The right package depends on your team, not your turnover
Every Expandly package covers the same work on the same platform. VAT, producer responsibility, label review, listings, translations, channels and local stock all happen either way. What changes is who carries the thinking. Before you pick on price, it is worth being honest about how much of this your team can realistically absorb over the next few months.
Self-Serve suits brands with a capable person who has real time to give it. Guided suits brands who would rather have an expert making the calls with them. VIP suits brands moving fast, into several markets, where a delay costs real money. Most brands land on Guided, and the reason is usually time rather than knowledge.
Five things that decide it
Find the row that sounds most like your business, then look at which column your answers cluster in. If they cluster in the middle, that is your answer. If they sit across two columns, take the higher one. Nobody regrets having more support during a registration that is already running late.
£1,150 per month
£3,000 per month
£5,000 per month
Someone has to drive this internally, whichever package you pick.
A named person whose job this genuinely becomes, with the authority to make decisions.
Someone capable, fitting this around a role they already have full.
No obvious owner, or a leadership team who want it handled rather than delegated.
Measured during onboarding, which is the demanding phase.
A day a week or more to work through the onboarding wizard and knowledgebase properly.
A few hours a week, and those hours are better spent deciding than researching.
Whatever is left over, which in practice means not much at all.
VAT, EPR, Responsible Person, labelling, customs.
You have sold cross-border before and the terminology is familiar.
You could follow written guidance, but you would rather check your thinking with someone.
This is new territory and you want to be told what to do, in order, by someone accountable.
How much you are taking on, and how quickly.
One market to begin with, at a pace that suits you.
The core three markets, live within a sensible and planned window.
Several markets at once, or a date you have already committed to.
What happens if a registration comes back rejected.
Frustrating, but the business absorbs it without much damage.
A missed season, a stock position you have to unwind, a marketing spend wasted.
A serious commercial hit. Retail commitments, investor milestones, a product launch tied to it.
Five questions, one recommendation
Answer honestly rather than aspirationally. The most common mistake we see is a brand picking the package that matches the time they wish they had.
Who will own this day to day?
A named person whose job this becomes, with time protected for it
Someone capable, fitting it around a role that is already full
Nobody yet. We would find the time between us
How much time can that person give it in a typical week during onboarding?
A day a week or more
A few hours
Whatever is left at the end of the week
How comfortable is your team making tax and compliance decisions from written guidance?
We have sold cross-border before and know the terms
We could follow guidance, but we would want to sense-check it
This is new to us. We would want telling what to do
How many markets are you opening in the first twelve months?
One to start with, at our own pace
The core three, within a planned window
Several at once, or against a date we have already committed to
What would a two-month delay actually cost you?
Frustrating, but we would absorb it
A missed season, or stock sitting in the wrong place
A serious hit. We have commitments riding on the date
Answer the questions on the left and a recommendation will appear here, along with the reason behind it.
Your team could do this, but the hours are not really there and a wrong turn would cost you a season. A dedicated manager works the sequence with you, tells you what matters for your products rather than in general, and keeps the project moving when your week fills up. This is where most brands like yours land.
Where each package works, and where it does not
We would rather you picked correctly than cheaply. A brand on the wrong package costs us both time, and the place it usually shows up is week six of onboarding, when a registration stalls because nobody had an hour to gather the documents.
Expandly Self-Serve
£1,150 per month
- You have someone whose job this genuinely becomes
- That person enjoys working through a structured process and reading the detail
- You have sold outside your home market before
- You are starting with one market and setting your own pace
- Your product range is straightforward on compliance
- The owner keeps getting pulled back into their day job
- Nobody is confident enough to make a call without a second opinion
- Your range spans several compliance categories at once
- There is a launch date somebody has already promised
Expandly Guided
£3,000 per month
- Your owner is capable but short of hours, which is most brands
- You want the decisions explained rather than simply documented
- You are opening the core three markets on a planned timeline
- You would rather someone flagged the issue than you found it
- Quarterly reviews and an annual compliance audit have obvious value to you
- You want someone to run the whole programme with no internal involvement
- You are entering several markets at once against a fixed date
Expandly VIP
£5,000 per month
- Expansion is a board-level priority with money and dates attached
- You are opening several markets in parallel
- You want a senior consultant accountable for progress, not a contact point
- Monthly reviews and a site visit fit how your leadership team works
- Listings management and a tailored shipping plan matter to your model
- You are testing one market cautiously before committing
- Nobody senior on your side has time to meet monthly
What guided support actually changes
The knowledgebase will tell you what to do. It cannot tell you which part matters most for your product range this month, or notice that the document you uploaded will be rejected. That is the difference between reading guidance and having someone read your account. Here are the moments it shows up.
The document that would have been returned
Authorities reject applications for small, predictable reasons. A statement dated outside the accepted window, a company name that does not match the register exactly. A manager who has filed hundreds spots it before you submit rather than six weeks later.
The order things happen in
Registration timelines vary from about three weeks to the better part of a year. Knowing which to start first, and which can safely wait, is the difference between launching in the planned quarter and launching in the next one.
