FastSpring Has Provided Steady Support for my Small Business for More than Eight Years

I sell books that I publish in paperback and ebook versions. For the ebook versions, I use FastSpring to handle sales through my own website. FastSpring has been a very reliable company for this purpose, handling payment processing and downloads. Their customer support operation is outstanding.

Pros

FastSpring has been completely dependable in providing a way for me to sell ebooks through my website. Once each book is set up as a new product, I rarely have to take any further actions; I can attend to other aspects of my business, secure in the knowledge that FastSpring is taking care of all aspects of sales, including processing payments, taking care of sales taxes in many countries, and handling downloads of the books by the customers.

Cons

When I first started using FastSpring, I found it somewhat tricky to set up a new product. It took me a while to understand how to construct the template for the email message a customer receives after purchasing an ebook. However, FastSpring's support team helped me through that process, and now it is very easy to set up each new product, using a template that has been saved to my account, which provides multiple file downloads so the customer can download the book in three versions (PDF, ePub, and Kindle). The only other problem I sometimes encounter is when a customer contacts me to say they have not received an ebook they paid for. On several occasions, the problem was caused when the customer entered their email address incorrectly. I wish the FastSpring system would somehow verify that the email address is correct when entered.

FastSpring as a commerce solution

I have been making use of FastSpring for two years now. I will soon launch my second product through them as well. I actually did have another product that I sold through them, however, the product did not meet with their compliance team and I had to remove the second product. This is actually where they impressed me the most... Rather than simply banning my product, which would have killed my site instantly, they told me through their support channel that the product does comply with their acceptable use policies and gave me a week to move it to another commerce provider. At the time I decided to get a merchant account so I can not get into the same situation with another provider and asked for an extension. They were very understanding and extremely helpful in the matter. Their support staff is top notch. It took me more than a month to move to my own merchant account and I was able to do this transparently to my site visitors. They pay out on time (sometimes they actually pay a day or 2 ahead of time), provide extensive reports and to date I have not had a single issue with them. I have been selling online for more than 15 years and to date this is the the best eCommerce platform I have ever used, not to mention trustworthy. If they approve your product, you can be assured that you will have a partner that is trusted by buyers and once integrated with your site, you never have to worry about them as they just work. Highly recommended.

Pros

The fulfillment aspect of FastSpring is very good, making it virtually impossible for visitors to your site to get your product without first paying.

Cons

Integrating with your site is a bit involved and you will need some technical knowledge to seamlessly integrate it with your site.

Poor user experience, terrible platform to navigate, way too expensive and awful refund management

none

Pros

none that I can think of, we use a number of payment gateways/merchants etc. and FastSpring is never one we would choose, we inherited it from an acquisition.

Cons

Poor user experience, terrible platform to navigate, way too expensive and awful refund management, Reporting is terrible.

Best of the the Bunch

With FastSpring, I can provide purchasing environments for any country on the planet, and in any currency. Their rapid-response Support is a significant advantage over any other online monetary system. If you make the decision to utilize FastSpring, you will rejoice in that choice, both when you need help - and when you get paid for our sales!!

Pros

The learning curve on the FastSpring store environment is easy to master. On first exposure, the features and capabilities can seem to be a bit overwhelming to initially understand. But with careful reading of all of the Help topics you will soon have enough knowledge to begin designing your store structure. Anytime, you discover a feature or function that doesn't understandable, go to Support and submit your questions and intended results that you want to achieve. The folks will rapidly respond and do everything possible to provide information.

Cons

I would like to be able to sort products and offerings into more easily manageable groups. For example, being able to add sorting tags to a single product, and generate individual store fronts by simply defining the contents by the assigned tags.

Reliable payment solution with great choice of payment options for my customers

I've been with FastSpring for about 3 years or so, and I've never had any issues, and neither had my customers. Great and responsive support team. Most recommended!

Pros

- Fast and responsive support team. - Wide choice of payment and currency options for my customers. - Very flexible with features covering almost all of my business needs.

Cons

- Can sometimes be a bit unfriendly in terms of the interface. Looks like the coders are in charge of usability. - Design of the user checkout and options to change it are a bit outdated and need to be modernized. - Could have integrations (or apps) with web and eCommerce platforms: Wix, Ecwid, etc. - A bit hard to setup more complex elements such as shopping cart, etc. Needs to offer some visual way to do it (without coding).

Great eCommerce and Subscription management platform

Pros

We have been using FastSpring for over 6 years now and the first thing that comes to mind is that it is a solid product, that we never have issues with. It just works. I can't say it is complicated in the initial setup. All the necessary testing options are available and they are easy to use. Overall great product with many options to set up your store and integrate with other platforms.

