Paddle review

Paddle was founded in London in 2012 and serves more than 10,000 software businesses as a merchant of record. That means Paddle, not the merchant, is the legal seller: its name appears on the customer's card statement, it registers for and remits sales tax and VAT around the world (112 million dollars remitted in the last year), it carries PCI compliance in its Level 1 vault, and it absorbs refund and chargeback liability. Merchants integrate once and skip tax registrations in dozens of jurisdictions.

Pricing and how it works

Pay-as-you-go pricing is 5% + 50 cents per checkout transaction, all-inclusive, with no monthly, setup or migration fees. That single fee bundles payment processing, global tax compliance, subscription billing, fraud protection, chargeback prevention, dunning and 24/7 support. Custom pricing exists for large-scale businesses and is required for products under 10 dollars or invoicing workflows. Chargebacks cost 15 dollars on cards and 20 dollars on PayPal, refunded if Paddle wins the dispute. The headline rate is well above a bare processor's 2.9% + 30 cents, so the deal only makes sense if the tax and billing bundle replaces real work. Payouts are monthly: the balance converts on the 1st and is paid between the 2nd and the 15th in USD, EUR, GBP, AUD or CAD, with a 100 dollar minimum.

Who it is for

Paddle fits B2B and consumer software, SaaS and games businesses selling globally that would otherwise burn engineering and accounting time on tax registrations, invoicing rules and billing infrastructure. It checks out 18 payment methods including Pix, UPI, iDEAL, BLIK and Korean local cards across 33 pricing currencies. It is the wrong fit for physical goods, human services, marketplaces and every high-risk vertical, all of which are prohibited, and for businesses that need weekly cash flow rather than a monthly payout cycle.