How to shortlist a Merchant of Record without taking anyone's word for it
Every provider in this category charges within a couple of points of the others and describes itself in the same language. The differences that decide it are in the terms around the rate: when money leaves the platform, what stacks on top, what a dispute costs, and what happens to a product priced at six dollars.
Six things to check on every shortlist
- When money actually leaves
- Ask when funds reach your bank, not when the card clears. Monthly settlement against a $100 floor is common in this category, and so is twice a month. Ours is daily by default with no minimum.
- What stacks on the headline rate
- Surcharges are where near-identical rates diverge. An extra 1.5% for international cards and 0.5% for subscriptions is normal here, and for a SaaS billing worldwide those two land on nearly every transaction.
- How deep the subscription model goes
- Trials that convert on their own, proration on mid-cycle plan changes, a preview of the next renewal, pause instead of cancel, usage-based pricing, and one-off charges onto a live subscription.
- How far the checkout bends
- Hosted, overlay and embedded surfaces, your branding, custom fields that carry your own user id, localised pricing and language, and a post-purchase redirect you choose.
- What a dispute costs
- $15 to $30 per chargeback is standard, win or lose, and some providers charge it on pre-dispute alerts too. We charge nothing for one; our dispute rate across the platform is 0.04%.
- Who answers when something breaks
- Find out how support reaches a person and what the channel is before you need it. Ours is email to the team plus a Discord community, and it is worth testing during an evaluation rather than during an incident.
Running the comparison properly
- 01
Start from your own transactions
Export a month. Split it by buyer country, by one-off against recurring, and by ticket size. Every published rate means something different against that mix, which is why generic comparisons rank providers in the wrong order.
- 02
Price each provider on that mix
Apply the headline rate, then the surcharges, then the payout and dispute fees. A rate that looks lower on a domestic one-off frequently is not lower on an international renewal.
- 03
Take a real purchase through each one
Buy something in sandbox. Watch the checkout on a phone, upgrade a plan, fail a renewal, cancel. Fifteen minutes of that tells you more than any feature grid, including this one.
- 04
Ask the awkward questions before integrating
Cheap products, going-live reviews, whether your category is allowed, what happens if you move country. Paddle excludes products under $10 from standard pricing and reviews each domain before it can take payments. Gumroad's own docs warn you may have to forfeit a balance to change country.
Where an honest shortlist lands
Creem is cheaper on rate
3.9% + 40¢ flat, with no international or subscription surcharge published. If the lowest flat percentage is your deciding factor, they win it and we would rather you heard that here. They settle twice a month against our daily, and they do not handle game keys, Steam or mobile in-app purchases.
Paddle has the deepest B2B tooling
Fourteen years of filings, sales tax exemption certificates, invoicing built for procurement teams and enterprise contracts. The trade is monthly payouts against a $100 minimum sent by the 15th, $15 per card dispute, products under $10 excluded from standard pricing, and no storefront in the box.
Polar is the one you can read
Open source under Apache-2.0, with the most elegant entitlement model here for developer tools. Note the May 2026 repricing: new organisations start at 5% + 50¢ and lower rates now sit behind a monthly platform fee, with 1.5% on international cards and $15 per dispute on every tier.
Where we come out
5% + 50¢ with nothing stacked on it and negotiable once you are selling at volume, daily payouts with no minimum, no dispute fee, and a store builder and customer portal included rather than assumed. If your revenue is domestic and modest, a plain processor is still cheaper than any Merchant of Record, us included.
What sellers say once they have switched
★★★★★ 4.8/5 from 10 reviews on G2 →
Vadim Finayev “We work with quite a few merchants of record, but none comes close to the support and speed of implementation of Fungies. If you want a payment partner that actually gives you the feeling they want to work with you — rather than leaving you on read for three days or randomly restricting your account — you are in the right place.”
David Elliott “I researched the options and Fungies was the best fit for functionality and customisation within a store builder you can connect to your own domain. Taking a small percentage of sales, instead of charging a subscription for every environment and plugin, is refreshing.”
Elnura Abdimanap Kyzy “The platform is user-friendly, integrates easily with APIs and webhooks, and simplifies managing digital products and subscriptions. We were up and running quickly and support has been responsive throughout. Fungies is clearly tailored to the needs of SaaS businesses.”
Francisco Magnone Rienzi “Fungies has been a great partner — fast setup, competitive pricing, and real humans providing quick answers. They are constantly rolling out new features, and I am excited to see what is next.”
Questions worth asking a provider
What the model is, who it suits, and how it compares.
Price it against your own numbers
Take last month's transactions, run them through each provider's published fees, and let the arithmetic choose. Opening an account with us costs nothing while you do it.