Lemon Squeezy vs Stripe: Pricing, features, and the best choice for your business in 2026

Key takeaways

• Stripe is a payments and billing platform you configure yourself. Lemon Squeezy is a merchant of record (MoR) that bundles payment processing, tax, and compliance.

• Your choice will impact checkout, who owns tax and compliance risk, how much you pay in fees at scale, and how much control you have over pricing, subscriptions, and data.

• Many SaaS teams now use Stripe or Lemon Squeezy for checkout and move their global revenue, FX, and payouts to Airwallex. Airwallex gives you multi-currency accounts, subscription payments, interbank FX, and global payouts in one platform. You can grow internationally without losing margin to fees and forced FX conversions. 

If you sell SaaS or digital products, payments and tax get complicated fast. You need to accept cards and wallets, handle subscriptions, charge the right VAT or sales tax, and keep everything running as you enter new markets.

Stripe and Lemon Squeezy are two of your options here. Stripe has flexible APIs and many global payment methods. Lemon Squeezy acts as a merchant of record, which means it handles tax and compliance for you.

This guide explains how the two platforms work, where they differ, and how those differences affect your costs, subscription setup, tax management, and engineering time. It also explains why many teams add Airwallex to their stack to manage multi-currency revenue, reduce FX costs, and support cross-border growth.

What is Stripe?

Stripe is a global payments and financial infrastructure platform. It lets you:

• Accept cards, wallets and local payment methods in 100+ countries

• Support 135+ currencies

• Run subscriptions and invoicing with Stripe Billing

• Calculate and collect VAT, GST, and US sales tax  

Stripe is a payment service provider (PSP). You keep your own merchant relationship and remain the seller of record. In other words, you stay responsible for tax registration, filings, and most compliance work.

What is Lemon Squeezy?

Lemon Squeezy is a merchant of record platform for SaaS and digital product sellers. As a merchant of record, Lemon Squeezy:

• Becomes the legal seller to your customers

• Processes payments on your behalf (using Stripe under the hood)

• Calculates and pays global sales tax on digital products

• Handles VAT, GST and US sales tax reporting in supported markets

• Manages much of the legal and compliance burden for cross-border sales 

You pay a bundled fee that includes card processing, MoR services, and tax handling. In return, you get a hosted checkout and dashboard with built-in subscriptions, licensing, file delivery, and basic customer management.

In 2024, Stripe acquired Lemon Squeezy to expand its own merchant of record capabilities.  That means you are now choosing between two models that sit under the same umbrella: Stripe’s core payments and billing stack, and the MoR model Lemon Squeezy pioneered.

Lemon Squeezy vs Stripe at a glance

Here’s how Stripe and Lemon Squeezy compare.

Stripe and Lemon Squeezy compared on costs, billing, tax, and setup 

Both can collect revenue and handle subscriptions. The key difference is who owns the merchant relationship, and tax risk, and how much control you need over billing models, data, FX, and payouts.

Pricing and fees 

Stripe’s fees are transparent, but you need to add the pieces together:

• A UK card payment costs around 1.4% + 20p¹

• A European card costs around 2.9% + 20p

• A non-European card is 2.9% + 20p + 1.5%. FX ≈ 4.4% + 20p

• Additional tax and billing fees stack on top

• Chargebacks cost extra

• FX conversion: an additional 2% FX fee whenever Stripe converts currency²

At low volume this is simple enough. As you scale across currencies and regions, the combined impact of FX, international card fees, and add-ons can be significant, especially if you’re selling to customers outside your home market.

Lemon Squeezy charges 5% + about £0.40 per transaction. This fee includes card processing, VAT and sales tax calculation and remittance, fraud protection, and compliance. There are no standard monthly ecommerce fees, but additional charges can apply in edge cases or at higher volumes.³

This simplifies billing and tax, but the bundled percentage may end up costing more at higher volumes compared with splitting fees across specialist services.

Airwallex fixes the margin leak that Stripe and Lemon Squeezy can’t

Stripe and Lemon Squeezy help you get paid, but they don’t help you with the cost of moving money across currencies. This is where many SaaS businesses lose margin. International card markups, forced conversions, and banking fees chip away at every subscription.

