When you organize an international event, even the smallest settings in your ecommerce store can turn into big decisions. Recently, I had to decide how to handle the Checkout Summit ticket prices for people outside the eurozone. Should I only accept EUR, or should I also give the option to pay in USD? And if I do both, what’s the fairest way to set the exchange rate?
In a recent Twitter thread, I shared my thought process and asked for feedback. The discussion raised good points about customer expectations, payment provider features, and the hidden costs of conversion. Here’s what went on behind the scenes.
The Initial Setup
The straightforward option was to sell tickets in euros only. After all, the venue, suppliers, and most expenses are billed in EUR.
But Checkout Summit is a global event, with many attendees from North America. Showing them a euro-only price felt like adding unnecessary friction.
That’s why I decided to enable both EUR and USD payments through WooPayments (which runs on Stripe). This makes it easier for people to buy in their familiar currency while still giving me euros in the end.
The Manual Conversion Rate
Here’s where it gets tricky. WooPayments offers automatic live conversion rates. But when withdrawing USD to my EUR account via Wise, I get charged a conversion fee. To cover that, I set a manual fixed rate of 1.3 (instead of the current market rate of about 1.16).
This isn’t about making a profit — it’s about making sure I don’t lose money on currency fluctuations and transfer costs.
The Question of Transparency
The big question was whether I needed to disclose this manual rate to customers. Would people feel misled if the USD price was slightly higher than the actual exchange rate?
That’s why I asked on Twitter.
A few people chimed in:
- One pointed out that Stripe already handles conversion automatically and bakes in its own margin. In practice, most merchants don’t add their own layer on top.
- Another simply said, “Just do it.” Sometimes, overthinking can create more problems than it solves.
- A third reminder was that customers usually don’t care about exchange rate details. As long as the price they see at checkout matches what’s charged, it’s fine. The only red flag would be advertising in USD and then switching currencies unexpectedly.
The Decision
In the end, I’ll keep both EUR and USD enabled. I’ll use WooPayments’ currency switcher, but with my manual 1.3 rate instead of the live one.
It’s a compromise: US attendees can still pay in dollars, Europeans in euros, and I’m not stuck paying unnecessary fees. Most people will probably never notice the difference. For me, though, it’s one of those behind-the-scenes details that quietly keep Checkout Summit running smoothly.
Conclusion
From the outside, selling tickets looks simple: set a price and go. But in practice, every setting has financial and user-experience consequences. Currency conversion was one of those decisions where I had to balance fairness, simplicity, and sustainability.
And that’s part of the reality of running an international event — the details matter, even if nobody talks about them.
