About Swapcard

Swapcard is an AI‑powered event engagement platform that helps organizers—such as associations, trade shows, and conference planners—deliver richer, more connected experiences. Built to simplify both the online and onsite event journey, the platform supports everything from registration and ticketing to networking, check‑ins, and analytics. Central to its offering is intelligent matchmaking that helps attendees discover the right people, content, or exhibitors at exactly the right time. Behind the scenes, event teams benefit from an intuitive, customizable interface and real‑time insights that streamline operations while maximizing engagement and ROI.

Introducing self-serve and usage-based pricing

Originally built as a sales-led SaaS serving large conferences and trade shows, the company has expanded its reach with a new self-serve product tailored for smaller organizations—typically events with up to 1,000 participants and around 30 exhibitors.

While the self-serve version offers the same core features—registration, ticketing, networking, and analytics—it comes with lighter support than Swapcard’s enterprise solution. Pricing is structured around the volume of participants and exhibitors, starting at €540 per year, with credits available to scale and more than 10 optional add-ons, such as custom event apps with branded logos.

Notable customers include organizations like 1format and Hemirable, alongside a growing base of event planners adopting the self-serve model to streamline their operations and increase engagement.

New pricing, new billing challenges

By introducing usage and credit-based pricing in its self-serve product, Swapcard also discovered the complexity that comes with managing such a model without the right tools. At the launch of the product four years ago, Stripe Subscriptions seemed like the natural choice for self-serve billing. But its limitations quickly became clear: renewals were difficult to manage, and prorations were a recurring headache, to name just a few.

Looking for alternatives, the team turned to Lago, an open-source solution. What followed was a five-month implementation effort for a platform with limited features. Key gaps included manual overage management on subscriptions, credit notes available only as paid features, and restricted support due to being on the open-source plan.

As Robin, Head of Growth at Swapcard, recalls:

“In the beginning, the support was great—we were early adopters. But very quickly, we were no longer a priority since we were on the open-source plan, and the support became very limited.”

Choosing Hyperline

Through a referral in his Growth network, Robin first heard about Hyperline and decided to give the platform a try. He signed up in self-serve and started exploring on his own. “It became clear right away that it covered everything we needed.”

He was convinced by both the product and the value proposition:

• A SaaS solution requiring no ongoing maintenance—unlike open source
• A feature set that addressed all previous limitations, bringing flexibility and reliability to their self-serve customers
• A fair monthly pricing model

“I was also reassured after speaking with the team,” Robin adds. “I could see the product was moving in the right direction, with upcoming features that would only improve our experience on the platform.”

With his hybrid Growth/engineering profile, Robin was able to lead the entire billing project end-to-end, involving developers only minimally. Less than two months later, Swapcard was ready to invoice its first customers through Hyperline. “And honestly, it could have been even faster—Hyperline built a custom credits feature for us right when we needed it most, which made all the difference.”

When usage-based billing just works

Since moving to Hyperline, Swapcard has seen a steady stream of new features that made managing billing not only easier, but far more efficient:

• Quotes directly in Hyperline, with checkout links for e-signature
• Credits management, a critical feature for Swapcard’s pricing model
• Invoicing ahead of time to simplify planning
• Granular permissions that empower Sales and CS teams to work directly in the platform
• A dedicated customer portal for cards, invoices, and credits
• A well-documented API for reporting and advanced workflows
• Key integrations, from data warehouses to Salesforce and Slack alerts

For the team, the impact has been clear. Sales and CS teams now run their own quotes and manage subscriptions on the platform and/or from Salesforce, meaning non-technical users can handle billing tasks without relying on developers. On the technical side, engineers appreciate the product’s stability, speed of bug fixes, and the pace at which new features are released.

As Robin summarizes: “The experience is great for both technical and non-technical teams. Hyperline keeps shipping at a fast pace, listens closely to feedback, and makes us feel like we’re co-building the product together.”

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