FastSpring

What is FastSpring

FastSpring is a full-service e-commerce platform designed for companies that sell software, SaaS (Software as a Service), and other digital products. It acts as a Merchant of Record (MoR), which means it handles all aspects of the sales process on behalf of the seller. This includes processing payments, managing subscriptions, and handling global sales taxes and VAT compliance. The core purpose of FastSpring is to simplify global sales for digital businesses, allowing them to focus on creating their products instead of managing complex financial regulations. Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, and serves thousands of clients worldwide.

FastSpring Features

FastSpring offers a complete set of tools to manage and grow a digital business. Here are its main features:

• Global Online Payments: Securely accept payments from customers around the world. The platform supports multiple currencies and popular payment methods like credit cards, PayPal, and regional options, leading to higher transaction approval rates.
• Subscription Management and Billing: Manage recurring revenue with flexible subscription models. You can set up free trials, monthly or annual plans, and usage-based billing.
• Branded Checkout: Create a checkout experience that matches your brand. You can use pop-up checkouts, embedded forms on your site, or a fully hosted web store to increase conversions.
• Global Tax and VAT Compliance: As a Merchant of Record, FastSpring calculates, collects, and remits sales taxes and VAT from every transaction. This removes a major operational burden for businesses selling internationally.
• Fraud Prevention: The platform includes advanced fraud detection and prevention tools to minimize chargebacks and protect your revenue from fraudulent activities.
• Affiliate Marketing: Use the built-in affiliate platform to create and manage your own partner program. Recruit affiliates, track their performance, and automate commission payouts.
• Reporting and Analytics: Access a dashboard with detailed reports on sales, subscriptions, revenue, and customer behavior to make informed business decisions.
• Digital Invoicing and Interactive Quotes: For B2B sales, you can send digital invoices and create interactive quotes that allow clients to select options and pay directly, shortening the sales cycle.

FastSpring Pricing Plans

FastSpring does not offer fixed pricing tiers like Basic, Pro, or Enterprise. Instead, its pricing is a transparent, revenue-sharing model. The company charges a percentage of each transaction plus a small fixed fee. This means you only pay when you make a sale.

The exact rates are customized based on your business's sales volume, average transaction value, and specific needs. This model is all-inclusive, covering payment processing, tax management, fraud prevention, and all platform features without any hidden monthly fees. Businesses interested in using the platform need to contact the sales team to get a custom quote tailored to their operations.

FastSpring Free Plan

FastSpring does not have a completely free plan for active selling, as its business model is based on taking a percentage of sales. However, it does offer a free trial or a demo for businesses to explore the platform's capabilities. During the trial, you can set up your store, configure products, and test the checkout process in a sandbox environment. There are no setup fees or monthly charges, so you can start using the platform without any upfront investment. You only incur costs once you begin processing real transactions from customers.

How to use FastSpring

Getting started with FastSpring involves a few simple steps to begin selling your digital products globally.

1. Sign Up and Onboarding: First, you create an account on the FastSpring website. The team will review your application to ensure your business is a good fit for the platform.
2. Set Up Your Products: Once your account is approved, you log in to the dashboard and begin creating your products. You can define product names, descriptions, and pricing. For SaaS, you can configure different subscription plans (e.g., monthly, yearly).
3. Configure Your Store: Customize the look and feel of your checkout to match your brand. You can choose between a pop-up overlay on your website, an embedded checkout, or a full web store hosted by FastSpring.
4. Integrate with Your Website: Add the checkout to your site by placing a simple HTML or JavaScript snippet. For more advanced control, you can use the FastSpring API.
5. Go Live: After testing, you can switch your store to live mode. FastSpring will then start processing payments, managing subscriptions, and handling all tax compliance for your sales.

With these steps, you can achieve a fully functional global e-commerce setup for your software or digital goods.

