PartnerStack revolutionizes B2B relationships with Airwallex
PartnerStack wanted a reliable, seamless, and cost effective provider to power its affiliate payouts. Read how Airwallex became its preferred vendor.
3%
customer savings on FX fees
6,000+
partners paid out via Airwallex
$11.7 million+
in payouts processed via Airwallex
PartnerStack is changing the way the world sells software by growing partnerships into a competitive acquisition channel.
Industry
SaaS
Location
Toronto, Canada
Company size
51–200+ employees
PartnerStack, a trailblazer in ecosystem management software, has fundamentally transformed how B2B organizations collaborate. With a staggering 117% Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) growth year-over-year, the company single-handedly facilitated $1 billion of GMV – and more than $500 million in 2023 alone across its vast network.
We spoke with Neil Chudleigh, Co-founder, and Ajay Bala, Senior Product Manager, to gain insights into how PartnerStack has harnessed Airwallex to expand globally.
PartnerStack’s success is driven by its vision to rethink B2B partnerships, along with the entire landscape of affiliate marketing.
The company was born out of its founders’ prior startup attempt. Facing difficulties selling to nonprofits, they pivoted toward working with commission-based sales partners and realized it was a great application for B2B SaaS companies.
This shift led to an expansive network of over 80,000 partners, eventually making PartnerStack the world’s largest B2B network, with a powerful platform that helps businesses manage and optimize their partner and affiliate programs.
In the last year, PartnerStack’s GMV surpassed the hallowed $1 billion mark, with every dollar of that billion representing a dollar of value exchanged between a SaaS company and a partner. This milestone underscores PartnerStack’s belief that strong partnerships power revenue in the B2B world.
Neil Chudleigh
Co-Founder of PartnerStack
"We have a massive partner and customer base at PartnerStack, making it easier for B2B SaaS companies to scale and grow their channels."
The challenge
A need for integrative payment solutions
As part of its PRM solution, PartnerStack helps SaaS platforms track and pay partners fees for each successful channel sale. As PartnerStack continued to grow, it found that around 15–20% of its SaaS customers are located in one country, with the partner located in another. Motivated to solve challenges related to the deliverability and speed of these cross-border payments, PartnerStack began evaluating new payment platforms in 2021.
“Other payment providers had a lot of restrictions on how you can move cash,” Chudleigh shared. “They tend to be expensive in pretty surprising ways for moving money to certain locations.”
In addition to reducing FX costs for partners, PartnerStack also sought a solution that seamlessly integrated with their platform and provided a native experience to “make it easy for partners to use.”
Chudleigh explained, “We wanted something that wouldn’t limit us. Something built to be integrated into a product and to feel native to the PartnerStack platform.”
The solution
Airwallex emerged as the ideal choice due to its deep integration capabilities, transparent documentation, local payout rails in 90+ countries, and low FX fees. Airwallex now supports PartnerStack by facilitating efficient and secure payouts to partners with reduced payout processing time, thus improving operational efficiency and partner satisfaction.
The impact of local payout and multi-currency functionality
Since adopting Airwallex, PartnerStack has achieved remarkable results. The ability to receive funds via direct bank transfer is a common partner request.
Over the course of just a few months, PartnerStack has processed millions of dollars in transactions with over six thousand partners via Airwallex. Those partners span 20–25 countries, and PartnerStack estimates that its partners have saved over 3% in FX fees.
Streamlining its payment operations through Airwallex’s payout capabilities has significantly improved PartnerStack’s efficiency and partner satisfaction.
Ajay Bala emphasized the significance of Airwallex’s support for local payouts in multiple currencies and geographical regions.
Ajay Bala
Senior Product Manager at PartnerStack
“The value for building our top-of-the-funnel is our payments functionality. Airwallex’s multi-currency capabilities have made a huge difference.”
Expanding support to match Airwallex's reach
Airwallex provides a scalable solution to support PartnerStack’s global mindset.
Bala shared the company’s vision for collecting payments from its SaaS platform clients in the upcoming years: “We want to use Airwallex to collect multi-currency payments in all of the countries that Airwallex supports.”
PartnerStack’s goal is to create a more expansive and seamless experience for the SaaS companies it serves. The company plans to use Global Accounts and Airwallex's card-acquiring capabilities to collect international customer payments and expand multi-currency support. This makes operations more accessible and efficient for SaaS platforms worldwide.
Chudleigh highlighted the significance of the service extension. “Being able to support multiple currencies is a big deal and can be the reason we win against competitors. It’s an advantage for users – ease of use, holistic end-to-end, multi-currency flow, not being scolded for living in a country other than the United States by getting a higher payment processing fee.”
Bala agreed. “We want to give them a good fee no matter where they are, and I think Airwallex will make things much easier.”
Airwallex is a game-changer that helps businesses like PartnerStack stay competitive, agile, and future-focused.
What users say about Airwallex
"Airwallex has been a game changer for all our banking needs. As a fast-growing startup, we need a scalable yet cost-efficient batch payment solution to pay our employees and vendors both inside and outside Hong Kong. Airwallex helps us save money on every bank transfer with their near-zero transaction fee and market-beating FX rates. We also use Airwallex’s multi-currency Visa cards for business travel expenses and SaaS subscriptions to avoid hidden bank fees that would otherwise have been difficult to spot. Would highly recommend other startups to get started with Airwallex!"
Henson Tsai
Founder, SleekFlow
"Airwallex has been great for our team - it makes payments and transfers so much easier, and has saved us significant amounts of time compared to what we were doing before with HSBC. Airwallex's platform is easy to use and very intuitive. Airwallex virtual card has solved most of our painpoints with sharing corporate card numbers and credit card limits. The best part is being able to save money on all our monthly bank transfers, and we've already saved thousands of dollars by using Airwallex. Airwallex's support has also been highly responsive to troubleshoot any issues in a timely manner."
Sarah Chang
Co-founder & COO, Forkast.News
“Airwallex provides us with flexibility and cost savings in dealing internationally. We used Airwallex to receive our recent global fundraising round and pay international suppliers and are saving at least 5% per dollar transferred versus the big banks.”
George van Dyck
Finance Manager, Zoomo
“Airwallex has been a game changer for us. I cannot recommend these guys enough. The forex services are super efficient and super competitive. The customer service is not gold-plated, it's solid gold. One of the best eCommerce services for merchants we have come across since PayPal hit the scene 20 years ago."
Murray Kester
CEO, Cosmetics Now – eCommerce
“Having all our global SaaS subscriptions in one place has streamlined our finance processes and enabled better tracking and control of expenses. It’s even better knowing that Airwallex isn’t hitting us with any international transaction fees.”
Warren Durling
Chief Operating Officer, Dovetail – Digital Agency
“Airwallex is our one-stop shop for all our banking needs, in one easy-to-use interface. Without Airwallex, we would not have been able to scale our business as fast as what we’ve been able to achieve.”
Andrew Ford and Rosa-Clare Willis
Co-founders, Crockd – eCommerce
“Airwallex saves us $40,000 annually in collections costs from our sales on Amazon, which is the majority of our sales in the U.S. market. It also allows us to ‘repurpose’ our international currencies. For example, if we sell in Europe we can pay European suppliers in Euros as well. There’s no need to ‘double convert."
Edward Agaba
Controller, Dalstrong
