Challenge

As developers were looking to reclaim more of their revenue, they were searching for a solution to be able to sell to players directly, in addition to the traditional in-game purchases supported by the app stores. In response, Unity launched a direct-to-consumer commerce solution that can help lower fees, enable more flexible pricing, and give developers the opportunity to build a relationship directly with their players.

But selling directly to players introduces new complexity. Developers must manage payment flows, fraud, tax compliance, disputes, and fragmented systems across platforms and markets—all while continuing to build and ship games.

For many developers, that operational overhead made direct-to-consumer commerce difficult to justify.

Solution

On the path to provide global and regional payment provider options, Unity first partnered with Stripe to build a native commerce integration directly into the Unity Editor, making it easier for developers to launch direct-to-consumer webshops and keep more revenue than they would selling solely through traditional app stores.

Through Stripe Checkout and Stripe Managed Payments, developers can launch direct-to-consumer capabilities without having to build tax, fraud, dispute, and support infrastructure from scratch.

Stripe Managed Payments acts as the merchant of record for supported transactions, handling tax compliance in more than 80 countries, along with fraud prevention, dispute management, and transaction-related customer support. This removes some of the biggest operational barriers to direct-to-consumer commerce for developers.

“Instead of asking developers to take on the complexity of understanding and handling local tax laws, payment infrastructure, and financial compliance region by region, Stripe Managed Payments can just take on that work,” said Eli Bork, senior technical product manager at Unity.

Stripe Checkout powers the purchase experience across Unity’s webshops with an app-to-web experience that’s designed to feel native, so developers don’t need to build the checkout themselves. Through this checkout experience, Unity can support digital wallets and local payment methods, while Link helps returning players check out faster with saved payment details.

Unity also enabled Adaptive Pricing to display prices in local currencies across markets. Once a purchase is complete, the game’s backend receives an immediate signal, so in-game items can be granted instantly.

All of this is managed through a single catalog, where updates to pricing or promotions can be reflected across mobile, web, and PC simultaneously.

Results

Built-in tax compliance across 80+ countries

With Managed Payments acting as the merchant of record for supported transactions, Unity can now offer developers global tax compliance across more than 80 countries, along with fraud prevention, dispute handling, and customer support.

Direct-to-consumer activation in days

With prebuilt checkout, built-in compliance support, and a native integration in the Unity Editor, developers can stand up their direct-to-consumer commerce solution in days instead of spending months on custom development. This includes standing up a webshop in hours, instead of weeks, given Unity’s turnkey, no-code webshop builder.

Returning players check out faster

By letting returning players pay with saved payment details instead of re-entering card information, Link helps reduce friction and speed up repeat purchases. Combined with Adaptive Pricing and local currency presentment, this helps developers improve conversion.

*Source: Apptopia, Data.ai, and Sensor Tower. Disclaimer: Top mobile games is a blended number defined by the top 1,000 mobile games based on monthly active users from each of the Google Play Store and iOS App Store for the month of December 2025. This figure is calculated globally, excluding China.