Not a ranking: each option is described by the situation it fits, with its trade-off, whether it's open source or free to start, whether AI coding agents can work with it, and how many makers' products use it for this job.
On Product Hunt, people weigh Dodo Payments against: Stripe, Paddle, Polar, Creem, Lago. Some solve a neighbouring job rather than the same one.
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.
Dodo Payments (Merchant of record): AI and SaaS products with usage-based billing, selling globally. Trade-off: A younger merchant of record, with a shorter track record and fewer integrations than Paddle or Lemon Squeezy.
Best forFull control over checkout and billing, lower fees than a merchant of record, and the widest integration ecosystem.
Trade-offYou are the merchant of record — tax registration and filings are on you.
Used by 869 makers' products for this · Dodo Payments vs Stripe →
Best forAdding PayPal and Venmo as a checkout option for buyers who won't type in a card.
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.
Used by 94 makers' products for this
Best forEstablished SaaS businesses that want a mature MoR.
Trade-offStricter onboarding and domain review before you can sell.
Used by 79 makers' products for this · Dodo Payments vs Paddle →
Best forSelling software and digital downloads with minimal setup.
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 77 makers' products for this · Dodo Payments vs Lemon Squeezy →
Best forDevelopers selling SaaS, subscriptions, usage-based plans or license keys.
Trade-offNewer than Paddle or Lemon Squeezy.
Used by 50 makers' products for this · Dodo Payments vs Polar →
Best forSelling to customers in India, with UPI, cards, net banking and wallets in one checkout.
Trade-offBuilt around Indian businesses and payment methods; you handle GST and other taxes yourself.
Used by 19 makers' products for this
Best forHigh-volume usage billing with many pricing models, for products whose revenue depends on it.
Trade-offNo free tier and sales-priced — built for funded teams, not side projects.
Used by 15 makers' products for this
Best forCredits, usage limits and plan entitlements on top of Stripe, checked from your code with a few calls instead of Stripe webhooks.
Trade-offA young company; one more service between your app and Stripe that access checks depend on.
Used by 12 makers' products for this
Best forSaaS and AI products that need revenue splits between co-founders or affiliates.
Used by 2 makers' products for this
Best forComplex usage pricing you want to self-host for free, sitting on top of your payment processor.
Trade-offOne more system to host and connect to payments.
Used by 1 makers' products for this
Best forOpen-source, real-time metering of high-volume usage events (API calls, tokens, compute), turned into entitlements and invoices.
Trade-offA stack of services (including Kafka and ClickHouse) to run if self-hosted; now part of Kong's product line.
Used by 1 makers' products for this
Best forRouting payments across several processors from one open-source API and checkout, with retries and a shared card vault.
Trade-offYou still need processor accounts and handle tax yourself; self-hosting means running a PCI-scoped payments service, and the hosted cloud is sales-priced.
No maker product tracked for this yet
Best forA mature hosted billing system for subscriptions plus usage charges, invoices and dunning, on top of the payment gateway you already use.
Trade-offTakes a percentage of invoiced revenue on top of gateway fees, and you are still the merchant of record for tax.
No maker product tracked for this yet
