Pricing & plans 201: Advanced currency
Scale global multi-currency billing with Recurly. Optimize international expansion using per-currency gateway routing, 3DS2/SCA compliance for European markets, and region-aware dunning campaigns.
Acquire · Pricing & Plans 201
Advanced currency
Multi-currency at scale means more than setting prices in different denominations. It means routing transactions to the right gateway per currency, handling authentication requirements for European markets, and tuning your dunning logic for how payment failures actually behave in each region.
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Advanced currency
Per-currency gateway routing
Recurly does not perform currency conversion. The price you set in a given currency is presented and processed in that currency — your payment gateway handles it. This means your gateway configuration must explicitly support each currency you accept.
When you have multiple gateways configured, Recurly routes transactions based on the card type and currency of the transaction, then falls back to the first gateway added that matches. You can override this default routing using custom gateway routing — passing a gateway_code on the purchase or subscription API call to direct specific transactions to a specific gateway.
Confirm gateway currency support before enabling a currency
Not all gateways support all currencies. Before enabling a new currency in Recurly, verify that at least one of your configured gateways supports it. Navigate to Configuration → Currencies — the page shows which currencies are supported by your current gateway configuration. Gateways like Adyen and Stripe support most Recurly currencies; others are more limited.
Set default gateways per currency where needed
In Configuration → Payment Gateways → Default Gateways, you can assign a specific gateway as the default for each payment method. This is the right approach when you have gateways optimized for specific regions — for example, a European gateway with better authorization rates for EUR transactions. Transactions will route to that gateway first for the matching currency, before falling back to the general default.
Use custom gateway routing for precise control
Custom gateway routing lets you pass a gateway_code on any purchase or subscription API call to send that specific transaction to a designated gateway — regardless of default settings. This is useful for A/B testing gateway performance by currency, routing high-value transactions to a preferred processor, or directing specific payment methods to a gateway with better approval rates for that method. Custom gateway routing (passing gateway_code) is not available on Starter plans — contact Recurly Sales for plan options.
Enable zero-dollar authorizations for non-USD currencies
Recurly recommends enabling zero-dollar authorization support on all gateway accounts used for non-USD currencies. Without it, exchange rate differences can trigger invalid amount errors during card verification. Check your gateway's documentation to enable this, then verify the setting is active in your Recurly gateway configuration.
Gateway failover automatically reroutes transactions to a backup gateway if your primary goes down. This is separate from custom gateway routing — failover activates only on gateway errors, not as standard routing logic.
3DS and SCA for European markets
If your business or your payment provider is based in the European Economic Area (EEA) and you have customers there, PSD2 requires Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) for most online transactions. 3D Secure 2.0 (3DS2) is the protocol used to satisfy that requirement.
New subscriptions and one-time charges
SCA is required for customer-initiated transactions (CIT) — typically at signup or checkout. Use Recurly Checkout or Recurly.js to handle the 3DS2 challenge flow. Recurly's hosted checkout pages handle SCA automatically. Custom integrations using Recurly.js need to implement the 3DS2 challenge flow per the integration guide.
Customer-initiatedRecurring renewals (merchant-initiated)
Subscription renewals are merchant-initiated transactions (MIT) and are generally exempt from SCA. However, some issuing banks still present a challenge. Recurly's dunning configuration includes a 3DS-specific decline flow for supported gateways (Adyen, Worldpay, Stripe) that sends a re-authentication email to the subscriber to complete the challenge and recover the transaction.
Merchant-initiatedGateways that support 3DS on Recurly
Not every gateway supports 3DS through Recurly. Confirm your gateway supports 3DS2 before relying on Recurly's SCA flows. Gateways with documented 3DS support include Adyen, Stripe, Worldpay, Braintree, Cybersource, and others — check your specific gateway's documentation, as some gateways (like Stripe) handle verification automatically.
Gateway-dependentWhat happens without SCA compliance
Transactions that should be authenticated but aren't may be declined by the issuing bank. For customer-initiated transactions, this means lost signups. For recurring renewals where a bank requests re-authentication, it means involuntary churn. Test your 3DS2 flows in sandbox using Recurly's test cards before going live in EEA markets.
Risk of non-complianceRegion-aware dunning
Payment failure patterns vary significantly by region. Hard declines are more common in some markets; soft declines and insufficient funds patterns look different in others. A single dunning campaign built around US card behavior may underperform in European or APAC markets.
Recurly supports multiple dunning campaigns. Assign different campaigns to plans or subscriptions based on the subscriber's market. For European subscribers on gateways that support SCA declines, configure the 3DS2 dunning email as part of the campaign — this sends a re-authentication link to the subscriber when a renewal is challenged. For markets with high soft-decline rates, extend retry windows and increase retry attempts before cancellation.
Recurly's 3DS-specific dunning email — which sends a re-authentication link to the subscriber — only functions for gateways that return 3DS-specific decline messages: Adyen, Worldpay, and Stripe. If your European subscribers are on a different gateway, the standard dunning flow applies and SCA-challenged renewals may not recover without manual intervention.
Expanding into European or global markets?
Gateway routing decisions, SCA compliance setup, and dunning configuration for international markets are all areas where our CSMs can provide direct guidance. Bring specific questions to Global Office Hours before you configure your international billing stack.
Register for Office Hours →