Stripe- View all
- Online courses
- Paid newsletters
- Paid communities
- Digital products
- Sell products online
- Sell live
- Sell on marketplaces
- Cross-list your stock
- Ship orders
- Card payments in person
- Take payments
- Proposals
- Get paid faster
- Lead generation
- CRM
- Cold email
- Booking
- Restaurant bookings
- Email marketing
- Follow-ups
- AI sales agents
- Schedule posts
- Social media
- Marketing copy
- Edit video
- Shorts & clips
- Record podcasts
- Publish podcasts
- Writing
- Images
- Photo editing
- AI video
- AI video clips
- Voice & music
- Presentations
- AI video editing
- 3D scenes
- Accounting
- Client onboarding
- Customer support
- Hiring
- Learning & teaching
- Track time and bill hours
- Staff rotas and time clock
- Host your website
- Automations
- Automatic follow-ups
- Inbox & calendar agent
- Meeting notes
- AI assistants
- Email writing
- Let AI do tasks
- Build an app
- Code with AI
- AI support agent
- Connect Claude to my tools
- AI coding assistants
- Design apps & sites
- Voice & chat agents
- Design to code
- Ship and deploy
- Error triage
- Ask your database
- Enrich data
- Summarise docs
- Research
- Analyse data
- Web scraping
- Chat
- Personal assistants
- Video
- Agents & automation
Take payments
“Take card payments online”
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The main choice is who carries the tax work. Stripe is a payment processor with no monthly fee: you pay per successful transaction, get subscriptions, checkout pages and invoices, and you stay responsible for VAT yourself. Paddle and Lemon Squeezy act as merchant of record, so they sell to your customer and collect sales tax and VAT worldwide for you. Paddle suits SaaS companies, Lemon Squeezy indie makers selling digital products.
Stripe
Side by side
Price, free plan, ease of use and the team size each one suits.
ToolPriceEase of useTeam size
Why these picks
Independent reviews, facts checked at the source, and our own use.
- Ranked from independent reviews
We score how often and how high each tool appears in independent best-of reviews.
- Facts checked at the sourcePrices last checked 1 Oct 2026
Prices, free plans and offers come from each provider's own website, checked every week by our software and reviewed by us.
- Nobody pays for a place
The order comes from the reviews and the facts. Offers are only the providers' own.
Head to head
Pairs people weigh up that include one of these picks.
Rules that apply
The rules, the dates, and which of these tools support them.
Connect them to AI
MCP setups that use these tools, step by step.
Questions
What people ask about take payments.
What is a merchant of record, and do I need one?
A merchant of record is the legal seller in each transaction, so it collects and pays sales tax and VAT in every country. Paddle and Lemon Squeezy work this way, which saves you registering for tax wherever your buyers live. You pay a higher cut per sale than with a plain processor. It makes most sense for software and digital products sold to consumers across many countries.
Does Stripe charge a monthly fee?
No, Stripe has no monthly fee and charges per successful transaction. That covers cards and local payment methods, a hosted checkout page, subscriptions and invoices. Failed subscription payments get retried automatically. Extra products can carry their own fees, so check the pricing page for anything beyond basic payments.
I sell digital downloads. Is Lemon Squeezy enough on its own?
For most solo sellers, yes. Lemon Squeezy runs the checkout, takes payments and handles sales tax worldwide, and it includes licence keys and an affiliate programme. That covers ebooks, templates, plugins and small software. Larger SaaS teams that need more billing control tend to look at Paddle or Stripe.
Can I take one-off payments and subscriptions in the same account?
All three support both. Stripe gives you the most flexibility through its API, which developers like, and handles invoices for B2B customers too. Paddle is built around SaaS subscriptions with tax collected for you. Lemon Squeezy covers subscriptions alongside one-off digital sales.
I sell to customers across the EU. What changes for me?
Digital services sold to EU consumers are taxed at the buyer's VAT rate, which you declare through the EU's OSS scheme if you handle it yourself. With Stripe that registration and filing stays with you or your accountant. Paddle and Lemon Squeezy take on that work as merchant of record. For physical goods or B2B sales the picture differs, so check with your adviser.