Lemon Squeezy vs Paddle: pricing, quotas & features (2025)

Merchant of record for digital products and SaaS
vs. Merchant of Record for SaaS — global tax, billing, checkout in one

Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated May 2026

Summary

Lemon Squeezy and Paddle are both payments platforms, addressing the same core use case with different implementation philosophies and trade-offs. Both offer a free tier, making it easy to prototype without a credit card. Both have 12 documented features in Staxly's catalog. The right choice depends on your existing stack, team experience, and feature requirements. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from Lemon Squeezy and Paddle's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.

Lemon Squeezy vs Paddle: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2025)

En esta comparativa analizamos Lemon Squeezy y Paddle lado a lado — incluyendo precios mensuales, límites del tier gratuito, características técnicas, cuotas de uso (almacenamiento, transferencia, usuarios activos mensuales) y los interfaces de desarrollo disponibles. Todos los datos proceden de la documentación oficial de cada proveedor, no de respuestas generadas por IA.

Lemon Squeezy es una plataforma de la categoría payments — Merchant of record for digital products and SaaS. Ofrece 1 tier de precio: Pay-as-you-go gratuito. Su catálogo en Staxly documenta 12 características y 3 interfazes para desarrolladores.

Paddle pertenece a la categoría payments — Merchant of Record for SaaS — global tax, billing, checkout in one. Ofrece 3 tiers de precio: Pay-as-you-go gratuito, Enterprise (personalizado), Invoicing (<$10 products) (personalizado). Su catálogo documenta 12 características y 6 interfazes para desarrolladores.

A continuación encontrarás los tiers de precio completos de ambas plataformas, una matriz de cuotas del tier gratuito (transferencia, almacenamiento, MAU, llamadas a la API y otros límites), el listado completo de características y los interfaces (CLI, SDKs, REST, GraphQL, MCP) disponibles para integrar cada servicio.

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Pricing tiers

Lemon Squeezy

Pay-as-you-go

No monthly fees. 5% + 50¢ per transaction. Includes tax handling.

$0 base (usage-based)

Lemon Squeezy website ↗

Paddle

Pay-as-you-go

5% + 50¢ per Checkout transaction. No monthly fee. All-inclusive (tax, fraud, support).

$0 base (usage-based)

Enterprise

Custom rates for high-volume. Dedicated success. Custom migration + implementation.

Custom

Invoicing (<$10 products)

Custom pricing for invoicing / products under $10.

Custom

Paddle website ↗

Free-tier quotas head-to-head

Comparing payg on Lemon Squeezy vs payg on Paddle.

Metric	Lemon Squeezy	Paddle
No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers.

Features

Lemon Squeezy · 12 features

Abandoned Cart Recovery — Email retry campaigns (+5% fee on recovered).
Affiliate Program — Built-in affiliate/referral program with payouts.
Custom Checkout Domain — Checkout at checkout.yourbrand.com.
Customer Portal — Self-service subscription + invoice management UI.
Discounts / Coupons — Percentage / fixed / trial discount codes.
Global Tax (included) — Automatic VAT/GST/sales tax calc + remittance. LS files taxes on your behalf.
Hosted Checkout — Hosted + embeddable checkout. Customize color + logo.
License Keys — Generate + validate license keys for software sales.
One-off Sales — Digital products with license keys, file delivery.
Reports & Analytics — Revenue, MRR, churn, LTV.
Subscriptions — Recurring billing with trials, proration, discounts.
Webhooks — Standard resource events (order_created, subscription_created/updated/cancelled,…

Paddle · 12 features

Affiliates (Rewardful partnership) — Affiliate tracking (via partner).
Customer Portal — Self-service subscription management.
Fraud Protection — ML + human review. Paddle absorbs chargebacks.
Global Tax Compliance — Automatic VAT/GST/sales tax calc + remittance + filing.
One-time Sales — Perpetual license sales, single purchases.
Paddle Checkout — Hosted or overlay checkout. Localized + fraud-protected.
Paddle Retain — Revenue recovery + cancel flows (acquired Retain).
ProfitWell Analytics — Included subscription analytics (acquired ProfitWell).
Self-Serve Invoices — B2B invoicing with custom POs.
Smart Dunning — Retry logic + email sequences for failed payments.
Subscriptions — Full lifecycle: trials, changes, cancellations, recovery.
Webhooks — Standard resource events with HMAC signing.

Developer interfaces

Kind	Lemon Squeezy	Paddle
SDK	@lemonsqueezy/lemonsqueezy.js	@paddle/paddle-node-sdk, Paddle.js, paddle-python
REST	Lemon Squeezy REST API	Paddle Billing API
OTHER	Webhooks	Paddle Checkout, Paddle Webhooks

Key takeaways

Both Lemon Squeezy and Paddle offer a free tier — Lemon Squeezy ("Pay-as-you-go") and Paddle ("Pay-as-you-go") — with no credit card required to start.
Both platforms have 12 documented features in Staxly's catalog.

Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to Lemon Squeezy and Paddle may be affiliate links — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.

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