A merchant of record costs between about 4% and 11% of each sale in 2026, depending on the provider, your price point and how many of your customers pay with non-US cards. On a $29 subscription paid with a US card, transaction fees run from 4.4% with tiun (5.9% once you count our 1.5% payout fee) to 8.1% with Stripe Managed Payments and Stripe Billing. On a $10 sale the fixed fee pushes five of the seven providers to between 8.5% and 10.5%.
Headline rates leave out what moves your real cost: the fixed fee on low prices, and the add-ons for international cards, subscriptions and payouts. We modelled all of them per sale for seven providers, ourselves included, and the ranking changes with your price and your customer mix.
The short answer
Cost per sale as a share of the price, for a subscription payment. Where a cell has two figures, the first is transaction fees only and the second adds the provider's published percentage payout fee.
Provider (fees modelled) | $10, US card | $29, US card | $99, US card | $29, non-US card | $99, non-US card |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Paddle (5% + 50¢) | 10.0% | 6.7% | 5.5% | 6.7% | 5.5% |
Lemon Squeezy (5% + 50¢, +0.5% subscriptions, +1.5% non-US; 1% payout to non-US banks) | 10.5% / 11.4% | 7.2% / 8.2% | 6.0% / 6.9% | 8.7% / 9.6% | 7.5% / 8.4% |
Stripe Managed Payments (2.9% + 30¢ + 3.5%, +1.5% non-US, +0.7% Billing) | 10.1% | 8.1% | 7.4% | 9.6% | 8.9% |
Polar Starter (5% + 50¢, +1.5% non-US) | 10.0% | 6.7% | 5.5% | 8.2% | 7.0% |
Dodo Payments (4% + 40¢, +0.5% subscriptions, +1.5% non-US) | 8.5% | 5.9% | 4.9% | 7.4% | 6.4% |
Creem (3.9% + 40¢; 1% payout on bank transfers) | 7.9% / 8.8% | 5.3% / 6.2% | 4.3% / 5.3% | 5.3% / 6.2% | 4.3% / 5.3% |
tiun (2.9% + 30¢, +0.5% subscriptions; 1.5% payout fee) | 6.4% / 7.8% | 4.4% / 5.9% | 3.7% / 5.1% | 4.4% / 5.9% | 3.7% / 5.1% |
On transaction fees alone we are the cheapest of the seven at every price point. With payout fees counted, we stay below Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, Polar Starter, Stripe Managed Payments and Creem everywhere. Dodo ties us at $29 on a US card and beats us at $99 on a US card (4.9% against 5.1%).
One caveat on Creem. Its docs charge 1% (minimum $7) on bank payouts in all 87 supported countries, and that is what we modelled. Its comparison pages still list domestic payouts as free. If you pay no payout fee, Creem beats us at $29 and above (5.3% against 5.9% at $29).
Method. Cost per sale divided by price. Every percentage is applied to the price before tax. Payout fees are applied to the net payout: ours and Creem's to every seller, Lemon Squeezy's to sellers with a non-US bank account. For Stripe Managed Payments we assume no currency-conversion fee to you (Adaptive Pricing is on by default, and the buyer pays a conversion fee starting at 2%) and add 0.7% Stripe Billing, which Stripe charges on subscription payments. For Paddle we assume the sale is in your balance currency. Not modelled: Paddle's 2–3% foreign exchange margin on sales that need converting, its conversion margin of up to 1.5% when you're paid in a currency other than your balance currency and its $15 fee on international bank transfers; Creem's $7 minimum per payout; Dodo's $5 fee on payouts under $1,000; the Stripe payout fees Polar passes through; and dispute fees. Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, Stripe Managed Payments, Polar, Dodo and Creem all charge their percentage on the tax-inclusive total, so on a sale to an EU consumer paying 20% VAT their percentage takes a fifth more than the table shows. The model is in our fee calculator, and the script behind it is published alongside this post.
The fee components behind the headline rate
Every merchant of record (MoR) bills some mix of a percentage, a fixed fee per sale, an international card surcharge, a currency-conversion charge, a subscription surcharge, a payout fee and a dispute fee. The headline rate shows only the percentage and the fixed fee, and the other charges are where providers differ.
