Stripe vs Lemon Squeezy for indie hackers: pricing, developer experience, and time-to-value compared with clear guidance on who should pick which.
The financial infrastructure platform for internet businesses, enabling global payments, revenue automation, and money management.
All-in-one platform for selling digital products, subscriptions, and managing your online business with built-in Merchant of Record.
| Criteria | Stripe | Lemon Squeezy |
|---|---|---|
Developer Experience How quickly developers can integrate, customize, and maintain. Weight: 20% | 9.0/10 Robust, developer-friendly APIs and SDKs with comprehensive documentation suited for deep customization. | 7.0/10 Developer-friendly API and easy platform, but narrower scope and fewer building blocks than Stripe for complex custom flows. |
Pricing & Value Total cost vs. capability and ops saved for lean teams. Weight: 25% | 7.0/10 Powerful suite but pricing can become intricate across products; transaction fees may be higher for small businesses or certain methods. | 8.0/10 Freemium start and MoR offload compliance effort—strong value early. Transaction/platform fees can impact margins at higher volume. |
Setup Time / Time-to-Value Speed from zero to taking money. Weight: 20% | 7.0/10 No-code Payment Links and Checkout help, but broader setup can be complex, especially without pre-built solutions. | 9.0/10 Hosted storefront and checkout, plus MoR handling, make it fast to launch digital/SaaS sales with minimal integration. |
Scalability & Flexibility Ability to grow across products, geographies, and models. Weight: 15% | 9.0/10 Extensive product suite (Billing, Radar, Tax, Connect, Terminal, Issuing) and wide payment methods/currencies for global scale. | 7.0/10 Well-suited for digital products and SaaS; less fit for physical goods and fewer enterprise-grade primitives than Stripe. |
Documentation Quality Clarity and depth of docs and guides. Weight: 10% | 9.0/10 Comprehensive documentation and guides designed for developers. | 7.0/10 Has documentation and a developer-friendly API; depth and breadth appear more limited than Stripe. |
Compliance & Tax Handling Effort required to handle global tax, VAT, and compliance. Weight: 7% | 7.0/10 Stripe Tax automates sales tax/VAT calculation and related workflows, but it is not a Merchant of Record. | 9.0/10 Acts as Merchant of Record, handling global sales tax, VAT, and compliance, reducing legal/ops burden. |
Built-in Growth Tools Marketing/sales features that reduce extra tooling. Weight: 3% | 6.0/10 Strong payments primitives; fewer native marketing features compared to dedicated e-commerce tools. | 9.0/10 Affiliates, discounts, lead magnets, and flexible pricing options built in for digital/SaaS growth. |
Pros
Cons
Pros
Cons
Compliance model (MoR vs. processor)
Lemon Squeezy
As a Merchant of Record, Lemon Squeezy handles global sales tax, VAT, and compliance, reducing legal and ops burden for small teams.
Breadth of financial infrastructure
Stripe
Stripe spans payments, subscriptions, fraud prevention, tax automation, revenue recognition, platforms (Connect), in-person payments (Terminal), and more.
Time-to-value for digital/SaaS
Lemon Squeezy
Hosted store and checkout plus MoR minimize setup, enabling faster launch with fewer integrations.
Developer control and extensibility
Stripe
Stripe’s APIs, SDKs, and documentation enable deep customization and complex payment flows.
Global reach and payment methods
Stripe
Stripe supports a wide range of payment methods and currencies for international expansion.
- Lemon Squeezy: Indie SaaS and digital product sellers who want to launch quickly, offload tax/VAT, and run with minimal ops and integrations. - Stripe: Teams needing a flexible payment stack that can evolve into complex flows (multi-party payouts, in-person payments, global expansion) with full developer control.
- Lemon Squeezy: Freemium entry and a clear value proposition—MoR handles global tax and compliance, which can replace a lot of manual or outsourced work. Expect transaction/platform fees; at higher volumes, those fees can affect margins. - Stripe: Powerful à la carte suite (Billing, Tax, Radar, etc.). Fees and add-ons can become intricate, especially as you combine products. For teams that fully leverage its capabilities, the long-term value is strong, but it may require more engineering time to realize.
- Stripe is known for developer-friendly APIs, SDKs, and comprehensive documentation, enabling custom integrations and advanced flows. - Lemon Squeezy provides a developer-friendly API and an easy-to-use platform, but with a narrower scope geared to digital/SaaS use cases. If you need deep customization across many payment methods or complex platform models, Stripe has the edge.
- Lemon Squeezy minimizes setup via hosted storefronts and checkouts, plus MoR coverage. You can sell quickly without stitching together multiple tools. - Stripe offers Payment Links and pre-built Checkout to speed up launch; however, broader integrations (subscriptions, tax handling, custom UIs) can take longer, especially without prior Stripe experience.
- Stripe’s breadth—global payments, subscriptions, fraud prevention, tax automation, revenue recognition, payouts for platforms (Connect), in-person payments (Terminal), and card issuing—makes it suitable from startup to enterprise. - Lemon Squeezy is focused on digital products and SaaS. It’s excellent for launching and operating within that lane, but it’s not aimed at physical goods and lacks some of Stripe’s advanced primitives for complex platforms.
- Stripe provides extensive guides and reference docs that support both quick starts and complex implementations. - Lemon Squeezy has documentation and a developer-friendly API, but available information suggests less breadth and depth compared to Stripe’s ecosystem.
Choose Lemon Squeezy if: - You’re selling digital products or a straightforward SaaS and want to go live fast. - You prefer to offload global tax/VAT and compliance to a Merchant of Record. - You want built-in growth tools like affiliates, discounts, and lead magnets without extra services.
Choose Stripe if: - You need maximum control, customization, and breadth across payment methods and business models. - You plan to scale globally, support platforms/marketplaces, or add in-person payments. - You’re comfortable investing engineering time upfront to get long-term flexibility and performance.
It’s primarily focused on digital products and SaaS. If you need in-person or physical goods support, Stripe’s product set is a better fit.
Yes. Both tools offer hosted checkout experiences. Lemon Squeezy focuses on hosted flows and storefronts, while Stripe offers hosted Checkout and also low-level APIs and UI components for deeper customization.
Lemon Squeezy acts as Merchant of Record and manages global sales tax, VAT, and compliance. Stripe offers Stripe Tax to automate tax calculation and related workflows, but it is not a Merchant of Record.
Generally Lemon Squeezy, thanks to MoR and hosted store/checkout. Stripe can also be quick using Payment Links or Checkout, but deeper setups usually involve more configuration.
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