When you set independent prices in multiple currencies, you take on exchange rate risk. The EUR 49 you charge today might be worth more or less in USD terms next month, depending on how currencies move. For small volumes, this risk is negligible. For significant international revenue, it's worth understanding.

Exchange rate fluctuations average out over time for most businesses. EUR strengthens against USD one quarter; it weakens the next. If your international revenue is diversified across multiple currencies, the fluctuations partially cancel each other out.

If you have substantial revenue concentration in a volatile currency, consider periodic price adjustments. You don't need to track exchange rates daily, but an annual review of international pricing against your base currency ensures you're not drifting too far from your intended margins.

Some businesses prefer to keep international prices loosely tied to a base currency, adjusting them when exchange rates move beyond a threshold. If EUR moves more than 10% against USD, you might update your EUR pricing accordingly. This hybrid approach captures most of the benefits of local pricing while limiting exchange rate exposure.

Tax and Compliance Considerations

International sales introduce tax complexity. Different jurisdictions have different rules for digital services tax, VAT, GST, and sales tax. Multi-currency support is necessary for serving these markets but doesn't automatically solve tax compliance.

The good news is that modern billing infrastructure handles much of this complexity. Salable integrates with Stripe's tax calculation, which determines the appropriate tax rate based on the customer's location and the nature of the service. The customer sees a price including tax where required, and the correct amount is collected and reported.

What you need to ensure is that your prices are set appropriately for tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive presentation. In the EU, B2C prices are typically VAT-inclusive, so your EUR 49 price should already include the applicable VAT. In the US, prices typically display without sales tax, which is added at checkout. Configure your prices for each currency with the local presentation convention in mind.

Rolling Out Multi-Currency

You don't need to support every currency from day one. Start with the currencies that serve your existing and near-term target markets.

For most SaaS businesses, a pragmatic starting set includes USD for the Americas, EUR for the Eurozone, GBP for the UK, and potentially AUD for Australia and CAD for Canada. These five currencies cover the majority of English-speaking B2B SaaS purchases. Expand from there based on where you see demand.

When adding a new currency, audit your entire pricing surface. Every plan, every line item, every add-on needs a price in the new currency. Partial coverage creates confusing experiences where some prices appear localised, and others fall back to your default currency.

Test the checkout flow thoroughly for each currency. Verify that the correct price displays, the tax calculation works, and the payment processes without issues. Currency-related bugs often appear only with specific currency/country/tax combinations, so test realistic scenarios rather than just the happy path.

Communicating International Availability

Multi-currency support signals international readiness, so communicate it explicitly. Your pricing page should show that you serve customers globally, not just display a currency selector that visitors might miss.

Consider showing prices in the visitor's detected currency by default while making it easy to see other options. Prices shown in EUR. Also available in USD, GBP, and more, this tells European visitors that you've considered their market while indicating broader international support.

For enterprise sales, multi-currency support simplifies procurement. Global companies often prefer paying in their headquarters' currency for accounting consistency. Being able to invoice in USD, EUR, or GBP, based on customer preference, removes a friction point in procurement.

Beyond the Transaction

Multi-currency affects more than checkout. Your customer portal should display subscription details in the currency the customer is paying. Invoices should be denominated in the transaction currency. Usage reports and billing histories should be consistent with what the customer actually pays.

This consistency extends to your internal reporting. You'll want to track revenue in both local currencies and a normalised base currency for comparison. Understanding that EUR revenue grew 20% while USD revenue grew 15% requires seeing both the local currency figures and their base currency equivalents.

Salable's reporting provides both views. You can see revenue in transaction currencies to understand each market's performance, and you can see normalised revenue for overall business health. The conversion happens at consistent rates for reporting purposes, separate from the actual transaction values.

The Broader Opportunity

Multi-currency support isn't just about removing friction for existing international interest. It's about expanding your addressable market. Customers who wouldn't consider a product priced only in a foreign currency might happily purchase when they see local pricing.

The SaaS market is global, and geographic constraints are largely artificial. A project management tool is just as useful in Berlin as in Boston. A developer platform serves engineers everywhere. Multi-currency support lets you capture that global opportunity without building separate products for each market.

Start with the currencies your current customers need. Expand to the markets you want to grow into. Set intentional prices that reflect local value, not just mathematical conversions. And let the checkout flow handle detection and selection so customers see the right price without effort.

Your next customer might be anywhere in the world. Make sure your pricing page is ready to greet them in their language, which, when it comes to money, means their currency.