Provider | Rate per sale | Non-US card | Subscription payment | Currency conversion | Payout | Dispute |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Paddle | 5% + 50¢ | None listed | None | 2–3% if a sale converts into your balance currency; up to 1.5% more if paid out in another currency | No Paddle fee on local transfers; $15 per international bank transfer | Up to $20, also on dispute alerts |
Lemon Squeezy | 5% + 50¢ | +1.5% | +0.5% | None; mid-market rate | Free to US banks, 1% to non-US banks | $15 |
Stripe Managed Payments (US) | 2.9% + 30¢ + 3.5% | +1.5% | +0.7% (Stripe Billing) | None to you with Adaptive Pricing, on by default; buyer pays from 2% | Standard Stripe payouts | $15 |
Polar Starter | 5% + 50¢ | +1.5% | None | 0.25–1% cross-border (Stripe's) | Stripe's: $2 a month + 0.25% + 25¢ per payout | $15 |
Dodo Payments | 4% + 40¢ | +1.5% | +0.5% | 0% to you with Adaptive Currency; buyer pays 2–4% | Free per the pricing table; $5 under $1,000 per the FAQ; $25 for USD SWIFT to non-US businesses | $30 |
Creem | 3.9% + 40¢ | None | None | Partner fee if your bank currency differs | 1% (min $7) per its docs; its comparison pages list domestic as free | $25 |
tiun | 2.9% + 30¢ | None | +0.5% | No separate fee | 1.5%, monthly, $200 minimum | $35 |
The international surcharge matters most. Lemon Squeezy, Stripe, Polar and Dodo each add 1.5% for a non-US card, so a product with mostly European or Asian buyers pays their higher rate on most sales. Paddle lists no card surcharge, but it adds a foreign exchange margin of 2–3% when a sale has to be converted into your balance currency, which takes a $29 sale from 6.7% to about 8.7%. Dispute fees range from $15 to $35. Ours is $35, the highest here; we charge it on pre-chargeback alerts as well as chargebacks, and keep it even when we win. If your product draws disputes, put your expected count into the calculator.
Price point matters more than the percentage
A 50¢ fixed fee is 5 points of margin on a $10 sale before any percentage is charged. On a $99 sale the same 50¢ is half a point. That is why Paddle and Polar Starter cost the same 10.0% at $10 and 5.5% at $99 on a US card, and why Dodo, Creem and tiun, with fixed fees of 30¢ or 40¢, pull furthest ahead at low prices.
Billing period changes the count of fixed fees. A $10 monthly plan on Paddle pays 12 fixed fees a year: $12.00 in fees on $120 of revenue. The same customer on a $120 annual plan pays one: $6.50. On tiun the same comparison is $7.68 against $4.38 before payout fees. If you're on Paddle and most of your plans sit under $15 a month, offering annual billing saves more than switching to us.
Paddle offers bespoke pricing for products under $10, so ask if you sell at that level.
Calculator
Enter your price, the share of customers paying with non-US cards, whether the sale is a subscription, your monthly sales and your expected disputes per month. The calculator returns, for each provider, the fee per sale, the effective rate and the monthly total, with and without published payout fees, and ranks them. It uses the same model as the table above, so at $29 with 0% non-US cards it shows the same 4.4% / 5.9% for us and 8.1% for Stripe Managed Payments.
MoR or Stripe plus Stripe Tax, by revenue
On Stripe's published rates, for a $29 subscription, running Stripe yourself with Stripe Tax gets cheaper than Stripe Managed Payments at about $6,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR), Lemon Squeezy at about $12,000 and Polar Starter at about $25,000. Paddle and Dodo hold out until about $119,000 and $128,000. It doesn't get cheaper than Creem or us at any revenue level unless Stripe gives you a custom price.
Monthly fees at four revenue levels, for a $29 monthly subscription with half of customers on non-US cards:
MRR | Stripe + Stripe Tax (DIY) | Stripe Managed Payments | Paddle | Dodo | Creem | tiun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
$1,000 | $259 | $89 | $67 | $66 | $62 | $59 |
$10,000 | $816 | $888 | $672 | $663 | $623 | $587 |
$50,000 | $3,566 | $4,442 | $3,362 | $3,315 | $3,113 | $2,934 |
$200,000 | $13,029 | $17,769 | $13,448 | $13,259 | $12,453 | $11,736 |
The DIY column is Stripe's US card rate (2.9% + 30¢, +1.5% for non-US cards), 0.7% for Stripe Billing, and the cheapest published Stripe Tax Complete route, which includes registrations and filings. A seller based outside the EU and UK owes VAT there from its first sale to a consumer, usually through the EU's non-Union One Stop Shop and a UK VAT registration. That is 8 quarterly returns a year. We priced each at Stripe's published rate for a quarterly filing outside the US: $145 within your plan's allowance and $200 above it. Stripe asks you to contact it for the price of non-Union OSS filing through Stripe, so we used the same rate there. We count every sale as a Stripe Tax transaction.