You can accept payments in more than 130 currencies, settle them like-for-like into multi-currency accounts, and convert only when it benefits you at interbank or market-leading rates. The result is less money lost to FX and more kept in your business.

Subscription billing and SaaS monetisation tools

Stripe is designed for complex SaaS models. You can:

• Set up flat, tiered, seat-based, and metered usage pricing⁴

• Create trials, coupons, and add-ons

• Automate proration, upgrades, and downgrades

• Integrate with Stripe Invoicing and third-party analytics 

If you have engineering resources, you can build granular pricing and entitlements on top of Stripe’s APIs.  

Lemon Squeezy focuses on the essentials:

• Recurrent subscriptions with basic plan and interval options⁵

• Support for one-off purchases, subscriptions, and bundles

• Licensing, file delivery and simple customer portals out of the box 

It’s weaker in deeply customised pricing, complex entitlements, and tight integration with your own data warehouse or RevOps stack.

Airwallex upgrades your entire subscription engine

Airwallex Subscription Management connects your recurring payments directly to multi-currency accounts and FX, so you can run a global subscription model without extra systems or hidden costs.

You can:

• accept subscription payments in more than 170 currencies and 160 payment methods

• run recurring billing with smart retries that reduce failed payments

• route every payment straight into your Airwallex wallet for instant visibility, reconciliation and cash flow control

You can still use another subscription tool. Airwallex sits underneath as the financial layer that collects, holds and converts your revenue across markets, giving you control that typical payment processors and MoR platforms cannot match.

Global tax compliance and risk ownership

The biggest structural difference between Stripe and Lemon Squeezy is who stands between you and the customer from a tax and legal point of view.

With Stripe:

• Your company is the seller of record

• You must register for VAT, GST or sales tax in relevant markets

• You’re liable for filings, audits and errors

With Lemon Squeezy:

• Lemon Squeezy becomes the merchant of record

• It calculates and pays global sales tax on digital products

• It handles legal processing and fees in each country it supports 

Airwallex makes tax simpler while you stay in control

Airwallex gives you the financial infrastructure to manage tax cleanly without losing ownership of your revenue.

You get local collection accounts in 60+ countries, like-for-like settlement in your customers’ currencies, and clear, auditable records that plug straight into your tax and accounting tools.

You stay the merchant of record, avoid forced currency conversion, keep currencies separate, and give finance teams accurate data for reporting across markets.

Developer experience  

Stripe is API-first. You get:

• Well documented, granular APIs and webhooks

• SDKs and client libraries for major languages

• Deep checkout, billing, and reporting customisation 

• Access to a large ecosystem of integrations 

The trade-off is engineering time. To get the most from Stripe, you normally need developers to design schemas, build workflows, and maintain integrations as your product evolves.

Lemon Squeezy leans into speed:

• Hosted checkout and customer portal

• Simple embedding of purchase and subscription flows

• Limited but growing APIs for key use cases 

You can get live quickly with minimal engineering. In exchange, you get less fine-grained control than you would get with Stripe.

Airwallex gives you speed now and control when you need it

Airwallex supports both no-code and developer-led setups, so you can launch fast and scale without switching providers.

It has:

• Simple payment links, hosted pages and subscription setup

• Powerful APIs for global payments, accounts, FX and payouts

• Prebuilt integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento

You can start with quick plug-ins and move to custom workflows as you grow, all on the same platform.

Read more: Plug & pay: Getting started with payment gateway integrations

The businesses that tend to use Stripe and Lemon Squeezy

Lemon Squeezy is usually used by solo developers, small SaaS teams, and digital creators who want an MoR to handle tax and compliance on their behalf.

Stripe is typically used by SaaS companies with in-house engineering who want fine-grained control over subscriptions, invoicing, payment methods, and data. 

Once revenue grows and more markets are involved, many of these businesses run into similar issues:

• Rising FX and international card costs

• Complex reconciliation between payment processors and bank accounts

• Difficulty paying contractors, affiliates or partners globally from the same stack

That is where Airwallex comes in. It’s a global financial layer that sits beneath existing checkout tools.

Airwallex is the best fit for global businesses 

Stripe and Lemon Squeezy handle checkout. Airwallex handles everything after, giving you the revenue control, FX efficiency and global scale you won’t get from a payment processor alone.