Which obligations your products actually trigger
Producer responsibility, labelling and Responsible Person requirements depend on what you sell, not on your sector. Someone who has worked your catalogue tells you which apply, so you are not reading five guides to rule out four.
The rule that moved after you launched
Requirements change, and the platform flags them. A manager tells you whether the change affects your products, what you need to do and by when, which is usually a five minute answer rather than an afternoon.
Where the margin is going
Quarterly reviews look at how each market is performing, what shipping is costing you and whether stock sits in the right place. Self-Serve gives you the same reporting. Guided gives you someone who reads it with you.
Keeping the project moving
The most common reason an expansion stalls is not difficulty. It is that the person driving it had a busy quarter. A scheduled call with someone expecting progress is a surprisingly effective fix.
Setup happens once. The decisions never stop
Most of this page has been about onboarding, because that is the part brands worry about. It is not where the packages differ most. Registrations get done either way, and by month six every customer is live on the same platform looking at the same data.
What happens next is the real difference. Every quarter after launch brings the same run of judgement calls. How much stock goes to the Netherlands and when. Whether you are inbounding to Amazon early enough to be received before peak, and whether your restock position gives you room. Which market deserves the next tranche of budget. Whether a margin dip is a pricing problem, a shipping problem or a returns problem. Nobody registers a company badly twice, but a brand can misjudge peak stock three years running and never quite work out why Europe feels harder than it should.
Registrations, compliance, listings, first stock. Packages look their most similar here.
First peak, first returns wave, first restock cycle. The gap starts to open.
Second and third markets, seasonal patterns you can now read, margin decisions with real money behind them.
The same decisions, handled three different ways
You decide, with the tools
You decide, better informed
We research, you approve
How much, how often, how far ahead
You read the reporting suite and set your own replenishment rhythm. The data is all there. Reading it well is on you.
Your manager walks the numbers with you, shows you which signals in the reporting actually predict a stockout, and flags when your cover looks thin.
Your consultant models the cover you need by market and brings a replenishment plan for you to approve.
Cut-offs, capacity, cover
You plan backwards from your own dates using the platform’s alerts and the trading newsletter.
Peak planning is what the autumn calls are for. You get the cut-off dates that matter for your channels and a plan you built with someone who has seen the season go wrong.
Your consultant builds the peak plan, pressure tests it against your forecast and tracks it with you monthly through the run-up.
Timing, limits, receiving windows
You manage your own inbound flow and restock position, with visibility of stock and orders in one place.
Your manager helps you time inbound shipments so stock is received when you need it, rather than sitting in a queue during the weeks it matters most.
Inbound planning is done with you, including how to split between FBA and local fulfilment as your mix changes.
Market four, five and six
You use the country guides, the market intelligence and Expandly AI to reach your own view.
You are shown how to use the same intelligence properly, then talk the shortlist through with someone who knows what your first three markets taught you.
We run the research for you and bring a written recommendation with the reasoning, the costs and the sequence.
Where the money is actually going
The reporting shows you performance market by market. Interpretation is yours.
Quarterly reviews go through it line by line, so a margin dip gets traced to a cause rather than noticed and lived with.
Monthly reviews, plus proactive recommendations when something in your numbers moves before you have asked about it.
New requirements, new thresholds
Alerts and the newsletter tell you what has changed. Working out whether it affects your products is your call.
You are told whether it affects your range, what to do and by when. Usually a short conversation rather than an afternoon.
It is handled proactively and brought to you with the action already scoped.
The gap between packages is fixed. The gap between decisions is not
The difference between Self-Serve and Guided is a known number you can see on the pricing page. The difference between a peak you prepared for and a peak you reacted to is not fixed at all. It scales with your revenue, and it repeats every year you trade.
That is the honest case for Guided. Not that you could not work this out yourself, but that working it out yourself takes a couple of years of trading through it, and those are the same two years you are trying to make Europe profitable. Guided shortens that learning curve by putting someone next to you who has already been through it with hundreds of brands. VIP removes it, because the research and the recommendations arrive finished.
You own the learning curve. Fine if you have the appetite and the time to climb it.
You climb it faster, with someone pointing out the footholds each month.
Somebody climbs it for you and hands you the map.
Starting in the wrong place is recoverable. Starting nowhere is not
Brands move between packages. Plenty start on Self-Serve, get through the first market, then move to Guided when the second and third arrive together and the calendar gets tight. Others start on Guided while the work is heaviest. Your platform, your data and your registrations stay exactly where they are either way.
If you genuinely cannot tell which fits, that is worth thirty minutes rather than a guess. We will look at your product range, your markets and who you have available, and tell you plainly which package we think you need. It is not always the more expensive one.
The wrong package is not the expensive mistake. Six months of nothing happening is.
Talk it through before you decide
Thirty minutes with someone who has taken brands like yours into Europe. You will leave knowing which package fits, what your product range triggers and roughly how long it takes.