At $1,000 and $10,000 MRR the cheapest route is the $90 plan, even with 4 of the returns and any transactions over 200 a month billed as overages. At $50,000 (about 1,700 sales a month) it is the $430 plan plus 48¢ per transaction over 1,000. At $200,000 (about 6,900 sales) it is the $1,500 plan plus 35¢ per transaction over 5,000. Stripe offers custom pricing at that volume, so a quote could come in lower. If a quote removed that 35¢ entirely, DIY would pass Creem at about $190,000 and us at about $330,000.
The DIY column leaves out your accountant, Stripe's $150 fee for each registration outside the US, US state registrations as you cross economic nexus thresholds, and the time spent on disputes and fraud that an MoR handles. Enter your own figures for those in the calculator. Stripe's Tax Basic plan is cheaper at 0.5% per transaction, but it leaves registering and filing to you.
The MoR columns include published percentage payout fees (Creem at 1%).
Paid plans and negotiated rates
Polar is the only provider here with published paid tiers. A monthly fee buys a lower rate, and Polar publishes the sales level at which each tier pays for itself against Starter. Those figures depend on order size: they are at a $40 average order, by Polar's calculation.
Polar plan | Monthly fee | Rate per sale | Cheaper than Starter above (monthly sales, at a $40 average order) |
|---|---|---|---|
Starter | $0 | 5% + 50¢ | Baseline |
Pro | $20 | 3.8% + 40¢ | about $1,379 |
Growth | $100 | 3.6% + 35¢ | about $5,634 |
Scale | $400 | 3.4% + 30¢ | about $19,048 |
The 1.5% non-US card surcharge applies on every Polar plan. Organisations created before 27 May 2026 keep the old Early Member rate of 4% + 40¢, plus 0.5% on subscriptions, until they upgrade to a paid plan. After that, moving back to the free plan puts them on Starter.
The others negotiate. Paddle offers custom pricing for high-volume sellers and for products under $10. Lemon Squeezy does the same, and Dodo has an Enterprise plan. FastSpring publishes no rate at all and quotes by volume. Creem has a Partner plan with lower fees for higher volume, and Polar quotes above Scale. Our Enterprise plan has custom transaction rates, payout schedule and dispute fee. A quote is worth asking for once your volume would put you on Polar's Growth tier or above.
Coverage behind each fee
A lower rate is only cheaper if it covers the same work. Before comparing numbers, check these for each provider:
Tax coverage. Paddle states that it handles sales tax liability for all countries and currencies. Stripe Managed Payments covers more than 80 countries; for sales elsewhere, you remain responsible for the tax.
Who responds to disputes, whether your evidence is used, and whether the provider can accept a dispute without contesting it. Stripe says it may accept a dispute it judges you are unlikely to win.
Whether the provider can refund a customer without asking you. Stripe Managed Payments can refund without your approval if you don't answer a support request within 48 hours.
Who issues the invoice, in whose name, and whether business customers can add a VAT number.
Payout timing: monthly, twice a month or daily, the minimum balance, and how long funds are held first.
Here is what our fee covers. We are the legal seller on every transaction, so the invoice is issued by tiun AG and the buyer's contract is with us. We calculate, collect and remit sales tax and VAT where we have a registration obligation, register in new jurisdictions as your sales cross thresholds, and take on the back tax if we register late because of your sales. Chargebacks are filed against us and we run the defence. If a chargeback is lost, the amount, any recoverable tax and the dispute fee come out of your next payout. You still handle your own income and corporate tax. Our Master Services Agreement sets out each of these in sections 4, 8 and 9.
Our full cost
On a $29 monthly subscription, tiun costs $1.70 per sale: 5.9% of the price, with every fee we charge on a normal sale included.