Cons

I don't have much to say here, except that maybe there is a bit of a learning curve to it if you have no background in setting up subscription-type billing.

Selling Digital Products Online

I really like the solution and I think FastSpring have helped me make some money with the minimal of effort, whilst satisfying the majority of my Customer base - keep up the good work!

Pros

I feel I can trust the Software to deliver on Sales after I have configured my Product. It is a fairly straight-forward, low cost solution to getting my Products online and getting revenue. I have tried other systems and still love FastSpring the best!

Cons

I like the old style Login unfortunately as the new Board is missing the easy ability to switch from test to active when designing the Products - I could not find it anywhere and I searched for ages!? The reporting still needs work - it is not intuitive enough and always takes me ages to get the type of data I want to see

Reliable global payment processing platform.

Ability to accept payments from anywhere in the world (currently 80+ countries), with a range of payment options.

Pros

Good handling of payments via various payment methods, anywhere in the world. Tax processing for virtually all the countries, with refund capability, if applicable.

Cons

Occasional glitches in integration with our platform, TestDome, resulting in us having to update some payments manually.

Reliable online payment processing solution

TestDome has been using FastSpring for online payment processing for our worldwide customers, including VAT and tax processing, for more than 4 years, and we've been very satisfied with the service and support.

Pros

FastSpring provides online payment processing solution for our worldwide customers, including VAT and tax processing.

Cons

Creating custom orders and invoices could be more user-friendly.

FastSpring Review

A good reliable eCommerce solution for software vendors.

Pros

Has a professional look for the customer. Generally easy to use for the vendor. Can customize/automate with scripts.

Cons

Some features are awkward to setup but they can be done. Vendor help section needs some rework/updating.

Good payment option with rich options

They helped us with simple payment option for our subscription based service, with price adjustable by us.

Pros

Rich features They handle taxes well all around the world

Cons

Poor support Buggy implementation of new JavaScript based storefront

FastSpring has made collecting recurring payments so easy for our business!

- Recurring payments from all major countries - Easy-to-use payment software - Great support

Pros

I was introduced to FastSpring by an existing customer which I asked for suggestions for a payment gateway that could help us process recurring payments. The challenge was that our home country was India and other payment gateway providers like 2checkout had already rejected our application. But we got on-board with fastspring within a couple of weeks and it has been an amazing journey since then. We've processed thousands of dollars since then and experience has been very transparent.

Cons

A few hiccups would be: 1. The UI and easy-of-use can be worked upon. Sometimes it becomes difficult to find the right section/settings for a specific order 2. The back-end dashboard could have a few more features

Love this service, allows us to get on with our work it does, invoicing and taxes and reminders

business ones - international taxes paid, automated reminders,

Pros

Does taxes, sends automated reminders, automated failed payment notifications, tracks memberships and active inactive states. I'd like to be able to track approved users in the Fastspring (other admin staff etc)

Cons

Hate hate hate the font size of the customer URL... its small and have to adjust it manually to normal size each time I email a customer a copy. On the reports page I don't understand the reporting on Current Subscriptions, its often at odds with other methods we use to track memberships, and varies wildly during a 24 hour time frame

Good choice for app distribution

I have only used FastSpring for distributing one app, but I have used other similar services in the past for other apps. I am very satisfied with FastSpring, and feel it is superior to those other services.

Pros

Using FastSpring it was easy to set up a sales solution for my Microsoft Windows app. The site allows extensive testing of your store listing prior to going live. The user interface is intuitive. I have had no problems with the mechanics of the service. User feedback is forwarded safely and securely, and it has been easy to handle user issues.

Cons

The only suggestion I have had is to provide a mechanism for free software updates for registered end users of my app. There are some mechanisms in play, but they are time-limited. Right now I maintain a mailing list and give out free update coupons to purchasers of my app. But it would be nice to make this a little easier via the site.

FastSpring is a great platform

As a five year user of FS, we only had one big glitch. In this particular case, our account was brutally debited as FS had a credit card invoicing problem. We had to recontact each customer to rebill and in this particular case, I felt that I was left alonetu unscramble this but otherwise we are satisfied.

Pros

FS has supplied a great deal of work that we didn't have to program ourselves. It takes care of our renewals and fulfilments better that we could do ourselves.

Cons

None, the platforms are great (Springboard and Dashboard)

Best among all

We are doing a B2C product and it needs very reliable channel to get money from our customers. Our product has global existence hence customers coming around the globe. FastSpring works very well for us and our customer's are very comfortable to pay us for our product. We have good relationship with FastSpringare and achieving our goals with ease.

Pros

Easy to integrate Efficient in handling payments Money vs Value is perfect Quick response from CS team

Cons

Need automation in few areas. Rest is good