Airwallex isn’t content with just powering cross-border payments. The global fintech player just snapped up OpenPay, a San Francisco billing startup specializing in subscription management, payment orchestration, and revenue analytics. The move is a clear escalation in the battle to control how modern businesses bill, collect, and grow—putting Airwallex head-to-head with Stripe Billing, Recurly, and Chargebee.

Why It Matters

Subscription and usage-based pricing are no longer niche. From SaaS to AI to cloud infrastructure, companies are shifting from static seat-based licenses to consumption-driven models: tokens, calls, compute cycles, you name it. That complexity has turned billing from back-office plumbing into a competitive differentiator.

Airwallex is betting that by pairing its global financial infrastructure with OpenPay’s smart billing stack, it can offer something competitors haven’t cracked yet: a billing system designed for a multi-currency, cross-border world.

“Most billing systems are locked in the past, they were never designed for a global, multi-currency world. That’s the gap we’re closing,” said Jack Zhang, Airwallex co-founder and CEO.

What OpenPay Brings to the Table

OpenPay has spent the past few years building modern billing tools that go well beyond “send invoice, collect cash.” Its capabilities include:

• Smart payment routing to reduce failure rates and optimize revenue.
• AI-driven retention tools for reducing churn.
• Real-time analytics that let businesses see revenue trends instantly.
• Flexible subscription models spanning tiered, usage-based, and flat-fee billing.

That last one may be the kicker. With AI companies monetizing by tokens and cloud firms charging by consumption, demand for usage-based billing is soaring. By plugging OpenPay directly into its platform, Airwallex aims to give businesses “built-in” billing that works across borders and currencies, without bolt-ons or patchwork integrations.

Competitive Firepower

The acquisition puts Airwallex squarely against Stripe Billing, Recurly, and Chargebee, all of which dominate billing automation for SaaS and subscription businesses. But Airwallex’s pitch is different: global-first billing, not domestic systems stretched across borders.

For companies scaling across regions, that could be a game-changer. Instead of duct-taping together local billing engines, Airwallex customers may finally get a unified platform that handles payments, billing, and analytics without borders slowing things down.

OpenPay’s CEO Lance Co Ting Keh framed the deal as a scale play: “We started OpenPay to solve the complexity of recurring revenue management… In Airwallex, we found a partner who shares our vision and has the global reach to apply our work at scale.”

The Bigger Picture

This is more than an acqui-hire. Airwallex is retooling its platform into what it calls the first truly global billing system. If successful, that could make it more than just a payments processor—it could become the infrastructure layer for global SaaS, AI startups, and any consumption-led business trying to scale subscriptions without getting buried in compliance and payment headaches.

The acquisition also signals a broader trend: billing is the new battleground in fintech. Where payments, payroll, and expense management have already gone digital, recurring revenue is still full of inefficiencies. Whoever builds the smoothest, most borderless billing engine stands to capture a growing wave of subscription dollars.