Pricing for two markets: what we learned building NGN support

When we launched Dyrected's cloud plans, we had a decision to make: one price in USD, or market-specific pricing?

The answer was obvious to us. A $39/month plan is a rounding error for a US-based agency. For an equivalent Nigerian business, it's a significant commitment relative to local costs and salaries. If we priced only in USD, we'd effectively be closed to a large part of the market we care about.

Not just currency conversion

The naive approach is to take the USD price and multiply by the exchange rate. That gives you a number in naira that fluctuates with the dollar and is usually painful.

We did something different: we priced in naira based on what the plan is worth to a Nigerian business. The Studio plan is $39/month in USD and ₦45,000/month in NGN. The exchange rate at time of writing would imply roughly ₦62,000 — significantly more. Our naira price reflects local market value, not currency arithmetic.

The technical side

We detect currency automatically via IP geolocation and default to the right currency for the user's location. Nigerian visitors see naira prices; everyone else sees USD. There's a manual toggle so anyone can switch.

On the billing side, we use Paystack for naira payments and Stripe for USD. The same subscription model works for both — the provider is swapped based on which currency the customer chose at checkout.

What we'd do differently

The hardest part wasn't the code — it was deciding on the naira prices in the first place. We went through several iterations trying to balance affordability with sustainability. We got it wrong twice before landing where we are.

If you're building for multiple markets: start with the question "what is this worth to someone in this market?" not "what does this convert to?". The answer is usually a different number.