Three payment platforms, ten thousand dollars run through each, one operating reality. Stripe is the cheapest on paper. Paddle and Lemon Squeezy charge more and remove your global tax problem.
Which is correct for your SaaS depends on revenue scale, geographic mix, and how much of your week you want to spend on VAT filings instead of shipping product.
Why The MoR Decision Is The Biggest Stack Pick A Solo SaaS Makes
Most payment comparisons get this wrong. They start with transaction fees. The transaction fee is the smallest number in the equation.
The real variable is who's legally responsible for collecting and remitting tax in every jurisdiction where you have customers. If you're processing through Stripe direct, that's you. If you're processing through a merchant of record like Paddle or Lemon Squeezy, that's them.
For a US-only solo SaaS doing under $50K in annual revenue, the answer is Stripe and the rest of this post is academic. For an international SaaS doing $200K and up, the MoR question genuinely changes your business model.
This is what we wish we'd known before we started, and what we've learned from running real revenue through all three.
Stripe: The Developer Standard And The Compliance Tax
Stripe is the default for a reason. The API is the cleanest in the industry. The documentation is the gold standard. The integration story is unmatched. Almost every billing edge case you'll hit has been solved by someone in the Stripe ecosystem.
The headline fee is 2.9% plus 30 cents per US transaction. That number is misleading for international SaaS. For international cards, the effective rate climbs fast. Add 1.5% for international card surcharges. Add 1% for currency conversion. Add 0.5% for Stripe Tax (their tax calculation product). Now your effective rate is closer to 4.9 to 5.2% on the average international transaction.
Even at that real rate, Stripe is still the cheapest of the three. But the tax problem is yours. You file VAT in the EU yourself. You register for GST in Australia yourself. You handle the state-by-state sales tax patchwork in the US yourself. Stripe Tax helps with the calculation. It doesn't file anything.
The Stripe compliance tax isn't visible in the fee structure. It's visible in the calendar. We spent four hours per quarter on EU VAT alone before we moved to an MoR. Multiply that by every jurisdiction and the time cost becomes the real bill.
Paddle: The Established MoR That Owns B2B
Paddle is the grown-up merchant of record. They've been around since 2012, they handle compliance in 200+ tax jurisdictions, and they're built for B2B SaaS at scale. If you're selling to enterprises in regulated industries, Paddle is the one your buyers' procurement teams already know.
The fee is 5% plus 50 cents per transaction. That's notably higher than Stripe's headline rate. But that 5% includes the tax filing, the international card surcharges, the currency conversion, and the chargeback handling. Your effective rate on Paddle is the listed rate. There are no surprise add-ons.
What Paddle is good at. The B2B invoice and PO workflows. The bigger-deal-size negotiation features. The enterprise-grade compliance documentation. The actual support team when something goes wrong, which it occasionally does at high volume.
Where it's awkward. The integration story is dated compared to Stripe. The dashboard feels like a 2018 product. The webhook system is reliable but not as flexible. And the minimum payout thresholds and timing are stricter than Stripe's.
Lemon Squeezy: The Indie-Friendly MoR Stripe Acquired
Lemon Squeezy is the indie hacker's MoR. Built by a small team in 2021, designed for solo founders and small SaaS, and acquired by Stripe in 2024. The product still exists as a standalone offering and gets active development, but the strategic question of where it lands long-term is real.
The fee matches Paddle. 5% plus 50 cents per transaction. Same tax handling, same MoR coverage. The integration story is dramatically cleaner than Paddle's. The dashboard is genuinely beautiful. The Discord community is active and the documentation is written like it was made by people who've actually shipped.
What Lemon Squeezy is good at. The indie founder experience. The Discord support. The license-key handling for digital products. The affiliate-program features that ship in the box. The free-trial workflows that take five minutes to set up.
Where the question mark is. Stripe owns them now. They're continuing as a product but the long-term strategy isn't fully visible to outsiders. We've heard a lot of speculation that Lemon Squeezy will become the on-ramp to Stripe's own MoR product (which is in private beta in 2026). For most users this won't matter. For founders planning to be on the platform for five years, it's worth noting.
