Paddle Billing
ProfitWell Metrics- A quick summary of each billing solution
- Compare features
- Fees breakdown
- Pros and cons
- How to choose the right platform
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Choosing between FastSpring, Stripe and Paddle often boils down to a core business decision: do you want to build your own payment infrastructure piece-by-piece or buy a ready-made solution?
As a payments processor, Stripe is just one piece of the billing puzzle. As Merchants of Record (MoRs), FastSpring and Paddle are all-in-one billing solutions. Each has distinct advantages depending on your business model and growth stage. But which is right for your business?
FastSpring vs Stripe vs Paddle: quick summary
FastSpring
FastSpring is a Merchant of Record. As a done for you solution, you don’t have to worry about building your own billing infrastructure or complying with sales tax laws when selling digital products, but FastSpring’s fee for its services is not always clear, with no public, standard fee.
Stripe
Stripe is best for start-ups that need an easy way to accept online and physical payments, but Stripe’s capabilities will not be enough as your business scales. Its simple set-up gets you up and running quickly, but you need to piece together, and then manage, additional third-party tools for tax compliance, fraud protection and subscription management.
Paddle
Paddle is best for companies selling digital products and software globally, such as SaaS, AI products and mobile apps on the web. As a Merchant of Record (MoR), Paddle enables you to buy a ready-made, all-in-one billing infrastructure - complete with subscription management, fraud detection and tax compliance for an all-in-one fee of 5% + 50c of each transaction. Paddle also offers custom pricing for larger companies.
With Paddle you can also localize your pricing based on willingness to pay (maximizing your revenue internationally). It comes with in-built tools to reduce churn and takes on the full responsibility of global sales tax compliance for you.
Compare features
Feature | FastSpring | Stripe | Paddle |
|---|---|---|---|
Company type | Merchant of Record (MoR) | Payment Service Provider (PSP) | Merchant of Record (MoR) |
Billing models | One-time payments and custom subscription billing models | One-time payments and basic subscription management | All-in-one billing solution, including recurring subscriptions & one-time payments |
Payment methods & multi-currency support | 23+ currencies and localization in 20+ countries | 135+ currencies in 47 countries | 30+ currencies in 200 countries |
Cost structure | All-in-one pricing for entire platform (fees are not public) | Per transaction pricing with 50+ different charges | 5% + $0.50 per checkout transaction |
Checkout & purchase workflows | Customizable with your branding (color and logo) | Pre-built payment page with simple customization | Localized, customizable and user-friendly checkouts, fully optimized for cross-device display |
Security & fraud prevention | FastSpring’s responsibility. Takes on the liability for fraud prevention and fights chargebacks | Your responsibility. Stripe Radar fraud management comes at an extra cost | Paddle takes responsibility for fighting chargebacks, fraud protection and revenue recovery |
Tax compliance | FastSpring’s responsibility. Takes on the liability for global sales tax and VAT remittance | Your responsibility. Stripe Tax calculates and collects tax in all US states and 100+ countries - but doesn't remit | Paddle is responsible for calculating, collecting and remitting taxes in 270+ tax jurisdictions + all US states |
Third-party integrations | Offers API integrations and platform connections to tools not built into the platform | Standard plan: 500+ integrations. Stripe Connect (extra fee) facilitates integration for marketplaces and platforms | Built-in subscription analytics, metrics, churn tools like Retain. CRMs + third party tools can be integrated with APIs and webhooks |
Customer support | Customer support for billing and tax questions etc | Email & chatbot support, but difficult to get a human response (i.e. need to request a phone call) | Help Center + developer docs, chat and email support. Provides 24/7 billing support worldwide to your customers |
G2 rating | 4.5 | 4.2 | 4.5 |
Fee breakdown
FastSpring - FastSpring’s sales team chooses the rate for you based on transaction type and your business volume.
