Stripe is the cheapest if you handle your own tax compliance. Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Polar, and Gumroad take over tax + global VAT/GST as merchant of record — for a 4-10% cut instead of 2.9%. Here's the real per-sale math.
Stripe if you're US-only or willing to handle global tax compliance separately (and pay $150+/mo for it). Polar if you want the cheapest merchant-of-record (4% + 40¢, built on Stripe). Lemon Squeezy for the most-popular indie SaaS MoR. Paddle for enterprise-shape billing. Gumroad if you're selling digital products to creators and want zero ops.
One row per dimension, the values side-by-side. The olive dot marks the clear winner for that dimension when there is one — most rows are a wash, and that’s the point.
The payment processor everyone defaults to. 2.9% + 30¢ on US online cards, no monthly fee. You handle global tax compliance separately (Stripe Tax adds $150/mo + 0.5% of taxable).
Indie SaaS-focused merchant of record. 5% + 50¢ all-in covers payments + global VAT/GST + fraud + chargebacks. The most popular MoR for solo and small SaaS teams.
Enterprise-shape merchant of record. 5% + 50¢ standard, plus 2-3% currency conversion margin for non-USD. Comprehensive but effective rate often closer to 7% for global SaaS.
Developer-first merchant of record. 4% + 40¢ (cheapest MoR in this set), built on Stripe with pass-through international card surcharges. The newest option, designed for indie hackers.
Creator-focused digital product platform. 10% + 50¢ on direct sales, 30% on Discover marketplace traffic. MoR since January 2025. Best for solo creators selling ebooks, courses, templates.
Three receipts, three scales. The line items are the same; the prices move. Every number is from the public May 2026 pricing page — we round to the nearest dollar but don’t invent.
Common pitfalls visible in public docs and community discussion. None of these will stop you shipping; all of them will cost you an afternoon if you don’t know about them.
Stripe's 2.9% rate doesn't include tax. If you sell in the EU, you owe VAT in 27 countries. UK has its own VAT. Australia has GST. US states have sales tax (with economic nexus thresholds varying by state). Add Stripe Tax ($150/mo + 0.5% of taxable), TaxJar ($19+/mo), Avalara (custom), or a part-time tax consultant. The 'Stripe is cheaper' math doesn't hold at indie scale once you include this overhead.
Lemon Squeezy's subscription support covers most indie SaaS needs (monthly/annual, plan changes, dunning), but if you need usage-based billing, complex proration, mixed-tier pricing, or per-seat subscriptions with metered overages, you'll hit limits. Most indie SaaS never do; complex billing teams should evaluate Paddle or Stripe Billing instead.
Paddle's headline 5% + 50¢ becomes 7-8% effective when you sell in EUR/GBP and convert to USD payout. The currency conversion margin is 2-3% above the mid-market rate — not advertised prominently. If your customer base is mostly non-USD, Paddle's true cost is meaningfully higher than the headline.
Polar is newer than Lemon Squeezy and Paddle. Fewer indie SaaS founders have run it through edge cases (failed payments, disputes, tax exemption letters, refunds at scale). The team ships fast and is responsive, but if you want the most-battle-tested MoR, Lemon Squeezy has more years in production. Polar trades that maturity for the lowest fee.
Direct sales (your own profile link, your website embed) cost 10% + 50¢. But if a customer finds your product through Gumroad Discover (search, recommendations), that sale costs 30%. For creators relying on Gumroad's audience-building, this is the price of distribution. For SaaS with your own marketing, link directly to your Gumroad profile to keep the 10% rate.
Every platform charges for disputes. Stripe: $15. Lemon Squeezy: $15. Paddle: $25. Polar: $15. Gumroad: $20. The fee is deducted even if you win the dispute. Build dispute prevention (clear product descriptions, easy refund flow, customer support) into your business from day one — disputes erode margins quickly.
Editorial framing only — we have not migrated either way ourselves. What follows is the pattern visible in public post-mortems, GitHub issue threads, and conference talks. Take it as observed-pattern, not lived experience.
Common indie SaaS migration when tax compliance overhead exceeds the MoR fee differential. Pattern: integrate the new MoR alongside Stripe, migrate new signups first, leave existing Stripe subscriptions running until natural renewal (or batch-migrate via Stripe Customer Portal API).
The hard part is the existing customer base — you can't transparently move active subscriptions because the MoR is the legal seller of record going forward. Most teams run dual billing for 12-18 months while old subscriptions churn through. Plan accordingly.
Less common but happens at scale when the 5% fee starts exceeding $1k/mo. Pattern: integrate Stripe alongside Lemon Squeezy, route new signups to Stripe, build an internal tax compliance stack (Stripe Tax + Avalara + part-time consultant).
The migration is usually triggered by hitting a specific MRR threshold (~$30-50k/mo) where the math flips. Budget 4-6 weeks for the tax stack setup. Don't migrate existing customers — let them churn naturally on Lemon Squeezy.
Paddle Classic (the original product, sometimes called 'Paddle.js') is end-of-life. New customers can only sign up for Paddle Billing (the modern product). Existing Paddle Classic customers are being migrated on Paddle's timeline through 2026.
The migration involves new API integration, new webhook signatures, new dashboard. Not a like-for-like API swap. If you're on Paddle Classic and considering moving anyway, this is the natural off-ramp moment — evaluate Lemon Squeezy or Polar before committing to the Paddle Billing rewrite.