How Ego saved €30K a month, and gained complete control over its payments

Ego is a leading fashion brand in Europe and the US. It delivers bold, trend-led styles inspired by celebrities, influencers, and the runway. 

Over the past year, its growth has gone into overdrive. Ego has consistently outperformed expectations, beating internal targets so frequently that forecasts have had to be revised repeatedly.

A major driver of this momentum. Ego’s mobile app. Forecasted initially to generate just 10% of revenue in its first year, it’s already delivering over 30% and growing.

But that unexpected success brought an unforeseen problem: payment fees.

Ego had signed an agreement with a Payment Service Provider (PSP) based on a lower projected volume. When the app started to outperform those numbers, the terms didn’t change. In other words, instead of rewarding growth, the contract penalized it, locking the business into high fees it couldn’t renegotiate.

“We approached them and said: look, we’re overachieving, let’s renegotiate, it’s a win-win for both of us,” says Manuel Perez, Head of Software Enginnering at Ego. “But they wouldn’t budge.

With no flexibility and its margins squeezed, the team came very close to shutting down the app and killing all its momentum.

“It was Primer and its ability to move at pace that ensured that didn’t happen,” says Manuel.

Live in days, not weeks

When Ego made the call to switch PSPs, speed wasn’t a nice-to-have; it was non-negotiable.

That’s why it turned to Primer. 

Manuel had already been in conversations with the Primer team months earlier. The product and team had left a strong impression. He knew Primer could move fast, and trusted they’d deliver when it mattered.

“We needed to move fast, and we needed a partner who could move with us,” says Manuel. “And Primer delivered. By midday on Friday, the contract was signed. The following Friday, we were live. It was incredibly fast.”

The speed at which things moved wasn’t a coincidence; it was the result of focused, coordinated execution across both teams. Product, engineering, finance, and legal all moved in parallel, with clear, direct communication and questions answered on Slack within minutes. 

“Pedro, Leon, Alberto, the whole team were hands-on from the start, I didn’t even realize that they were providing all this support over a Bank Holiday in the UK,” says Manuel. “That’s how focused everyone was. The support from the Primer team didn’t drop for a second.”

Manuel also points to the quality of Primer’s documentation as a key enabler. “The quality of Primer’s documentation stood out,” says Manuel. “It wasn’t just clear, it was complete. Everything we needed to go live was there, laid out step by step.”

Within 48 hours, Ego had a working version in staging. By the end of the week, Ego was live with Primer and processing payments via its app through an alternative PSP with much stronger commercials. 

“It felt almost suspiciously smooth,” Manuel says. “But that’s what happens when you’re working with a modern, robust solution, backed by an expert team that’s fully committed to getting the job done.”

Driving costs down and pushing conversion up

Now live with Primer, Ego is saving around €30,000 a month on its payment fees. And those savings will only increase as it processes more volume through its app.

“That’s not a marginal gain,” says Manuel. “It’s hundreds of thousands of euros a year that we can reinvest in the company’s growth.”

And the upside from these cost savings is just the start, as Ego is also recognizing a 10% increase in conversion rates on its app. 

Such an increase would be impressive under any circumstances. But what made it remarkable was that the team wasn’t expecting it. The speed of the integration meant that Ego selected Primer’s drop-in checkout as a temporary solution before transitioning to Checkout Components, where the UX can be fully customised.

“Given how fast the go-live was, we didn’t spend a great amount of time styling the checkout or focusing on the UX. As a result, we expected to see a dip in performance using the drop in checkout,” says Manuel. “But the fact that it’s converting better than our previous setup is testament to the product Primer has built.”

Manuel cites the speed and stability of the checkout as the key factors behind the lift in conversion. “The UI is simpler, the flow is smoother, and even when something fails, the logic Primer has built gives customers another chance to complete the purchase,” he says.

Laying the foundations for a flexible payment strategy

With the app stabilized, costs under control, and performance up, the team at Ego is now turning its attention to the next big milestone: its webstore.

“It’s a bigger lift technically,” says Manuel. “But given what we’ve seen already, we’re confident Primer can handle it. The platform is built for scale, and the team has proven they can support more advanced use cases.”

And that’s just the start. With Primer, Ego now has the foundation to do far more than process payments. The team can experiment, adapt, and fine-tune as the business evolves without relying on rigid roadmaps or heavy engineering work.

That flexibility is crucial for a brand scaling rapidly across markets, channels, and evolving customer expectations.

"With Primer, we’re now in control, and we’re able to make changes fast without relying on heavy engineering work,” says Manuel. 

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