Getting paid for software, with the fees worked out

I'm Ledger, and I cover what it really costs to get paid. This section is for anyone who built a SaaS or an AI app, often with Lovable, Bolt, Cursor or Replit on Supabase, and now has to charge for it: which provider, what's left after fees, and who handles the tax.

Every fee here was read on the provider's own pricing page, and every tax rule on the government's or the European Commission's own page, on 27 September 2026. aliteq sells nothing through these providers and earns nothing from them; our only referral links are for GPU clouds, Higgsfield and Amazon, and they're disclosed where they appear.

Processor or merchant of record?

A payment processor moves the money; you stay the seller. A merchant of record resells your product to your customer, so it becomes the seller and takes on the tax. That single difference explains most of the fee gap, and most of the paperwork you do or don't have to do.

Stripe Tax is easy to misread. It calculates and collects tax where you tell it you're registered, but it doesn't make Stripe the seller: you still register and file. Stripe's own merchant of record, Managed Payments, is a separate product that has been generally available since 22 April 2026 and supports sellers in 37 countries listed in its docs, Denmark included. Lemon Squeezy, which Stripe bought in July 2024, still takes sign-ups, but its CEO said in January 2026 that the team was building Managed Payments and would help users migrate; no shutdown has been announced.

Nine ways to get paid, priced

On a $29 monthly subscription, a US-based seller pays from $1.34 a sale with Stripe and Billing to $3.40 with Gumroad. The merchants of record cluster between $1.53 and $2.36 for a US customer.

Three things change the order. A customer outside the US adds 1.5% at Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar and Dodo, but nothing at Paddle, Creem or Gumroad. A cheap plan makes the fixed 30–50¢ dominate, so at $9 a month Paddle, Lemon Squeezy and Managed Payments keep roughly 10–13%, and Creem and Dodo about 8–10%. And an EU-based seller gets Stripe's European card rate, which roughly halves the processor's fee on EU sales. The full grid at $9, $29 and $99, for US and EU sellers, with a calculator, is in Stripe vs Paddle vs Lemon Squeezy.

Newer merchants of record are cheaper on paper: Creem charges 3.9% + 40¢ with no international surcharge, and Dodo Payments 4% + 40¢. Polar's free plan is 5% + 50¢, with paid plans from $20 a month that go as low as 3.4% + 30¢. Their payout fees and country coverage vary more, and some of their own pages disagree with their docs, so read both before you commit.

When you owe VAT and sales tax

Digital sales to consumers are generally taxed where the customer lives, and the thresholds that start the obligation differ wildly. For a seller based outside the EU, EU VAT on digital sales to consumers is owed from the first sale. A business based outside the UK must register for UK VAT "regardless of taxable turnover" if it sells to UK consumers.

In the EU, a seller established in a single EU country can charge its home VAT on cross-border digital sales to consumers until those pass €10,000, counted over the current and the previous calendar year. Past that, the general rule applies straight away: you charge each customer's country's rate and file one return through the One-Stop Shop. Returns are quarterly and due by the end of the following month, with nil returns required. Business customers with a valid VAT number are handled by reverse charge instead, which is why checkouts ask for a VAT number and check it against the EU's VIES database.

In Denmark, VAT is generally 25%, and Skat says to register once you trade for over DKK 50,000 a year ($7,627 at the ECB rate).

In Australia, GST of 10% has applied to imported digital products since 1 July 2017, and non-resident businesses register at A$75,000 of GST turnover ($52,727).

In the US, two questions decide it. First, nexus: most states set the threshold at $100,000 of sales into the state, while California and Texas use $500,000, and New York $500,000 plus more than 100 sales. Second, whether the state taxes software at all. New York taxes remotely accessed prewritten software, and Washington taxes digital products however they're accessed. Texas taxes data-processing services on 80% of the price, and many SaaS products may fall into that category; check with the Comptroller. California's regulation treats software delivered electronically, with nothing tangible, as non-taxable.

The rate matters if your price includes tax. On a $29 tax-inclusive price, a German sale leaves $24.37 before payment fees and a Hungarian one $22.83. Stripe Managed Payments and Lemon Squeezy both say in their docs that their percentage is charged on the full amount including tax.

The fees nobody lists

Headline rates leave out disputes, refunds, payouts and currency conversion. One chargeback costs $15 at Stripe US, Lemon Squeezy and Polar, $20 at Paddle, $25 at Creem, $30 at Dodo and 200 kr ($30.51) at Stripe Denmark.

The small print differs too. Stripe returns its US dispute fees if you win; Paddle keeps its fee even when you win, and wants your chargeback rate below 0.65%. Stripe keeps the processing fee when you refund. Paddle pays out free in local currency and may add up to 1.5% when it converts your balance. Lemon Squeezy charges 1% to pay out to a bank outside the US. Stripe Managed Payments may refund a customer itself if you don't answer within 48 hours.

A merchant of record also holds your money between the sale and the payout, because legally it's their sale. Sellers on Reddit and Hacker News describe payouts held during reviews and slow support replies; those are individual reports, not data, but they're the reason to keep your records and customer list outside any one provider.

Can they refuse your AI app?

Yes, and a merchant of record is more likely to, because it's the legal seller of what you make. Paddle's acceptable-use policy, updated 13 April 2026, restricts human-like faces and doesn't allow face swaps, deepfakes, voice impersonation, content using someone's likeness without consent, or automated decision-making about people. Polar, Dodo and Creem have similar clauses. Lemon Squeezy names only NSFW chatbots among AI products.

Stripe Managed Payments goes the other way: since 2 June 2026 it has tax codes specifically for AI as a service, covering LLMs, image generators and chatbots, as long as the product is fully automated. Plain Stripe's restricted list mentions AI only under adult content. The provider-by-provider table is in the full comparison.

Before you pick one

The provider matters less than the way you wire it. Keep the secret key on your server, set prices on the server, and check the webhook signature before you unlock anything. We showed the safe and unsafe way to prompt an AI for that in add a Stripe checkout button, and why a key in the browser is a problem in API keys in the browser. What your app costs to run, as opposed to what you charge for it, is in what hosting costs and our cost to run pages.