← Merchant of Record Fee Calculator
Put your monthly revenue, average sale and international share into the calculator to price Stripe, Stripe Tax, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy and Polar side by side. These are the questions to settle before you trust the answer.
When you are small and sell across borders. Registering and filing sales tax and VAT in the places your customers live has a fixed monthly cost, whether you do it yourself or pay a service, and a merchant of record folds that into a higher percentage. At the default inputs the calculator puts the crossover near seven thousand dollars a month; enter your own average sale and international share to find yours.
Thirty to fifty cents a sale is a rounding error on a $200 licence and a large share of a $5 one. If your average sale is under about ten dollars, compare the fixed fee before the percentage.
Chargebacks, refunds policy, payout and currency-conversion fees, and income tax on what you keep stay yours or vary by platform. Whether a platform removes a given registration for your business is a question for your accountant.