Paddle

Payments and tax for SaaS companies.

Best for: SaaS companies that want to sell globally without handling VAT and tax compliance themselves.

5% + $0.50 per transaction

4.4/5Editorial score 86/100paddle.com

Starts at

5% + $0.50 per transaction

Visit Paddle

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Editorial score86/100

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The editorial note

What to know about Paddle

Paddle is a merchant of record (MoR) and billing platform for SaaS companies that handles payments, subscriptions, global tax compliance (VAT, sales tax, GST), and revenue recognition. It acts as the legal seller of record, removing the complexity of tax law compliance for software products sold globally. Paddle serves mid-market to enterprise SaaS companies that have outgrown simpler options like Lemon Squeezy and want more sophisticated billing and analytics.

Is it right for you?

Who Paddle suits

Choose it if

SaaS companies that want to sell globally without handling VAT and tax compliance themselves.

Look elsewhere if

Early-stage products processing under $10K MRR — Lemon Squeezy provides simpler merchant of record at lower cost for indie developers before reaching Paddle's target scale

What you get

Key features

Merchant of record (global tax compliance)
Subscription and billing management
Custom checkout (PaddleJS)
Failed payment recovery (Paddle Retain)
Refund and dispute management
Revenue analytics and MRR dashboard
Dunning management
API-first billing

Works with

Integrations8

Stripe (for direct payments option)Zapier Segment HubSpot Intercom Slack Baremetrics ChartMogul

What it costs

Pricing

Paddle pricing plans
Plan	Price	What it includes
Starter	5% + $0.50 per transaction	Merchant of record payments with no monthly fee — 5% + $0.50 per sale
Custom	Contact sales	Volume discounts for high-revenue businesses, custom rates

Prices are recorded from the vendor's public pricing page and can change. Check before you buy.

The trade-off

Pros and cons

Pros

Merchant of record model eliminates global tax compliance burden across 200+ countries
PaddleJS billing provides customizable checkout experiences for higher conversion
Subscription management with upgrades, downgrades, pauses, and proration handled automatically
Paddle Retain proactively recovers failed payments to reduce involuntary churn
Revenue reporting and analytics built in — MRR, churn, LTV dashboards out of the box

Cons

5%+$0.50 per transaction fee is higher than self-managed Stripe for high-volume SaaS
Less flexible than direct Stripe for highly custom billing logic or complex pricing models
Paddle's fee structure becomes expensive at scale — large SaaS companies typically migrate off
Checkout customization options are more limited than Stripe Checkout for complex flows

Quick read

At a glance

Category: E-commerce
Pricing model: Subscription
Entry plan: 5% + $0.50 per transaction
Free plan: Not listed
Free trial: Not listed
Website: paddle.com

The verdict

Our take on Paddle

Paddle is the right choice for SaaS companies that want to sell globally without handling VAT and tax compliance themselves. It handles sales tax, VAT and localization so you do not have to, making it one of the stronger options in its category. The main caveat: less control over checkout customisation than Stripe. It is subscription-based, so factor that into your evaluation.

Visit Paddle Compare before deciding

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