Lemon Squeezy vs Paddle

Side-by-side — pricing, strengths, tradeoffs, and fit.

Lemon Squeezy

Payments, tax & subscriptions for software companies

Paddle

The complete payments infrastructure for SaaS

At a glance

Free Tier
· Not enough data·From 5% + 50¢ per transaction
· Not enough data·From 5% + 50¢ per checkout transaction

Overview

One-liner

Payments, tax & subscriptions for software companies

One-liner

The complete payments infrastructure for SaaS

Maturity

Not enough data

Maturity

Not enough data

Open source

✕ No

Open source

✕ No

Pricing

Free tier

✓ Available

Free tier

✕ None

Starts at

5% + 50¢ per transaction

Starts at

5% + 50¢ per checkout transaction

Model

Usage-based

Model

Usage-based

Enterprise

✕ None

Enterprise

✕ None

Best for

✓ Best for

Indie developers and small SaaS companies selling digital products globally

✓ Best for

SaaS companies wanting a merchant of record to handle global tax and compliance

Not ideal for

✕ Not for

—

✕ Not for

—

Strengths

↑ Strengths

Acts as merchant of record: takes on sales tax and VAT collection and filing
Issues, deactivates and re-issues software license keys automatically after each sale
Built for digital goods — software and SaaS, eBooks, PDFs, design assets

↑ Strengths

Acts as merchant of record for global sales tax obligations
Fraud protection: blocks card attacks, fights chargebacks, screens fraudsters
Subscription billing in 20+ currencies with multiple payment methods
Includes free subscription analytics for revenue reporting

Weaknesses

↓ Weaknesses

Ecommerce transactions incur a transaction fee plus a fixed per-transaction cost.
Transactions made outside the US may carry small additional fees on top of the standard fee
Only sells digital goods that can be fulfilled through Lemon Squeezy — not physical products

↓ Weaknesses

Standard pricing is not available for low-value products or invoicing requirements
High transaction fees for low-value items
Cannot be used to sell physical products or anything that needs physical delivery
Not for human services unrelated to software, such as pure consulting
Full Lemon Squeezy profile →Full Paddle profile →