Comparison
Stripe vs Lemon Squeezy vs Paddle for indie apps
Short answer. Stripe is the processor and you are usually the merchant. Lemon Squeezy and Paddle are the merchant of record and remit sales tax. Stripe's published US domestic card rate is 2.9% plus 30¢. Lemon Squeezy and Paddle both publish 5% plus 50¢ for the standard checkout, with extra fees in the cases their docs list. On all three, a success page is not proof of payment.
Indie apps built in Lovable, Bolt, Cursor, v0, or Replit usually need a card form before they need a company in every country they might sell to. This page is that choice. Lemon Squeezy is not a directory listing. Its column links to Lemon Squeezy's pricing page. The shorter Stripe versus Paddle note is linked below. Fees were read on 21 Oct 2026.
Updated 21 Oct 2026
| Question | Stripe | Lemon Squeezy | Paddle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who the customer pays | You are generally the merchant. Stripe moves the money. Tax registration and disputes stay with you unless you add another Stripe product and still own the liability. | Lemon Squeezy. Their pricing page says they are the merchant of record and take on collecting, calculating, and paying sales tax and VAT. | Paddle. The pricing page says you start selling with Paddle as merchant of record, and that the fee includes tax compliance, fraud protection, chargebacks, and buyer support. |
| Published fee | Stripe's pricing page says 2.9% plus 30¢ per successful transaction for domestic cards, with no setup fee or monthly fee. Other countries and products differ. Billing has its own pricing for recurring charges. This is the US domestic headline, not a quote for every card. | 5% plus 50¢ per transaction, with no monthly fee for the ecommerce features. The fees doc adds 1.5% for transactions outside the US, 1.5% for PayPal, and 0.5% for subscription payments. The fee is calculated on the total order value, which includes tax in their example. | 5% plus 50¢ per Checkout transaction, with no monthly fee. The pricing FAQ says products under $10 can ask for bespoke pricing. Paddle's terms also list 3.5% of the sale price for invoicing paid by bank transfer, and a 2% to 3% foreign-exchange margin by currency. |
| Getting paid | Payouts follow your Stripe account's schedule. The secret key and the webhook signing secret stay on your server. | Lemon Squeezy's docs say payouts run twice a month by bank wire or PayPal, in USD, with a $50 minimum. Bank payouts outside the US have a 1% payout fee. PayPal payouts are 50¢ in the US and 3% capped at $30 outside the US. | Paddle's terms say the balance is paid on or before the 15th of the next month when it is at least $100, €100, or £100. You can export data. Their FAQ says there is no lock-in period. |
| What a generated app gets wrong | The publishable key is in the browser, which Stripe says is allowed, and the secret key is there too, which Stripe says is not. Or the app unlocks the product from the success URL. Fulfillment belongs on checkout.session.completed after you verify the signature. | The same class of bug if a private API key is in the client. Their hosted checkout link keeps that key off the page. Grant access from a server notification you have verified, not from the return URL alone. | A frontend key Paddle does not document as public. Keep the server API key off the page, and grant access only after a verified server notification. |
| What else is in the product | Checkout, Billing, and the rest of the Stripe API. Restricted API keys can limit what a server or an agent is allowed to do. Stripe recommends those over an unrestricted secret key. | Hosted checkout, subscriptions, license keys, and digital downloads. Email marketing is a separate plan, free up to 500 subscribers. Support response time is listed as 24 to 48 hours. | Checkout, subscriptions, and tax filing in the pay-as-you-go price. Paddle reviews what you sell. Moving an existing Stripe customer list later is a migration, not a library change. |
Lean toward Stripe when
You want the documented API, buyers are mostly domestic while you sort tax out, and you have a server for the secret key. Read Stripe's pricing page for your country before you treat 2.9% plus 30¢ as the rate you will pay.
Lean toward Lemon Squeezy when
You sell a digital product or a simple subscription, you want someone else named as merchant of record, and the 5% plus 50¢ fee, plus the international, PayPal, and subscription add-ons, is the trade you accept.
Lean toward Paddle when
You are selling software in more than one country and you want Paddle's published all-inclusive Checkout rate. Ask them before you sell something under $10, and plan the payout around the monthly threshold.
Pick Stripe while you are the merchant and the buyer is close to home. Pick Lemon Squeezy or Paddle when the thing you do not want to operate is sales tax. Do not run two of them against the same customer without a reason. On every one of them, verify the server notification before the app says paid.
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FAQ
Is 5% plus 50¢ the whole Lemon Squeezy fee?
It is the platform fee they lead with. Their fees doc adds 1.5% for a payment outside the US, 1.5% for PayPal, and 0.5% for a subscription payment. The example on that page calculates the percentage on the total, including VAT. Payout fees are separate.
Does Paddle charge a monthly fee?
Paddle's pricing page says there is no monthly fee, no migration fee, and no hidden extra in the pay-as-you-go Checkout price of 5% plus 50¢. Products priced under $10 are called out for bespoke pricing. Invoicing paid by bank transfer is 3.5% in Paddle's terms, not the Checkout rate.
Why not quote one Stripe rate for every country?
Stripe's pricing page states 2.9% plus 30¢ for domestic cards. That line is not a universal card rate. Billing, Tax, currency conversion, and non-US cards are priced on their own pages. The directory entry for Stripe says see the site for that reason.
Can an AI-built app use the success URL as proof of payment?
No. Stripe's Checkout docs say the webhook fulfills the order from checkout.session.completed, and the webhook docs say to verify the signature on the raw body. Lemon Squeezy and Paddle need the same shape of check: a signed notification on your server, then access. The browser redirect is only the return trip.
Sources
Checked 21 Oct 2026. Plan names and prices change. Open the current page before you buy.
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