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Money

Payments

Charge customers — one-off or subscription — and stay on the right side of sales tax.

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

The real choice

Payment processor or merchant of record (MoR). With a processor you are the seller and must register for and remit sales tax/VAT yourself. An MoR resells your product, so tax and compliance are theirs, for a higher fee.

Pick by situation

Tap the ones that are you — the tools that fit light up below.
  • You sell mainly in one country or can handle sales tax yourself, and want the lowest feesStripe
  • You're a developer selling SaaS subscriptions or license keys worldwide and don't want to register for taxPolarLemon Squeezy
  • Your SaaS already has steady revenue and you want to hand off global tax to a long-established MoRPaddle
  • Your AI product charges by usage and sells to customers in many countriesDodo PaymentsPolar
  • Many of your buyers are consumers who expect a PayPal button at checkoutPayPal
  • Your pricing is too complex for your processor and you'd rather self-host the metering than pay for itLagoOpenMeter
  • You're on Stripe and want credits, limits and plan changes without writing webhook codeAutumn
  • Usage revenue is the core of the business and you have the budget for a sales-priced toolOrb

The contenders

Grouped by the side of the choice they answer, not ranked. Open a row for when to use it, the trade-off and what makers say.

ToolBest for
Payment processor2
StripeapiFull control over checkout and billing, lower fees than a merchant of record, and the widest integration ecosystem.891+175 open source$410Standard17.8M/wk+37% vs npm

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.

llms.txtMCPCLIIn Bolt, Lovable, Replit, v0

Used by 1752vc Pitch Deck Analyzer, 2pr, 3D AI Studio, 3D Bust Maker, a DNS lookup tool and 886 more · in 175 open-source projects.

Stripe in full →Plans and calculator →vs PayPal →vs Lemon Squeezy →
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 ↗
PayPalapiAdding PayPal and Venmo as a checkout option for buyers who won't type in a card.101+5 open source$495Standard card payments719.8k/wk−29% vs npm

Use it whenYour buyers are consumers, or in countries where PayPal is the expected way to pay online.

Trade-offYou are still the merchant of record for tax; disputes and account holds are a common complaint, and its developer tools are clunkier than Stripe's.

llms.txtMCP

Used by 3D AI Studio, a DNS lookup tool, Agiled, AiFA Labs, Aithor and 96 more · in 5 open-source projects.

PayPal in full →Plans and calculator →vs Stripe →
Common integrations include: ● Payment: Stripe , Paypal ● Newsletter Sending: Mailgun ● CRM: Salesforce ● Analytics: Google Analytics and Tag Manager ● Videos: YouTube, Vimeo ● Lang
Tendenci, the makerApr 2022 ↗
Merchant of record4
PaddleserviceEstablished SaaS businesses that want a mature MoR.79+2 open source$700Pay-as-you-go177.8k/wk+62% vs npm

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.

In Lovable

Used by Accordio AI, AgreeGuard, ai_licia, AirTrackBot, Aithor and 74 more · in 2 open-source projects.

Paddle in full →Plans and calculator →vs Stripe →vs Lemon Squeezy →
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 ↗
Lemon SqueezyserviceSelling software and digital downloads with minimal setup.77+4 open source$700Standard106k/wk+37% vs npm

Use it whenYou want to start selling a download or subscription this weekend from a hosted checkout.

Trade-offStripe is moving this work to Stripe Managed Payments and plans to migrate Lemon Squeezy users there; support and updates have slowed.

Used by 2dto3D, AppReply, ATSResumeGenerator, Bigcapital, Bloop and 72 more · in 4 open-source projects.

Lemon Squeezy in full →Plans and calculator →vs Stripe →vs Polar →
Thanks to LemonSqueezy, implementing payments was super easy. I can create discount codes effortlessly, and I don’t even have to worry about handling the bureaucratic side of things.
Fuego, the makerSep 2026 ↗
Polarservice · open sourceDevelopers selling SaaS, subscriptions, usage-based plans or license keys.50+11 open source$560Pro275.8k/wk+149% vs npm

Use it whenYou want tax handled and a purchase to automatically hand out a license key, file download or GitHub repo access.

Trade-offNewer than Paddle or Lemon Squeezy.

llms.txt

Used by AI Toolbox, AISpace, Argos, Crawler.sh, Dad Reply and 45 more · in 11 open-source projects.

