The goal of this article is to identify internationalization patterns and analyze their effects on company performance. This is a quantitative study with a sample of 343 Brazilian companies that have had export operations for more than three years. Results indicate that companies choose between two distinct paths to internationalization. In the first group are firms that seek to enter the global market proactively. They are present in more countries, have an in-house department of internationalization and a better economic-financial performance. The second group consists of companies that approach internationalization reactively. They outsource part of the process, succeed only in entering markets that are less demanding and do not perform as well as the first group.