Selling SaaS Internationally

Question

Hi, I am building a SaaS product(B2B) and now looking to build billing related functionality. My company is a Delaware corporation.I am planning to use Stripe billing with Stripe Taxes which removes a lot of complexity and help monitor the tax compliance in US. Most states in the US seem to have certain threshold before I require to register for taxes to be compliant. However I am confused about selling internationally (esp. Europe) and my obligations for collecting VAT.The documentation pretty much says "consult with a tax expert". I don't know if I should spend the money and time dealing with all the complexity before I launch the product. I am thinking there must be a simpler way to navigate this.If you previously launched a startup, how did you handle the billing and tax complexity?

dbbk · Accepted Answer

Paddle, end of discussion. You literally don't have to spend a single second worrying about this.

bckygldstn · Answer

Winging it with stripe is fine to get started quickly, but once you have a couple of customers switch to a Merchant of Record like Paddle.On your end they work much like stripe: you get credit card input html and an api. But legally they are a reseller of your software so they handle all tax collection and payment, invoice formatting, plus some legal issues. In exchange they take a bigger cut than stripe, like 5%.

searchableguy · Answer

If it's a SAAS, I would use a merchant of record payment provider such as paddle.https://www.paddle.com/blog/what-is-merchant-of-recordThey handle all the compliance for you in different countries.

lucakiebel · Answer

I would not think about going international before building the product. Once you have paying local users you can consult with experts on the various international markets.