When should I pick Paddle over Stripe?

Pick Paddle if: Your SaaS already has steady revenue and you want to hand off global tax to a long-established MoR.

When should I pick Stripe over Paddle?

Pick Stripe if: You sell mainly in one country or can handle sales tax yourself, and want the lowest fees.

Which is cheaper, Paddle or Stripe?

At revenue $10k, payments 400 payments: Paddle $700/mo (Pay-as-you-go), Stripe $410/mo (Standard), at list prices.

Which do more makers use for payments?

Among makers' products we track: Paddle 82, Stripe 896.

How do Paddle and Stripe compare in cost as you grow?

At $500 a month Stripe costs less ($21 vs $35); and still does at $250k a month ($10,250 vs $17,500). Cheapest usable plan at each scale, at list prices.

Are people switching from Paddle to Stripe?

Public GitHub pull requests since 2024-10-02: 18 from Stripe to Paddle.

Paddle vs Stripe for payments: which fits you

Which fits you

Choose Paddle if

Your SaaS already has steady revenue and you want to hand off global tax to a long-established MoR

Use it whenYou're moving an existing SaaS off a processor to offload global tax, and can wait out their review.

Trade-offStricter onboarding and domain review before you can sell.

Choose Stripe if

You sell mainly in one country or can handle sales tax yourself, and want the lowest fees

Use it whenYou can handle sales tax yourself, or sell mainly in one country.

Trade-offYou are the merchant of record — tax registration and filings are on you.

At a glance

	Paddle	Stripe
Used by	82 makers' products · 2 open-source projects	896 makers' products · 175 open-source projects
Cost at default usagerevenue $10k, payments 400 payments	$700/mo Pay-as-you-go	$410/mo Standard
Moved to it on GitHubpull requests since Oct 2024	18 from Stripe	fewer than 3
Downloads	177.8k/wk+62% vs npm	17.8M/wk+37% vs npm
Pricing	Per-transaction fee; handles sales tax. · paid from 5% + 50¢ per transaction	Per-transaction fees; no monthly fee.
Free tier	No	No
Open source	No	No
Incidents, 90 daysfrom its status page	3 (1 major)	no public status feed

Cost as you grow

At $500 a month Stripe costs less ($21 vs $35); and still does at $250k a month ($10,250 vs $17,500). They're different kinds of tool — merchant of record and payment processor — so the prices don't buy the same thing.

Stripe Paddlex: revenue per month (USD), other usage scaled with it · cheapest usable plan at each point, list prices · try your own numbers

The numbers, plan by plan

Revenue per month	Paddle	Stripe
500	$35 Pay-as-you-go	$21 Standard
1,000	$70 Pay-as-you-go	$41 Standard
5,000	$350 Pay-as-you-go	$205 Standard
10,000	$700 Pay-as-you-go	$410 Standard
25,000	$1,750 Pay-as-you-go	$1,025 Standard
50,000	$3,500 Pay-as-you-go	$2,050 Standard
100,000	$7,000 Pay-as-you-go	$4,100 Standard
250,000	$17,500 Pay-as-you-go	$10,250 Standard

From each vendor's pricing page: Paddle, Stripe.

Who moves from one to the other

Public pull requests on GitHub since Oct 2024 whose title says "Paddle to Stripe" or the reverse — real code changes, by developers in general rather than makers only.

Stripe →

Paddle18 PRs

feat(billing): migrate from Stripe to Paddle Billing (Merchant of Record)cploutarchou/bidmorrow · 2026-08-25
docs: pivot ADR-0044 from Stripe to Paddle after Serbia country blockJovan42/OpsClear · 2026-08-10
chore: remove dead code after Stripe to Paddle migrationgeirb56/sauvegarde260708 · 2026-08-01
Completing Stripe to Paddle migration processgeirb56/sauvegarde260708 · 2026-08-01
Implementing migration plan from Stripe to Paddlegeirb56/sauvegarde260708 · 2026-07-29
Move web billing from Stripe to Paddle (merchant of record)Greigh/FiHaven · 2026-07-26
fix(billing/observability): retire Stripe tooling, align render.yaml to Paddle, honest deployed_at (#1066, #1065)Binz2008-star/Rico-Your-AI-intelligent-job-hunt-partner-in-the-UAE · 2026-07-16
feat: migrate billing from Stripe to PaddleShroud-email/shroud.email · 2026-07-10
Switch web payments from Stripe to Paddlechxmxth/MedSpark · 2026-06-14
Feat/stripe to paddle shiftal33mahmad1/money-manager · 2026-06-12

All matching pull requests on GitHub ↗

Fewer than 3 pull requests move from Paddle to Stripe.

What makers say

Makers on using it for payments, from Product Hunt and Starter Story interviews, each linked to the source. Products with a page of their own and fuller notes first.

On Paddle

We love Paddle! They are how we were able to roll out our free accounts. We were also part of their AI Paddle Launchpad which provided an invaluable experience and community to rely on.

Basejump AI, the makerSep 2026 ↗

Merchant of record was the difference between selling to freelancers in 40 countries and doing VAT by hand. Subscriptions, tax and the customer portal in one integration.

Accordio AI, the makerSep 2026 ↗

Paddle gives indie developers a perfect payment solution, taking away the hassle of complex tax and integration issues, and simplifying everything that can be simplified.

Apple Dev Docs Translation & Enhancer, the makerSep 2026 ↗

44 more on the Paddle page →

On Stripe

The voice that made Jinna feel alive. We use ElevenLabs to give Jinna her natural tone — calm, human, and full of personality. The first time we heard her speak, it stopped the room

Jinna.ai, the makerSep 2026 ↗

Stripe's payment infrastructure enables seamless transactions for our users' ChatGPT apps. Their robust APIs make it simple to monetize AI applications and handle payments securely.

Noodle Seed, the makerSep 2026 ↗

Stripe makes handling payments effortless. It powers all RewriteBar subscriptions and one-time licenses — super reliable, developer-friendly, and easy to integrate across platforms.

RewriteBar, the makerSep 2026 ↗

254 more on the Stripe page →

Loved and watch-outs

Themes that recur in makers' words and Hacker News comments, each linked to what it summarises.

Paddle

Most loved

As merchant of record it remits VAT and sales tax everywhere and handles refunds and disputes. PH HN HN 2
Subscriptions, overlay checkout, the customer portal and a sandbox for testing come in one integration. PH PH 2
Lets sellers in countries like Pakistan or Argentina take subscription payments from customers worldwide. PH HN

Watch-outs

Accounts can be frozen at review time with payouts held for months. HN HN 2
Onboarding verification is long and asks for company documents before you can sell. HN HN 2
Its percentage cut is higher than plain processors, and it does not fight chargebacks for you. HN HN 2 HN 3

On Product Hunt: 4.8★, 56 reviews · mentioned most: all-in-one payment platform, global tax compliance, subscription billing

Stripe

Most loved

Subscriptions, trials, invoices, refunds and taxes are handled in one place, so founders skip building billing. PH PH 2 PH 3 PH 4
The APIs, webhooks and documentation are reliable and accurate enough to feel like a product themselves. PH PH 2 PH 3 HN
Integration takes days, and card data never touches your servers, which keeps PCI scope small. PH PH 2 PH 3 HN

Watch-outs

Sudden revenue jumps can trigger balance freezes with slow reviews and no stated reason. HN HN 2 HN 3 HN 4
Merchant fees become painful at scale, and merchant-of-record style services cost much more than plain processing. HN HN 2 HN 3

On Product Hunt: 4.9★, 515 reviews · mentioned most: easy integration, secure payment processing, reliable service · complaints: poor customer support, complex setup