Paddle - With Paddle you get every feature for one transparent fee: 5% + $0.50 per transaction (lower than international transactions on Stripe and clearer than FastSpring’s hidden rates). Paddle also offers custom pricing for larger companies.
Stripe - From international payments to recurring invoices, Stripe has 50+ different transaction charges that constantly fluctuate and are difficult to track. Despite the 2.9% plus 30¢ that is often seen advertised, most businesses are using various products in the Stripe suite, which means they end up paying anything from 4 to 8% on fees.
Fees | FastSpring | Stripe | Paddle |
|---|---|---|---|
Charges for recurring billing | Fee determined by FastSpring Sales team (during negotiations) | Standard fee: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Standard plan: 0.5% on recurring payments. Scale plan: Scale plan: 0.8% on recurring payments | All recurring billing, transactions and taxes covered by single platform fee: 5% + $0.50 per checkout transaction. Paddle also offers custom pricing for larger companies. |
Transaction fees | Online: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. | Included in 5% + $0.50 fee - no extra costs | |
Global tax compliance | Additional cost for a tax consultant or another solution | Included in 5% + $0.50 fee - no extra costs |
FastSpring: pros and cons
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
All-in-one billing solution with no need to build your own tech stack | Non-transparent pricing - unclear how much you will pay |
Takes on fraud and sales tax liability | Poor customer communication according to reviews and Reddit |
Customizable checkout to boost conversions | Less advanced features than other MoRs (i.e. poor analytics and churn tools) |
Stripe: pros and cons
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Handles one-time payment processing and subscription billing | Requires additional tooling for tax compliance, fraud prevention and custom subscription management |
Their developer documentation and easy-to-use APIs (with 450+ platform integrations) | 50+ separate transaction charges is confusing and costly |
Supports global payments in most of the world’s currencies | You’re still liable for sales tax and chargebacks even with extra integrations |
Paddle: pros and cons
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Comprehensive MoR solution covers all payment and billing needs without any painful integrations | Higher fees than some basic or self-managed solutions, but pricing is all-inclusive, transparent, and covers future product upgrades at no extra cost |
Actively fights chargebacks, prevents fraud and reduces churn, so you keep more of your revenue | Doesn’t cover physical products - only digital products |
Takes on global sales tax liability and localizes pricing/payment methods, so you can seamlessly scale internationally | Less customization and integration options (Paddle is an all-in-one platform designed for companies to outsource complexity) |
FastSpring or Stripe or Paddle: how to pick the right platform
When making a choice between FastSpring, Stripe and Paddle, consider these three core elements.
- Billing needs. If you sell physical products or only require standalone payment processing, Stripe will suffice. But if you sell digital products globally and require recurring or customized billing models and want to , FastSpring and Paddle have greater capabilities. In addition, Paddle contains subscription analytics and built-in churn prevention tools, helping you grow your revenue.
- Developer capabilities. Paying for an out-of-the box billing infrastructure like Paddle or FastSpring takes away the pain of building a tech stack and frees up your engineering team to focus on your product. Stripe requires you to cherry-pick integrations suited to your needs and build your own billing infrastructure.
- Growth goals. If you only focus on a few markets or verticals, you could get by with Stripe. But if you intend to scale internationally, a Merchant of Record like Paddle or FastSpring makes it easier by managing international payments and removing the burden of global sales tax compliance.
Paddle offers more advanced localization than FastSpring: by easily adjusting pricing to local willingness to pay (rather than simply converting to other currencies), you maximize revenue in international markets. Paddle’s in-built retention tools also help you keep more customers (reduces churn by 30%), recover more revenue (cuts failed payments by 50%), and grow customer lifetime value (increases LTV by 2–4x).
Do MoR with Paddle
Overall, Stripe is the simple option, but becomes costly and complicated as soon as you start building the rest of your billing infrastructure.
As merchants of record, both FastSpring and Paddle offer an all-in-one billing solution without additional costs or heavy developer lift, but Paddle’s advanced features enable you to do more with one transparent cost.
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