Pros and Cons of FastSpring

Pros:

• All-in-One Solution: It combines a payment gateway, subscription management, and tax compliance in one platform.
• Handles Global Taxes: As a Merchant of Record, it automatically manages sales tax and VAT, which is a huge benefit for global sellers.
• Reduces Administrative Work: Frees up businesses from dealing with payment fraud, chargebacks, and financial regulations.
• High Conversion Checkouts: Offers localized pricing, languages, and payment methods, which can improve sales.
• Strong B2B Features: Interactive quotes and digital invoicing are very useful for SaaS companies with sales-led growth models.

Cons:

• Higher Fees: The percentage-based fee is generally higher than using a simple payment processor like Stripe, where you handle taxes yourself.
• Approval Process: There is a review process to get your account approved, which can take some time.
• Less Control: Because FastSpring is a Merchant of Record, you have less direct control over some aspects of the payment process compared to a direct payment gateway.
• Focused on Digital Goods: The platform is not designed for selling physical products.

FastSpring integrations

FastSpring integrates with various third-party applications to extend its functionality. You can connect it to marketing, analytics, and software licensing tools.

• Google Analytics: Track e-commerce events and customer behavior directly in your Google Analytics account.
• WordPress: Use the official WordPress plugin to easily add FastSpring checkout buttons and links to your site.
• Impact Radius: Connect with the Impact affiliate network to expand your partner marketing efforts.
• Zapier: Integrate with thousands of other apps through Zapier to automate workflows between FastSpring and tools like Slack, Mailchimp, or Salesforce.
• Software Licensing Systems: It integrates with many popular license key generators and management systems like LicenseSpring, Keygen, and SoftwareKey System.

FastSpring Alternatives

Here are some popular alternatives to FastSpring:

• Paddle: Very similar to FastSpring, Paddle is also a Merchant of Record for software and SaaS. It offers a comparable all-in-one solution for payments, subscriptions, and tax compliance. The main difference is often in the user interface and specific feature sets.
• Lemon Squeezy: A newer competitor that also acts as a Merchant of Record. It is known for its simple user interface and focus on digital creators, making it a strong choice for selling ebooks, courses, and other digital downloads.
• Stripe: A powerful and flexible payment processor. Unlike FastSpring, Stripe is not a Merchant of Record, so you are responsible for handling your own sales tax and VAT compliance (though Stripe offers a product called Stripe Tax to help). It is more customizable but requires more administrative work.
• 2Checkout (now Verifone): A long-standing e-commerce platform that offers both payment processing and Merchant of Record services. It provides a broad range of features similar to FastSpring and serves a global customer base.

FastSpring API

Yes, FastSpring provides a comprehensive and robust API for developers. The API allows you to build completely custom e-commerce experiences, manage products, handle subscriptions, and automate workflows programmatically. You can create, read, update, and delete data related to orders, subscriptions, and customer accounts.

To get an API key, you need to create a FastSpring account. Once your account is active, you can generate API credentials directly from your FastSpring dashboard under the developer settings. You can find detailed instructions and examples in the official FastSpring Developer Documentation.

Here is a simple example using curl to fetch a subscription using the API:

curl -u "YOUR_USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD" \
-X GET "https://api.fastspring.com/subscriptions/SUBSCRIPTION_ID"

Replace YOUR_USERNAME, YOUR_PASSWORD, and SUBSCRIPTION_ID with your actual API credentials and the ID of the subscription you want to retrieve.

FastSpring Affiliate program

FastSpring does not have a public affiliate program for promoting the FastSpring platform itself. Instead, it provides a built-in affiliate marketing platform for its customers.

If you are a business using FastSpring to sell your products, you can create and manage your own affiliate program directly within the FastSpring dashboard. You can set your own commission rates (e.g., a percentage of each sale), provide marketing materials to your affiliates, and track their performance. FastSpring handles the technical side, including tracking clicks, sales, and automating commission payouts to your partners. This integrated solution makes it easy for sellers to leverage affiliate marketing to grow their revenue.