Starter stack

Sell worldwide without handling tax

You'll have customers in dozens of countries from the first week, you're not a company that can register for VAT everywhere, and you want someone else to be the seller of record.

33 makers' products and 46 open-source projects use at least half of these 7 tools.

What it costs

Launchabout 1,000 users: $40/mo
Tractionabout 10,000 users: $82/mo
Scaleabout 100,000 users: $553/mo

Plus fees on revenue (Polar): $75 / $560 / $5,000 at those sizes.Monthly bills of the priced picks, list prices.

Do the picks fit together?No conflicts: no acquired or archived tool, no two tools for a decision that usually has one, nothing the plan's rules say doesn't fit.Open in Check my stack — add or swap tools →

Hand it to your AI agent

Paste into AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md or your Cursor rules: each tool with its agent docs, MCP server and CLI where they exist.

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# Stack: Sell worldwide without handling tax

You'll have customers in dozens of countries from the first week, you're not a company that can register for VAT everywhere, and you want someone else to be the seller of record.

Use these tools. Ask before swapping one for an alternative.

- Frontend Framework: Next.js — https://nextjs.org
agent docs: https://nextjs.org/llms.txt · CLI: npx next
Why: The framework most payment providers' examples and SDKs target first.
- Payments: Polar — https://polar.sh
agent docs: https://polar.sh/llms.txt
Why: A merchant of record built for developers — it sells to your customer, collects and files the tax, and pays you out; license keys and file downloads included.
- Payments: Polar — https://polar.sh
agent docs: https://polar.sh/llms.txt
Why: The same account meters usage and bills for it, so seats, subscriptions and credits live in one place.
- Database: Neon — https://neon.tech
agent docs: https://neon.tech/llms.txt · MCP server: com.neon/mcp (https://mcp.neon.tech/mcp) · CLI: npx neon
Why: Serverless Postgres that costs little while traffic is low, with a branch per preview deploy.
- Database Access & ORMs: Drizzle ORM — https://orm.drizzle.team
agent docs: https://orm.drizzle.team/llms.txt · CLI: npx drizzle-kit
Why: Typed, SQL-shaped queries that run on serverless and edge functions without a heavy client.
- Authentication: Better Auth — https://better-auth.com
agent docs: https://better-auth.com/llms.txt
Why: Users and sessions in your own database with no per-user fee, so a free tier with many sign-ups costs nothing extra.
- Transactional Email: Resend — https://resend.com
agent docs: https://resend.com/llms.txt
Why: Sign-in links and product email; the merchant of record sends the receipts and invoices.
- Hosting: Vercel — https://vercel.com
agent docs: https://vercel.com/llms.txt · MCP server: com.vercel/vercel-mcp (https://mcp.vercel.com) · CLI: npx vercel
Why: Global edge network by default, so the checkout redirect is fast wherever the buyer is.

Trade-offs: A merchant of record takes a larger cut per sale than a plain processor, and some payout methods, currencies and checkout customizations are theirs to decide. If most revenue ends up in one country, switching to a processor like Stripe later saves the difference.

Source: https://howmakersbuild.com/stacks/sell-worldwide

The picks

Frontend Framework

Next.jsllms.txt CLI

The framework most payment providers' examples and SDKs target first.

Chosen for frontend framework by 1506 makers' products we track · the alternatives →

Payments

Polarllms.txt

A merchant of record built for developers — it sells to your customer, collects and files the tax, and pays you out; license keys and file downloads included.

Chosen for payments by 50 makers' products we track · the alternatives →

Payments

Polarllms.txt

The same account meters usage and bills for it, so seats, subscriptions and credits live in one place.

Chosen for payments by 50 makers' products we track · the alternatives →

Database

Neonllms.txt MCP CLIIn v0

Serverless Postgres that costs little while traffic is low, with a branch per preview deploy.

Chosen for database by 95 makers' products we track · the alternatives →

Database Access & ORMs

Drizzle ORMllms.txt CLI

Typed, SQL-shaped queries that run on serverless and edge functions without a heavy client.

Chosen for database access & ORMs by 10 makers' products we track · the alternatives →

Authentication

Better Authllms.txt

Users and sessions in your own database with no per-user fee, so a free tier with many sign-ups costs nothing extra.

Chosen for authentication by 6 makers' products we track · the alternatives →

Transactional Email

Resendllms.txtIn Bolt, Lovable, Replit

Sign-in links and product email; the merchant of record sends the receipts and invoices.

Chosen for transactional email by 942 makers' products we track · the alternatives →

Hosting

Vercelllms.txt MCP CLIIn v0

Global edge network by default, so the checkout redirect is fast wherever the buyer is.

No maker's product we track shows it for hosting yet · the alternatives →

What this costs you

A merchant of record takes a larger cut per sale than a plain processor, and some payout methods, currencies and checkout customizations are theirs to decide. If most revenue ends up in one country, switching to a processor like Stripe later saves the difference.

Ask your AI about this, with this page as the source:ChatGPT ↗Claude ↗Perplexity ↗

Who builds this way

Using at least half of these tools, each with a source: makers' products from their own words, customer stories, subprocessor lists or websites; open-source projects from their code.