Polar in full →Plans and calculator →vs Lemon Squeezy →vs Dodo Payments →
Polar is Snapset’s merchant of record, handling payments and international sales tax for me. It took a huge amount of complexity out of selling worldwide as a solo maker.
Snapset, the makerSep 2026 ↗
Dodo PaymentsserviceAI and SaaS products with usage-based billing, selling globally.30+4 open source$560Standard75.8k/wk4.3× vs npm

Use it whenYou charge for usage and want metering and sales tax handled by the same provider.

Trade-offA younger merchant of record, with a shorter track record and fewer integrations than Paddle or Lemon Squeezy.

llms.txt

Used by Amnesia, BeamUp, Cardboard, CatDoes, Construct Computer and 25 more · in 4 open-source projects.

Dodo Payments in full →Plans and calculator →vs Stripe →vs Polar →
Dodo Payments handles the payment and licensing side of Kapshot, which has made it much easier for me to sell the product and manage access without building an entire billing system myself.
Kapshot, the makerSep 2026 ↗

Cost: the cheapest plan that fits revenue $10k, payments 400 payments, from list prices. Try your own numbers →

Cost as you grow

Each contender's cheapest usable plan as usage rises.

$0$500$2,000$5,000$10,000$500$1k$5k$10k$25k$50k$100k$250k
Dodo PaymentsPaddleLemon SqueezyPolarPayPalStripex: revenue per month (USD), other usage scaled with it · cheapest usable plan at each point, list prices · try your own numbers

Who switches to what

Public pull requests on GitHub since Oct 2024 whose title says "X to Y" — real code changes, by developers in general rather than makers only. Pick a flow to see its pull requests.

Stripe → Paddle: 18 pull requestsStripe → Polar: 12 pull requestsStripe → PayPal: 9 pull requestsLemon Squeezy → Paddle: 6 pull requestsPayPal → Stripe: 6 pull requestsLemon Squeezy → Stripe: 5 pull requestsLemon Squeezy → Polar: 4 pull requestsPaddle → Lemon Squeezy: 3 pull requestsStripe 39Lemon Squeezy 15PayPal 6Paddle 3Paddle 24Polar 16Stripe 11PayPal 9Lemon Squeezy 3Moving fromMoving to
Stripe → Paddle18 PRs · Compare →
All matching pull requests on GitHub ↗

Before you choose

How to approach it

Solo makers selling globally usually start with a merchant of record to avoid tax registration. Move to a processor when volume makes the fee difference matter and you can handle tax (e.g. with Stripe Tax).

Common mistakes
  • Choosing a processor to save a few percent, then finding out you crossed sales tax or VAT thresholds in places you never registered.
  • Granting access from the checkout success redirect instead of the webhook, so a closed tab leaves a paying customer locked out.
  • Handling only the first payment and ignoring failed renewals and cancellations, so users keep access after they stop paying.

Other options

Real choices most makers here won't need to weigh.

RazorpayPayment processorSelling to customers in India, with UPI, cards, net banking and wallets in one checkout.19 makers' productsOrbMetering and billing on topHigh-volume usage billing with many pricing models, for products whose revenue depends on it.15 makers' productsAutumnMetering and billing on topCredits, usage limits and plan entitlements on top of Stripe, checked from your code with a few calls instead of Stripe webhooks.12 makers' productsCreemMerchant of recordSaaS and AI products that need revenue splits between co-founders or affiliates.2 makers' productsLagoMetering and billing on topComplex usage pricing you want to self-host for free, sitting on top of your payment processor.1 makers' productOpenMeterMetering and billing on topOpen-source, real-time metering of high-volume usage events (API calls, tokens, compute), turned into entitlements and invoices.1 makers' productJuspay HyperswitchOrchestration (many processors, one API)Routing payments across several processors from one open-source API and checkout, with retries and a shared card vault.ChargebeeMetering and billing on topA mature hosted billing system for subscriptions plus usage charges, invoices and dunning, on top of the payment gateway you already use.

Decided alongside

What the 1,062 makers' products here chose for their other decisions.

Transactional Email497 productsSendGrid231Resend223Postmark134
Frontend Framework416 productsNext.js289React94Vue.js41
Hosting340 productsCloudflare105Amazon Web Services84DigitalOcean45
Web Analytics285 productsGoogle Analytics221Plausible Analytics36Umami18
Database252 productsSupabase116Firebase50MongoDB29
LLM API222 productsOpenAI API175Claude81Gemini API35
Product Analytics157 productsPostHog89Mixpanel45Amplitude31
Authentication95 productsClerk68Auth06Supabase5