polar
Checkout and billing for people selling software, with Polar as the merchant of record so sales tax and VAT are handled for you.
The Lens
By Erik Loyd, SaaS CEO and former COO/CFO of an AWS Premier Partner.
Updated Oct 2026
Polar is a checkout and billing service for people selling software: subscriptions, usage metering, seats, credits and license keys. As merchant of record, Polar is legally the seller, so sales tax and VAT are its problem. The code is Apache 2.0 and signing up costs nothing; Polar earns per transaction.
Self-hosting is technically possible, and Polar's own docs steer you away from it. The stack is Postgres, Redis, S3 storage and a worker, wired to your own Stripe account. Run it yourself and you're the seller again, tax compliance included. Treat the repo as transparency, not a deployment target.
Starter has no monthly fee and takes 5% + 50¢ per sale, plus 1.5% on non-US cards. Pro ($20/month, 3.8% + 40¢), Growth ($100/month) and Scale ($400/month, adds SSO) trade a flat fee for a lower rate. By Polar's own math, Pro pays off around $1,379 a month in sales. Solo: Starter. Small teams past that line: Pro. Larger teams: Scale. Same job as Paddle or Lemon Squeezy.
The catch: you're renting someone else's merchant account. Polar sells software and digital goods only, bans donations and sponsorships, and can refuse or suspend accounts at its discretion. Disputes cost $15 each, win or lose.
Free vs Self-Hosted vs Paid
free self hosted paid cloudFree: The Starter plan has no monthly fee and charges 5% + 50¢ per transaction, with Polar as merchant of record handling receipts, customer accounts, dunning and sales tax/VAT. Add 1.5% for international (non-US) cards. Organizations created before May 27, 2026 keep the Early Member rate of 4% + 40¢ plus 0.5% on subscription payments, but lose it permanently if they upgrade to a paid plan.
Self-hosted: The whole platform is Apache 2.0 (FastAPI backend, worker, Next.js frontend, Postgres, Redis, S3 storage) and runs against your own Stripe account with Stripe Tax enabled. Polar's docs say self-hosting is technically possible but recommend the hosted service, because self-hosting drops the merchant-of-record benefits, so tax compliance becomes yours. Expect real ops work on payment infrastructure.
Paid: Pro $20/month at 3.8% + 40¢, Growth $100/month at 3.6% + 35¢, Scale $400/month at 3.4% + 30¢ with SSO and a Slack channel. Breakeven versus Starter is about $1,379/month in sales for Pro, $5,634 for Growth and $19,048 for Scale. Every plan pays $15 per dispute (non-refundable), Stripe payout fees ($2/month of active payouts plus 0.25% + $0.25 per payout) and the 1.5% international card fee. Volume pricing beyond Scale is by request.
No monthly fee on Starter, but 5% + 50¢ per sale (plus 1.5% on non-US cards) is what you pay for tax handling. Past about $1,379/month in sales, Pro at $20/month and 3.8% + 40¢ is cheaper.
What to do by team size
- Solo
- free Starter plan, 5% + 50¢ per sale with tax handled
- Small team
- Pro at $20/month once sales pass about $1,379/month
- Medium team
- Growth at $100/month past about $5,634/month in sales
- Large team
- Scale at $400/month for SSO and the lowest public rate, or ask for volume pricing
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Trust Signals
License: Apache License 2.0
Code is Apache 2.0; the hosted merchant-of-record service charges per transaction.
Commercial use: ✓ Yes
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