Stripe vs RevenueCat vs Lemon Squeezy

The one distinction that decides most of this

Apple and Google require their own in-app purchase systems for digital goods sold inside an app. You cannot put a Stripe or Lemon Squeezy card form in front of a digital subscription in your iOS or Android app and keep it in the store. That single rule splits the field:

• Selling digital goods inside a mobile app: you are on store billing, and the question is only what sits on top of it. That is RevenueCat's job.
• Selling software from a website (SaaS, a desktop app, a license, a digital download): you are on card billing, and the question is Stripe versus a merchant of record like Lemon Squeezy.

Get this right first and the rest is detail.

The fee comparison, verified July 2026

A few honest notes on those numbers. RevenueCat's 1 percent is charged on gross tracked revenue, so it sits on top of the store's own 15 to 30 percent commission rather than replacing it. Stripe's rate looks lowest, but "you handle tax" is real work once you sell across borders, and Stripe Tax adds a per-transaction cost. Lemon Squeezy's roughly 5 to 6 percent all-in is the highest headline, and that gap is exactly what you pay to never think about VAT registration again. As of 2026 Lemon Squeezy also runs its checkout on Stripe's managed payments underneath, which does not change the merchant-of-record benefit to you.

Keep one thing in proportion. On a mobile app, the store commission dwarfs every tool fee here. Apple and Google take 15 to 30 percent of an in-app subscription, so RevenueCat's 1 percent on top is a rounding error against that, and the real money conversation on mobile is the Small Business Program and the year-one-to-year-two subscriber discount, not the RevenueCat line. On the web, there is no store cut, so the processor fee is your whole cost of collection, and the 3 percent gap between Stripe and a merchant of record is a genuine decision. Match the tool to where the big number actually is.

RevenueCat: the mobile source of truth

RevenueCat is not a payment processor. Apple and Google process the payment; RevenueCat unifies both stores behind one SDK, holds the subscription state, and tells your backend who is entitled to what. For a solo builder that is enormous, because receipt validation and cross-platform subscription state are two of the nastiest problems in mobile.

Why we chose it: our app sells on iOS and Android, so store billing was mandatory anyway. The choice was really "raw StoreKit and Play Billing, or a layer." The layer won because one entitlement model across both stores, plus webhook events to our own backend, was worth far more than the 1 percent it would cost once we crossed the free tier. The full setup, including the empty-packages bug that cost us days, is in RevenueCat and Expo setup, start to finish.

Where it is the wrong tool: a pure web product. RevenueCat has web support, but if you are not shipping to the app stores you are paying for machinery you do not need. Reach for Stripe or Lemon Squeezy instead.

Stripe: control, and the tax bill is yours

Stripe is the default for charging cards on the web, and for good reason: the API is excellent, the docs are the best in the category, and you control everything from the checkout to the dunning emails. Stripe Billing handles subscriptions, proration, and invoicing on top of the base card processing.

The catch is tax. Stripe by default is not a merchant of record. When you sell software to a customer in another country, collecting and remitting the right VAT or sales tax is your legal responsibility. Stripe Tax can calculate it for a fee, but registration and remittance in each jurisdiction is still on you. For a home-market product, or a team that already has tax handled, Stripe is the cheapest and most flexible option. For a solo builder selling globally on day one, that tax burden is the reason people reach for the next option.

Lemon Squeezy: pay more, think about tax never

Lemon Squeezy is a merchant of record. Legally, it is the seller. That means it collects and remits VAT and US sales tax across jurisdictions for you, handles fraud, and pays you out net of all of it. You wire up products, it deals with the global tax machine.

You pay for that: roughly 5 percent plus 50 cents per transaction, with small surcharges that stack for subscriptions, international cards, and PayPal, landing most sales near 6 percent all-in. That is meaningfully more than Stripe's headline. What you are buying is the removal of an entire category of legal and accounting work. For a web SaaS, a digital download, or a license-key product sold worldwide by one person, that trade is often the right one. For in-app mobile purchases it does not apply, because the stores own that checkout.

Setup effort, honestly

The three also differ in how much work they are to stand up, and that matters when you are one person.

RevenueCat is the most work to start because there is store setup underneath it: you create products in App Store Connect and the Google Play Console, define entitlements in the RevenueCat dashboard, wire the SDK into a development build, and stand up a webhook to keep your backend in sync. It is a day or two of real configuration, and, as we found out, some of that time goes to a products-not-approved or keys-not-in-the-build wall rather than to code. The full account of that is in RevenueCat and Expo setup.

Stripe is the fastest to a working web checkout if you are comfortable with an API. Stripe Checkout or a payment link gets you taking cards in an afternoon. The effort you defer is tax: the day you sell across borders, you inherit registration and remittance work that does not show up on day one.

Lemon Squeezy sits in between. You set up products in a dashboard, drop in a hosted checkout, and you are selling, with tax handled from the first sale. You give up some control over the checkout and the billing emails in exchange for that speed. For a solo builder shipping a web product this week, that is frequently the correct compromise.

Payouts, refunds, and lock-in

A few operational differences decide more than the fee once you are running.

Payout timing: with Stripe you are on a rolling payout schedule to your bank. With a merchant of record like Lemon Squeezy, you are paid out net of fees and tax on the platform's schedule, because it collected the money as the legal seller. With RevenueCat you are not paid by RevenueCat at all; Apple and Google pay you on their own monthly cycles, and RevenueCat only reports and reconciles.

Refunds and chargebacks: on Stripe, disputes and chargebacks are your operational problem, and they carry fees. On a merchant of record, fraud and chargeback handling is part of what the higher percentage buys. On the mobile stores, refunds are largely Apple's and Google's process, and RevenueCat reflects the resulting state change through its webhooks, which is one more reason to trust the server event over the device.

Lock-in: none of the three traps you badly, but they differ. RevenueCat's entitlement model is portable in concept, though moving off it means taking on raw StoreKit and Play Billing yourself. Stripe's data is exportable and its API is a near-standard, so migrating is mostly rebuilding your own billing logic. A merchant of record holds the customer-of-record relationship, so leaving means becoming your own seller and taking on the tax work you were paying to avoid. Choose for where you are now; all three let you move later at a known cost.

Pick by scenario

• Mobile app with in-app subscriptions (iOS and Android): RevenueCat. Store billing is required; RevenueCat is the layer that makes it sane. Free until you are earning, then 1 percent.
• Web SaaS sold worldwide, solo, no tax setup: Lemon Squeezy. The merchant-of-record fee buys you out of global tax compliance.
• Web billing where you want control and already handle tax: Stripe. Lowest fees, best API, tax is your job.
• Both a mobile app and a web version: commonly RevenueCat for the app and Stripe or Lemon Squeezy for the web checkout. Two tools, because the store rule forces it.

The honest concessions

RevenueCat's 1 percent stacks on top of the store cut, so at high volume some teams eventually build their own store integration to shave it; for almost every indie that day never comes and the free tier plus 1 percent is the right call for years. Stripe's low rate is real but understates the total cost of doing your own tax once you sell internationally. Lemon Squeezy's convenience is real but you are handing a merchant of record about 6 percent, and at scale a large seller can negotiate that down or move to self-managed tax. None of the three is a trap; they just answer different questions, and the store rule for mobile is not negotiable.

Where this fits in the journey

This is the plumbing decision. The strategy above it is subscription models for indie apps and how to price your app, which decide whether you even want a subscription and what to charge. Once you have picked a processor and wired it, the rest of the launch path is how to ship an app in 2026.

GenerateIdeas.app scores each idea against real market demand and suggests how it should make money, so you choose a payment model that matches the product. See the plan for your idea