What’s new in Paddle [Q1 2024] - Paddle Forward highlights 

2023 was tough for SaaS but there are positive signs

Through our free Metrics product, we see inside $36bn of ARR. And what is it telling us? 

Well, 2023 was really tough for B2B SaaS. But in both B2B and B2C software, we are starting to see positive signs in 2024.

Andrew Davies, Paddle’s CMO, talked through the data and outlined where to direct your focus this year. Head to the video above for his key takeaways.

New growth levers to pull: In-app to web

We’re seeing a new trend of app developers, who have an audience on mobile via the App Store or Play Store, pushing customers to transact via the web on a platform like Paddle.

By doing this, they’re reaping the benefits of reaching bigger audiences, boosting revenue and retaining more users over time.

We’ve been working in partnership with Adapty, a real-time subscription metrics platform for iOS and Android. With this partnership, they’ve built a product called FunnelFox, which seamlessly manages the app-to-web transition with easy subscription setup and real-time revenue tracking.

If you’re interested in the app-to-web journey, join us for a live stream with the Adapty team on April 23rd, for insights on how to build out a web-facing channel in an app-led business.

Head to the video above to hear more from Paddle co-founder, Christian Owens, on how we’re helping app companies transact on the web and our new partnership programs.

Product updates

You can find a full rundown of the Q1 updates here

Internationalization - A look back at releases

Paddle now offers Apple and Google Pay as recurring payment methods. 

This means your customers can enjoy all the benefits of your subscription products with just a few taps on their mobile or tablet. They can also select Apple or Google Pay when updating their payment method for an existing subscription.

Paddle.net - a better way for your customers to find what they need.

Paddle.net is a way for your customers to gain information and get support around their transactions across all of Paddle, all in an easy-to-use interface. 

This updated version of Paddle.net allows your customers to find their transactions by simply entering their email address. From there, your customers can quickly get the support they need for that transaction. And we’re happy to share that this is supported across both Paddle Classic and Paddle Billing. 

Improving payment acceptance in LATAM

We have recently partnered with local LATAM acquirers to improve payment acceptance in Mexico and Brazil. LATAM is a rapidly growing market and through local acquiring we can help you ensure payment acceptance in the region so that you can reach a wider customer base and increase revenue potential. 

We navigate these LATAM regional complexities for you, ensuring regulatory compliance on your behalf. That means smooth legal operations without any additional work on your end

Keeping up with tax legislation

Another complexity of entering new markets is keeping tabs on updates and changes to tax legislation across the globe, which can be a massive headache. 

We take on the responsibility for ensuring tax is applied and charged at the right rates and you remain compliant no matter where your customer is located. You can check out our changelog for more information on the latest tax updates.

Localized checkout

With a sizeable portion of our Paddle customers selling into Turkey, we have added Turkish to our list of localized checkout options.

Localizing the checkout can help reduce this friction and improve your conversion rates. The Paddle checkout automatically detects which language to display to your customer based on their active language and they can also self-select a preferred language in the checkout.

What's on the horizon in 2024

Here are some of the exciting features we're working to ship later this year:

Payments in South Korea & India 

South Korea and India are significant and growing markets for SaaS. Huge economies that both rank in the top fifteen globally in terms of GDP 

In Korea, we’re improving the way that we work with local acquirers to ensure that Korean domestic cards are processed as reliably as possible - which is vital for online sales in a country where cards still represent over 60% of total payments.

Likewise, we’re taking a look at how we can support local payment methods throughout checkout.

In India, we’re also taking a broad look at how to improve payment acceptance. In the world’s most populous country of 1.4 billion people, any percentage improvement isn’t just significant - it’s vital.

1-page checkout 

The next phase of our checkout’s evolution that we're working on brings the entire checkout experience onto one page. You can see here how we’re thinking about this below. Your customers will be able to complete the checkout, paying with the payment method of their choice without having to move between checkout pages.

This will be released for both our inline and overlay checkouts, so you have complete choice over how you integrate this with your purchase experience.

Saved payment methods

Doing this enables another exciting step forward for our checkout – repeat purchasers being able to use saved payment methods.

These saved payment methods will be from buyers opting to save their details when purchasing one-off products, as well as any payment methods they have against their existing subscriptions. They will no longer need to enter their payment details when purchasing additional products, and can purchase with just one click.

Keep an eye out for more announcements around this with a release expected in the second half of this year.

Customer portal 

We’re excited to announce that we’re working to ship the Customer Portal for Q3 this year!

Here are some representative mock-ups giving you a taste of what we’re working toward here. These are subject to change as we continue to test, refine and build.

Customers will be able to view and download transaction information, giving them the ability to keep track of past interactions with you.

Migrations from Paddle Classic to Paddle Billing

At the last Paddle Forward event, we announced the launch of Paddle Billing and all the associated benefits of using it.

But what about customers using Paddle Classic?

When we launched Billing, we said that Classic would remain a stable and compliant product.  That is still the case today.  We will continue to support existing customers on Classic, providing updates for things like regulatory tax changes and new payment methods.

While Classic continues to serve our existing customers, we have also been developing a process for those who don’t want to miss out on all the features and improvements already available and soon to be launched in Paddle Billing.

At a high level, a migration to Billing involves three steps: 

1. Enabling & configuring Billing
2. Launching new revenue on the new platform
3. A Paddle-managed process to port existing active subscribers over from Classic.

Check out the video for more information on the migration process.

Upgraded developer experience

SDKs
In the last six months, we released SDKs for two of the most-used programming languages in our developer community: PHP and Node.js. They’re both hand-written, and we put the same care and attention to detail into them as we put into the Paddle API. Complex workflows like webhook signature verification now take just one method call.

PHP and Node.js are just the start! We’re working on a Go SDK right now, with plans for Python and Ruby later this year. 

If you’re looking for another language, you can reach out to us at team-dx@paddle.com 

Pricing pages
A few months ago, we released the price preview operation for the Paddle API, plus a Price Preview method for Paddle.js. You can pass as many prices as you like, along with location information like a country code or IP address, and Paddle returns localized prices for you. We even take care of formatting prices for regional customs, complete with the currency symbol and thousands separator.

Access the Dev Changelog here for the latest updates to the Paddle API 

Check out the video for more updates from the DX team 

Still want more?

Head here for more information on our latest product updates