Stripe, Paddle, or Lemon Squeezy: What Indie Developers Should Know Before Choosing

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Indie developers launching paid apps typically choose between three platforms — Stripe, Paddle, and Lemon Squeezy — but the choice hinges on a fundamental legal distinction: payment processor versus merchant of record. Stripe, the cheapest at roughly 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, makes the developer the legal seller, meaning sales tax and VAT compliance are their own responsibility. Paddle and Lemon Squeezy act as merchants of record, charging around 5% or more but handling global tax collection and remittance on the developer's behalf. Stripe gives developers full ownership of customer data, while Paddle and Lemon Squeezy retain the customer relationship under their own terms, making future migrations more complex. Notably, none of the three natively support offline cryptographic license keys for desktop apps, meaning licensing remains a separate layer regardless of which payment platform is chosen.

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