• You can open local accounts in more than 20 currencies and receive funds like a local in over 60 countries. You hold revenue in the currencies you earn and avoid forced conversion.

• You can accept payments in more than 130 currencies and more than 160 local payment methods, helping you convert customers in every market.

• When you convert funds, you choose the timing. Airwallex provides competitive interbank FX rates that remove unnecessary costs and often save up to 80 percent compared with legacy processors.

• You can send payouts to more than 150 countries, with over 120 using local rails, so you can pay contractors, creators and partners from the same wallet that collects your subscriptions.

• All of this sits in one platform with multi-currency cards, spend control and treasury tools for software companies that sell globally.

Final verdict:  Lemon Squeezy vs Stripe vs Airwallex

• Lemon Squeezy is a fast way to start selling digital products and simple SaaS plans without managing global tax yourself. You pay for convenience and hand tax responsibilities to a merchant of record. 

• Stripe gives you a flexible billing and payments stack. You stay in control of pricing and customer data, at the cost of more engineering and direct ownership of tax and compliance. 

• Airwallex gives you the financial infrastructure underneath both. You can accept payments in 130+ currencies, keep balances in multi-currency accounts, convert at market-leading FX rates and pay out globally, all from one place. 

If you plan to grow across borders, handle revenue in multiple currencies and keep control of your financial stack, Airwallex is the smartest choice for your payments, FX and global payouts.

You can keep using Stripe or Lemon Squeezy at checkout and plug them into Airwallex, or move more of your stack to Airwallex over time. Either way, you get more control over revenue, fewer hidden costs, and a platform that is built for global SaaS growth.

FAQs

What’s the main difference between Stripe and Lemon Squeezy, and where does Airwallex fit?

Stripe lets you stay the seller of record and control your billing stack. Lemon Squeezy becomes the merchant of record and handles tax for digital goods. Airwallex isn’t a checkout tool. It works alongside either platform to manage multi-currency accounts, FX, and global payouts so you can run revenue across markets without extra systems.

Which platform has lower fees: Stripe or Lemon Squeezy?

Stripe charges card fees, FX markups, and add-ons like Billing and Tax. Lemon Squeezy bundles payment processing and MoR services into one percentage fee. Actual cost depends on where your customers are and how often currency conversion happens. Businesses that earn across currencies often pair either platform with Airwallex to reduce FX costs and keep funds in the currencies they earn.

Do Stripe and Lemon Squeezy support recurring SaaS billing?

Yes. Stripe Billing supports complex pricing models, including usage and tiered plans. Lemon Squeezy supports simpler recurring setups aimed at digital products and lightweight SaaS. Airwallex can sit under either system by routing subscription payments into multi-currency accounts and improving reconciliation and cash flow visibility.

How do Stripe and Lemon Squeezy handle tax, and what does Airwallex provide?

With Stripe, you handle VAT, GST, and sales tax unless you add Stripe Tax. Lemon Squeezy, as a merchant of record, calculates and remits tax for digital goods in supported regions. Airwallex doesn’t replace tax tools, but it provides clean, like-for-like settlement data and local collection accounts, which helps finance teams track revenue and map tax obligations more accurately.

Is Stripe and Lemon Squeezy easier to launch for a new SaaS product?

Lemon Squeezy offers faster setup with hosted checkout and built-in MoR services. Stripe gives you more flexibility but usually needs engineering time. Airwallex supports both approaches. You can launch with hosted checkout or APIs, then connect subscription and payment flows to Airwallex as you scale internationally.

Can I use Airwallex with both Stripe and Lemon Squeezy?

Yes. Many SaaS teams use Stripe or Lemon Squeezy for checkout and use Airwallex to manage the revenue that comes after. Airwallex lets you accept payments in 130+ currencies, hold balances in multi-currency accounts, convert at competitive FX rates, and send payouts to more than 150 countries, all from one platform.

Sources and references 

1. stripe.com/pricing

2. docs.stripe.com/global-payouts/pricing

3. lemonsqueezy.com/pricing

4. /stripe.com/billing

5. lemonsqueezy.com/ecommerce/payments