Skydo Review and Top Alternative in 2025
Joshua D'Costa
Growth & Marketing
Oct 28, 2025
|
5
min
Expanding a digital business globally often feels like navigating complexities of exchange rates, compliance hoops and hidden fees. For entrepreneurs, Skydo aims to simplify this by offering a single platform to receive cross-border payments faster and more transparently.
Let’s unpack what Skydo does, its pricing and drawbacks, and then explore modern alternatives tailored for digital/SaaS sellers.
What is Skydo?
Skydo is a fintech platform built to help Indian freelancers and exporters receive international payments with ease.
It gives you virtual foreign currency accounts so overseas clients can pay you as if to a local bank. Skydo then converts those funds to INR and deposits them in your Indian account all within 24 to 48 hours and even issues the required RBI compliance certificate (FIRC/FIRA) automatically.
Beyond simple transfers, Skydo includes built-in invoicing and accounting tools, letting you create invoices and track receipts in the same system.
Key Features of Skydo
Skydo offers several features aimed at streamlining cross-border payments for freelancers:
Multi-currency virtual accounts: Virtual USD, GBP, EUR, CAD (and other) bank accounts let your clients pay locally without SWIFT hassles.
Transparent flat fees: A simple pricing model with no percentage surprises and zero FX markup. You always get live interbank exchange rates.
Instant compliance (FIRA/FIRC): Each inward remittance triggers an automated Foreign Inward Remittance Advice (or FIRC), so you stay RBI-compliant without manual paperwork.
Real-time tracking: A dashboard shows exactly where each payment is in the pipeline.
Integrated invoicing: Generate invoices and receive payments within the same interface.
These tools aim to replace a patchwork of banks and apps, giving international sellers a one-stop solution to get paid.
Skydo Disadvantages
Skydo is feature-rich, but there are a few caveats to consider:
Limited currency support: Only major currencies are currently available. If your clients pay in a niche currency, Skydo may not support it.
Learning curve: First-time users may need some time to explore all of Skydo’s features and layout.
Primarily freelancer-focused: Skydo appears to target freelancers and individual creators rather than productized SaaS or AI startups.
Payment methods: Skydo supports card and ACH payments (via InstaLinks), but if you need broader or local payment rails, options are more limited.
Overall, Skydo’s simplicity and compliance features are strong, but make sure it covers the countries and currencies your customers use.
Skydo Pricing
Skydo’s pricing is flat and predictable. Every transfer incurs a fixed fee based on the amount:
Up to USD 2,000: $19 (plus 18% GST)
USD 2,001–10,000: $29 (plus 18% GST)
Above USD 10,000: 0.3% of the amount (plus 18% GST)
There are no hidden charges or FX markups. You pay exactly the flat fee and get the live exchange rate. This straightforward fee structure helps businesses invoice more confidently, knowing their exact costs up front.
Skydo Alternatives for Digital Businesses in 2025
Dodo Payments
Dodo Payments is a global payment platform specialized for digital products, SaaS and subscription businesses. It also acts as a Merchant of Record (MoR), meaning Dodo Payments effectively becomes the legal seller on each transaction.
This allows Dodo Payments to automatically handle international taxes, invoicing, and compliance so that your company doesn’t have to jump through those hoops.
Dodo Payments lets customers pay in local currency through many methods, then remits the cleared funds to you after deducting a flat fee, issuing all necessary tax documents along the way.
Dodo Payments Features
Advanced Subscription Management: It can fully automate recurring billing cycles, payment retries and renewals. You can set up monthly/annual plans, free trials, and automated dunning to recover failed payments.
Global Digital Delivery: Sell software, e-books, courses or any digital goods worldwide. Dodo Payments automates product delivery and compliance checks so your customers get access instantly without regional friction.
Automated Tax Compliance: Taxes like VAT or GST are calculated and remitted on your behalf based on customer location. There’s no need to register in each country, it handles the paperwork.
Broad Payment Acceptance: Supports 30+ payment methods across 200+ countries and territories, including cards, local wallets and bank rails. Built-in fraud prevention and multiple payment routes help maximize approval rates globally.
Custom Checkout & Analytics: Offers a mobile-friendly, one-click checkout that you can brand for your site, plus rich dashboards and reports to track revenue and customer behavior in real time.
Together, these tools let you sell internationally without hiring tax experts or building complex payment infrastructure yourself.
Advantages of Dodo Payments
Full-Stack Merchant-of-Record Service: Dodo Payments becomes the seller on record for transactions, so it legally takes on tax collection, invoicing and compliance in each market. This is a huge relief for small teams expanding abroad.
Optimized for SaaS/Digital: Everything in Dodo Payments from subscription billing to license key delivery, is aimed at online products and recurring revenue. It even integrates fraud protection and churn management out of the box.
Developer-Friendly: Dodo Payments provides well-documented APIs and SDKs for integration, plus a no-code checkout option for non-technical founders. You can get up and running quickly without heavy engineering.
High Approval Rates: By routing payments through local methods and handling decline logic, Dodo Payments typically achieves higher success rates than single-gateway setups. More sales go through, and you keep more of your revenue.
Dodo Payments Pricing
Dodo keeps pricing simple:
Standard Plan (pay-as-you-go): 4% + $0.40 per transaction. No monthly fee for small businesses. This base fee includes all features like billing automation, tax handling, fraud protection, etc.
Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing by quotation. For larger companies, it offers dedicated account managers and advanced features with bespoke rates.
There are truly no hidden costs beyond the per-transaction fee (currency conversion fees may apply when you accept multiple currencies).
What Makes Dodo Payments Stand Out
Dodo Payments’ biggest differentiator is its all-in-one, global-focused model. As a true Merchant of Record, Dodo Payments removes almost all legal and tax friction for your international sales.
It takes care of compliance, remits taxes and manages chargebacks, essentially providing a plug-and-play global checkout for your business.
For digital startups and SaaS companies it ties everything together. You get subscription billing, multi-currency checkout, automated VAT/GST, fraud checks and analytics in a single platform.
In short, you can focus on building your product while Dodo Payments handles the end-to-end payment flow for customers anywhere in the world.
Final Thoughts
Skydo has carved a solid niche for Indian freelancers and exporters by offering a user-friendly dashboard, built-in RBI compliance and transparent flat fees. It’s a great tool if you need virtual accounts in a few common currencies and easy invoicing in one app.
That said, the payments landscape is evolving. Dodo Payments emerges as a compelling choice if your business is digital-first or subscription-based. Its merchant-of-record setup means less paperwork and higher payment acceptance globally for SaaS/digital sales.
Meanwhile, Skydo remains strong for straightforward cross-border transfers with no surprise costs. Ultimately, the best choice depends on your needs: Skydo for simplicity in traditional remittances, and Dodo Payments for a turnkey global checkout for your digital products.