Fee | Amount |
|---|---|
Per sale | 2.9% + 30¢ |
Subscription payments | +0.5% |
Non-US cards | No surcharge |
Currency conversion | No separate fee |
Payout | 1.5% of each payout; monthly, $200 minimum |
Dispute | $35, on chargebacks and pre-chargeback alerts; kept if we win |
Refunds | The transaction fee is not returned |
AI analytics (optional) | $17 a month |
If your balance is under $200, the payout waits until it passes the minimum. We can hold a reserve or delay a payout in defined risk cases, such as a high chargeback rate or pending verification.
The fee also covers more than payments. Authentication, the customer database, checkout, the customer portal, invoicing and a basic analytics dashboard are part of the platform, which costs nothing on its own. A founder on another MoR usually pays for auth separately. Clerk, for example, is free up to 50,000 monthly retained users, then $25 a month on Pro plus $0.02 for each user from 50,001 to 100,000. At 100,000 users that is $1,025 a month, or about 0.5% of $200,000 MRR. Below 50,000 users Clerk's free plan costs nothing, though multi-factor authentication and passkeys need Pro at $25 a month, so what you save there is mostly the integration work.
What changed in 2026
Date | Provider | Change |
|---|---|---|
27 May 2026 | Polar | New organisations start on Starter at 5% + 50¢; existing organisations keep the old 4% + 40¢, plus 0.5% on subscriptions, as Early Member |
20 May 2026 | Polar | Paid plans launched (Pro, Growth, Scale) |
29 Apr 2026 | Stripe | Managed Payments opened to all digital businesses in supported countries, subject to Stripe's eligibility review: 3.5% on top of standard Stripe fees, plus Stripe Billing on subscriptions |
28 Jan 2026 | Lemon Squeezy | Update says the team is building Stripe Managed Payments and a migration path for Lemon Squeezy sellers; no shutdown date given |
FAQ
Which merchant of record is cheapest?
On transaction fees, tiun is the cheapest of the seven we modelled at every price point: 4.4% on a $29 subscription and 3.7% on $99. With payout fees, Dodo is cheaper at $99 on US cards. Creem is cheaper at $29 and above only if you pay no payout fee, and its docs say you do. The answer depends on your price and where your customers are, so run your numbers in the calculator.
Does Paddle charge extra for international cards?
No card surcharge is listed: Paddle charges 5% + 50¢ regardless of card origin. Currency is where the extra cost sits. If a sale has to be converted into your balance currency, Paddle's terms add a margin of 2% for USD, EUR and GBP, 2.5% for CZK, DKK, NOK and THB, and 3% for other currencies. Paddle also reserves the right to charge a conversion margin of up to 1.5% if you take your payout in a currency other than your balance currency.
How much is Stripe Managed Payments in Europe?
For a seller with an Irish Stripe account, a standard EEA card costs 1.5% + €0.25, plus the 3.5% Managed Payments fee, plus 0.7% Stripe Billing on subscriptions: 5.7% + €0.25, or 6.6% on a €29 subscription. A card from outside the EEA costs 3.15% + €0.25 before the same additions, or 8.2% on €29. The 3.5% is charged on the tax-inclusive total, so with VAT the real figure is higher.
Are MoR fees negotiable?
Yes, at volume. Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, Dodo, FastSpring, Creem, Polar and tiun all offer custom pricing to larger sellers, and Paddle and Lemon Squeezy also quote for products under $10.
Is an MoR cheaper than Stripe plus Stripe Tax?
At $29 and low revenue, yes. A seller outside the EU and UK owes VAT there from the first sale to a consumer, so even a small seller pays for 8 returns a year. In our model DIY passes Stripe Managed Payments at about $6,000 MRR, Lemon Squeezy at about $12,000, Polar Starter at about $25,000, Paddle at about $119,000 and Dodo at about $128,000. On Stripe's published rates it doesn't pass Creem or us.
Do MoRs charge for payouts?
Some do. We charge 1.5% of each payout. Lemon Squeezy charges 1% to non-US bank accounts, Creem's docs list 1% (minimum $7) on bank payouts, and Polar passes on Stripe's payout fees. Paddle adds no fee on local transfers and charges $15 for an international bank transfer. Dodo's pricing table lists payouts as free while its FAQ mentions $5 on payouts under $1,000, and USD SWIFT payouts cost non-US businesses $25.