We're deepening our collaboration with Adyen to improve payment performance and give software companies a premium Merchant of Record foundation.
Selling globally shouldn’t be this hard. In our Friction Report, 83% of software sellers say global expansion is a priority for the next 12 months, but only 56% feel highly confident they can scale ecommerce internationally — and just 6% describe global ecommerce as “easy."
As companies expand internationally and complexity increases, more teams are realizing that patchwork solutions aren’t enough.
At the same time, the market is shifting. Major players like Adyen leaning into the Merchant of Record (MoR) model signals that MoR is no longer niche but becoming essential infrastructure for global scale. That’s the backdrop for our expanded collaboration with Adyen and why it matters for software companies looking to grow internationally.
For Adyen customers
Who is Cleverbridge?
Cleverbridge is a leading Merchant of Record (MoR) for software and SaaS businesses. With over two decades of experience and more than $10 billion in processed transactions across 240+ markets, we help software companies simplify global payments, tax handling, compliance, subscription management, invoicing, fraud prevention, renewals, and lifecycle revenue operations.
What is a Merchant of Record?
A Merchant of Record (MoR) is the entity legally responsible for processing payments, managing global taxes and compliance, and ensuring transactions meet regional regulations. For software companies, the MoR model removes the burden of handling payments, tax remittance, fraud, invoicing, and renewals internally — allowing teams to focus on product development, customer experience, and other growth priorities.
Why does MoR matter?
As revenue grows across markets, the operational burden grows with it — payments complexity, tax and regulatory requirements, renewals, fraud, and compliance all become harder to manage effectively.
In the Friction Report, sellers point to three pain points at the top of their global ecommerce list: maintaining integrations across ecommerce, CRM, billing, and other platforms (40%), managing multiple payment methods and processing partners (40%), and complying with international laws and regulations (37%).
MoR has become the operational backbone for companies expanding globally because it eliminates many of these burdens and replaces fragmented workflows with a unified revenue infrastructure.
Sellers using a merchant of record are also more confident: two‑thirds of companies with an MoR say they’re “highly confident” in scaling globally, compared to 50% of those without one.
Why did Adyen partner with Cleverbridge?
As a Merchant of Record vendor, Cleverbridge has a strong track record of improving authorization performance, reducing operational friction, and helping software companies scale subscription revenue worldwide.
Adyen and Cleverbridge are also deepening collaboration across technology, innovation, and future-facing initiatives like agentic commerce, ensuring joint clients benefit from ongoing advancements in automation and payment performance.
What does this unlock for Adyen customers?
Adyen customers gain access to a complete solution that's more than just an MoR, including:
- Global payments and tax handling
- Compliance and invoicing
- Subscription management
- Fraud prevention and renewals
- Lifecycle revenue services
This includes hands-on expertise through our Digital Marketing Services (DMS), Professional Services, and Customer Support Services teams, which help improve conversions, support complex implementations, and manage end-customer support inquiries.
For Cleverbridge clients
What does Adyen add to Cleverbridge's payment performance?
As part of Cleverbridge's multi-acquirer orchestration layer, Adyen strengthens global payment performance through:
- Strong authorization rates across major regions
- Reliable acquiring coverage in new and emerging markets
- Faster introduction of new payment methods
- Advanced capabilities such as network tokenization
As our collaboration deepens, clients will benefit from our joint exploration of agentic automation to further optimize payments and revenue performance, creating a smarter, more adaptive foundation over time.
Why does this matter for global scale?
This collaboration enhances the resilience of our payment stack, enabling more consistent buyer experiences across all regions — especially in markets where payments are traditionally difficult. With expanded access to Adyen’s acquiring network, clients benefit from higher authorization success, fewer failed transactions, and stronger recurring billing performance.
How does deeper collaboration strengthen reliability, authorization rates, and payment coverage?
By working more closely with Adyen, we can bring new payment capabilities, smarter retry logic, and emerging innovations like agentic commerce to clients more quickly — all without requiring extra lift from your teams. These improvements directly support higher conversions, stronger renewals, improved ARR capture, and a more reliable global commerce engine.
How will this evolve with agentic AI and next-generation commerce?
Cleverbridge and Adyen are expanding our collaboration beyond payments performance to explore how AI and automation can improve the entire revenue lifecycle — from payment routing and billing operations to fraud workflows and renewal optimization. Together, we're laying the groundwork for more adaptive, agentic commerce experiences, where systems make intelligent decisions that reduce manual effort and strengthen revenue outcomes.
We’ll have more to share on automation and agentic commerce as these initiatives mature.
Bottom Line
Today’s SaaS companies face mounting pressure to simplify their vendor stack, expand globally without heavy investment, stay ahead of rising compliance risk, and navigate a payments landscape that is rapidly consolidating. This expanded collaboration brings together Cleverbridge’s MoR platform with Adyen’s global financial technology capabilities to help companies meet those challenges with far less operational burden.
By aligning more closely across technology, innovation, and go-to-market efforts, we’re giving software businesses a more complete foundation for global revenue — one that strengthens payment performance, reduces friction, and supports expansion into new markets with confidence.
Whether you’re a Cleverbridge client, an Adyen customer, or exploring the MoR model for the first time, this collaboration is designed to help you sell smarter, scale faster, and grow globally.
