The verdict
If you sell subscriptions and want a mature, broad service with recovery and analytics tools, I'd pick Paddle. If you are a developer or small team selling licences, subscriptions or usage-based services such as tokens or API calls, I'd pick Polar.
Polar's pricing model is easy to try, since it has a free plan and paid tiers with lower rates, so work out your own volume before you decide. Paddle charges per transaction and sends some cases, such as low-priced products and invoicing-heavy businesses, to a custom quote. Both set rules on what you can sell and review accounts. Check that your product and your country are covered before you build on either.
Side by side
| 8 points compared | ||
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $20/mo | |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes |
| Dunning & churn recovery | Yes | Yes |
| Hosted self-serve checkout | Yes | Yes |
| Merchant of record | Yes | Yes |
| Usage-based metering | Yes | Yes |
| Links |
Plans and pricing
Paddle
- Pay-as-you-goFree
Polar
- StarterFree
- Pro$20/mo
- Growth$100/mo
- Scale$400/mo
Who each is for
Choose Paddle if…
Pick Paddle if you are a SaaS, app or digital product company selling internationally and you want one provider for payments, billing, tax and fraud protection. Its Retain product recovers failed payments and reduces cancellations, and ProfitWell Metrics gives real-time subscription analytics.
There is a localised checkout, with an inline option for your own pages, a sandbox, an OpenAPI spec, SDKs in several languages and an official MCP server. The all-in rate has no monthly fee.
The trade-off is control. Customers see Paddle on their statements, and you depend on its account review. Low-priced products and complex invoicing may need a custom quote, so ask early what applies to you.
Choose Polar if…
Pick Polar if you are a developer or a small software team and your pricing is built on usage, seats or units. Meters, prepaid credits and cost insights suit pricing by tokens, calls or compute, which makes it a natural fit for AI and infrastructure products.
Setup is a checkout link, a webhook and a few lines of code. There are SDKs for JavaScript, TypeScript and Python, adapters for several frameworks, a sandbox and an official MCP server that uses OAuth. A migration guide from Stripe exists, too.
You can start on the free plan. Compare it with the paid tiers once volume grows. Polar has an acceptable use policy and a list of supported countries, so check both first. Usage billing also needs clean usage events from your product.
Other options worth a look
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