Effective Rate Math With International Cards And Subscriptions
We tracked the actual effective rate over our $10K test through each platform. Mix of US and international transactions, mix of new and recurring subscriptions, mix of card brands.
Stripe came in at an effective 4.7% all-in. Base rate 2.9%, international card surcharges 0.9%, currency conversion 0.6%, Stripe Tax 0.3%. The 4.7% number is the bill that hit our bank account.
Paddle came in at an effective 5.4% all-in. Headline 5%, transaction fees rounded up to 0.4% across the mix. No surprise additions.
Lemon Squeezy came in at an effective 5.5% all-in. Headline 5%, transaction fees a touch higher because more of our test volume was small-ticket digital product purchases where the 50-cent flat fee hits harder as a percentage.
The gap is 0.8% in real money. On $10K that's $80 per month. On $100K MRR that's $800 per month or $9,600 per year. That's the number you weigh against the tax-filing time, the compliance risk, and the legal exposure.
Tax Filings Each Platform Removed From Our Calendar
This is the number nobody publishes. We tracked tax-related work over the test month for each platform.
Stripe required us to file VAT in the EU (one filing covering all member states under OSS, two hours). Register and file GST in Australia (45 minutes). Register and file UK VAT (one hour because we hadn't done it before). Track sales-tax nexus in five US states where we'd crossed thresholds (this was the painful one, about three hours including the consultation with our accountant). Total time on tax compliance, roughly seven hours for the month.
Paddle required zero filings from us. They're the merchant of record. They collect, they remit, they file. They send us a single annual statement and we hand it to our accountant. The total time on tax compliance was twelve minutes, and that was reading the statement.
Lemon Squeezy was the same as Paddle. Zero filings. They handle everything. Twelve minutes.
If your hourly rate as a founder is $200, then Paddle and Lemon Squeezy saved us roughly $1,360 in compliance work per month. The MoR fee at $10K MRR was $530 per month higher than Stripe's. Net savings, $830 per month. At higher MRR the math tightens because the percentage fee scales but the time savings don't.
The crossover where Stripe wins on pure economics is around $100K MRR if you keep doing your own taxes, and around $50K MRR if you have to hire a part-time bookkeeper to handle the multi-jurisdiction filings.
Dispute Handling And Fraud Loss On The Same Card Test
We had three chargebacks during the test month. One was a legitimate refund request that the customer escalated to a dispute instead of asking us. Two were classic stolen-card disputes.
Stripe charged the standard $15 dispute fee on all three. We lost two of them (the stolen-card disputes are nearly impossible to win). We won the legitimate-refund one because we'd kept good records. Net loss on disputes for Stripe, $135.
Paddle handled the disputes for us. The two stolen-card ones were absorbed by Paddle's fraud insurance (which they bundle into the 5% fee). The legitimate-refund one was processed as a refund by Paddle without escalating to a dispute, on our instruction. Net loss on disputes for Paddle, $0.
Lemon Squeezy handled the disputes similarly. They have the same fraud-absorption policy as Paddle. The two stolen-card disputes were absorbed. The refund was processed cleanly. Net loss on disputes for Lemon Squeezy, $0.
The dispute-protection difference is real money at scale. If you have more than a few disputes per month, the MoR economics shift further in their favor. For solo founders watching cash flow, this matters.
Migration Path: When To Leave Lemon Squeezy For Stripe Billing
Here's the question that's quietly becoming the most important one. If you start on Lemon Squeezy and grow into a real business, what's the migration story?
Lemon Squeezy supports CSV export of your customer list and subscription data. Stripe Billing supports CSV import. The mechanical migration is straightforward. The customer-side migration is the painful part. Your customers have card-on-file with Lemon Squeezy as the merchant. When you move to Stripe direct, that relationship breaks. You either re-collect every payment method or you negotiate a card-token migration with both providers (which is possible but takes weeks).
