ai apps

5 articles · newest first

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EU VAT for SaaS sellers in the US (2026): the One-Stop Shop, B2B reverse charge and the UK

A US SaaS or AI app owes EU VAT from the first consumer sale, and the €10,000 threshold you keep reading about isn't yours. How the non-Union One-Stop Shop works, when reverse charge saves you, and what a $29 plan keeps after German VAT.

Aliteq Team · Oct 3 · 11 min

Flat vector illustration of a person pressing a button on a tall black vending machine that pours glowing gold tokens into its tray, a gold price tag with a plus sign on the machine, on a saturated indigo-violet background

Payments

Stripe token billing for AI apps: how the markup works, what it costs, and what to use while it's in preview

Stripe will now keep your model price list and add your markup to every token, but it runs on Metronome, it's in public preview, and your app still has to report usage and stop users at zero. Here is the markup math for four models and the fees on top, from Stripe's own docs read on 2 Oct 2026.

Aliteq Team · Oct 2 · 11 min

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Payments

Usage-based billing for AI apps in 2026: Stripe, Metronome, Orb, Lago and Polar compared

Your AI app pays per token, so a flat $20 plan quietly loses money on its heaviest users. Here are the three ways to charge for usage, what each billing platform costs as of 2 Oct 2026, and the margin math at light, median and heavy usage.

Aliteq Team · Oct 2 · 12 min

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Payments

Stripe Managed Payments fees (2026): what the +3.5% buys, who can use it, and when Paddle is cheaper

Stripe's merchant of record looks like a flat 3.5% add-on. It isn't quite: the fee lands on the tax as well as the price, Billing charges its own 0.7% on subscriptions, and above about $9.52 a month Paddle keeps less. The full fee stack, the break-even formula, and the five checks you have to pass first.

Aliteq Team · Sep 27 · 11 min

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Payments

Stripe vs Paddle vs Lemon Squeezy for AI SaaS (2026): the fee at $9, $29 and $99, and who files your VAT

Lovable asks you to pick Stripe or Paddle, and every comparison quotes the same headline percentages. We worked the fees at the prices small apps actually charge, for US and EU sellers, and checked who ends up filing the tax, what Stripe's own merchant of record costs, and what's happening to Lemon Squeezy.

Aliteq Team · Sep 27 · 13 min