How do you pay VAT?

Grew our small business into a healthy SaaS business with annual revenues now at around $1.5mm. We are based in the EU, and charge/pay all our VAT accordingly in the EU.

We also are aware of various state taxes in the US which we are currently below the threshold of, and are compliant in the US which is our main area of business.

Regarding the rest of the world, our business is spread thinly but growing in some territories. Some countries we'd sell ~$100 USD per year, others closer to $20,000 per year and growing.

We are aware that other countries have VAT, and we should be paying this VAT. For example, in Russia the VAT rate is 20%. There are a myriad of other countries with VAT rates we should be paying.

Some countries have stringent rules and the amount of work involved in paying:

Requiring a local representative

Having a local bank account

Navigating tax systems/documents in foreign languages

For Russia, we've spoken to a specialist tax adviser and they can make us compliant at relatively large expense. We've also spoken to a company who specialise in paying VAT globally, but their rates are in the region of $5,000 - $10,000 per country annually.

For the life of me, I cannot work out how other companies our size, or smaller than us deal with global VAT. Obviously, tax advisers/accountants have to tell us we should be paying VAT in these territories which is correct advise but not practical.

Are there any other similarly sized SaaS businesses out there who have solutions or advice for this? We've always paid all our taxes fair and square (apart from the aforementioned issue). It doesn't sit well with me to not pay VAT we owe but for all our best efforts I don't see how we can in a complete way, and not to the detriment of our business in terms of becoming less competitive when we are fairly confident our competitors do not pay these taxes.