Stripe's acquisition of Lemon Squeezy adds an interesting wrinkle. They've hinted that they'll build a migration path from Lemon Squeezy to Stripe Billing inside the same dashboard. If that ships in 2026, it changes the calculus. Starting on Lemon Squeezy becomes a real on-ramp to Stripe rather than a fork in the road.
For now, our recommendation is to start on the platform that fits your stage. Don't optimize for the migration that might happen in three years.
For the broader operations stack underneath your payment platform, our indie hacker tool guide covers analytics, support, and the rest of the SaaS infrastructure.
Our Default Stack For New Projects Today
For a brand new SaaS launching in 2026, we default to Lemon Squeezy. The on-ramp is faster than Stripe. The MoR coverage handles international from day one. The 5% effective rate is the cost of not thinking about taxes for the next 18 months.
Once we hit $50K MRR with strong international traffic, we re-evaluate. If the time savings from MoR still outweighs the rate gap, we stay. If we've grown enough to hire a part-time finance person, we look hard at moving to Stripe.
For B2B SaaS targeting enterprise buyers, we'd start on Paddle. The procurement-friendly invoicing, the established compliance documentation, and the better support for large-ticket transactions matter more than the dashboard prettiness.
For US-only consumer products, Stripe direct. The MoR overhead isn't worth it when your tax surface is one country.
FAQ
What's The Actual Crossover Point Between Stripe And An MoR?
Around $100K MRR if you're doing tax compliance yourself. Around $50K MRR if you'd need to hire help. Below those numbers, the MoR's time savings outweigh the fee gap. Above them, the math tilts toward Stripe direct plus a bookkeeper.
Can I Use Stripe And An MoR Side By Side?
Yes, and some teams do. Stripe for B2B annual contracts where the invoice handling matters. Lemon Squeezy or Paddle for self-serve international subscriptions where the tax handling matters. The complexity isn't zero but it works.
Does The Stripe Acquisition Of Lemon Squeezy Change My Decision?
Not in 2026. Lemon Squeezy is still a standalone product with its own roadmap. The strategic uncertainty is real but the day-to-day experience is unchanged. If the integration becomes deeper, that helps the migration story rather than hurting it.
What About Polar Or Dodo Or The Newer MoRs?
Worth watching. Polar in particular is making a credible play for the indie developer market with a more modern API than Paddle. We tested it briefly and the product is good. Distribution is the bottleneck. For now, the comparison is still Stripe-Paddle-Lemon Squeezy because that's where the volume actually is.
Is Stripe's New MoR Going To Eat Paddle And Lemon Squeezy?
Probably not entirely. Stripe's MoR is in private beta and the rumored pricing is 3.5% on top of standard rates, which would put it more expensive than Paddle. The Stripe MoR target seems to be existing Stripe customers who want to add MoR rather than founders choosing between Stripe and an MoR from scratch.
Which Has The Best Subscription Management UX For My Customers?
Stripe's customer portal is the cleanest. Lemon Squeezy is close behind. Paddle's customer-facing portal is the weakest of the three. For consumer SaaS where the subscription-management experience affects churn, this matters.
Does Anyone Handle Dispute Refunds Better?
Paddle and Lemon Squeezy both absorb chargebacks from the standard 5% fee. Stripe charges $15 per dispute regardless of outcome. At scale, the MoR fraud-absorption is a meaningful saving. For the database side of your SaaS stack, we have a separate breakdown.
The Honest Closing
The Stripe-Paddle-Lemon Squeezy decision isn't actually about transaction fees. It's about how you want to spend the next 12 months of your time as a founder.
If you want to spend it on product and customers, an MoR. If you want to spend it on compliance and operations, Stripe direct. There are good reasons for both choices and the right answer depends on what kind of business you're building.
Whatever you pick, ship the payment integration in a day and get back to work. The platform isn't the bottleneck. Your distribution is. Watch the math at $50K, $100K, and $250K MRR and be willing to migrate when the curves cross. The cost of moving is real but it's not catastrophic.
And don't believe anyone who tells you Stripe is universally cheaper. It's cheaper on the transaction fee. It's not cheaper on your calendar. The right question is which cost matters more to your stage.
