Paddle is a merchant of record: it sells your software to the buyer, collects the tax and pays you what is left. Teams look elsewhere when the percentage fee starts to weigh against revenue, when they want to own the customer and card relationship, or when they need direct debit and invoicing that a checkout product does not centre on. Options split into other merchants of record, self-run billing tools and direct-debit specialists.
Short answer: Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. For Paddle users, the top three picks from our billing ranking are Twikey, Kill Bill and ChargeOver. Pick Twikey if you bill European customers who pay by direct debit and you remain the seller. The 10 entries that follow are all ranked in Best Billing Software in 2026; each one explains what sets it apart from Paddle.
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Pricing: 5% plus 50 cents per transaction, published
Established in: United Kingdom
Built for: Small software sellers who cannot staff international tax compliance
Not for: Companies with a finance team and their own VAT registrations
01
Why buyers look past Paddle
01
A percentage on every sale
Paddle's pricing page lists pay-as-you-go at 5% plus 50 cents per Checkout transaction, with no monthly fee. That is easy to start with. As revenue rises the same 5% becomes a larger absolute sum, and the flat 50 cents weighs most on small orders. For products under $10 Paddle points to bespoke pricing on request.
02
Someone else is the seller
As merchant of record Paddle collects the applicable tax rate and files sales tax returns for you. The other side is that the sale runs under Paddle's name. Companies that want the contract, the card agreement and the invoice issued in their own entity, for procurement or accounting reasons, compare tools where they remain the seller.
03
Scope is a checkout, not a finance system
Paddle's own materials describe checkout, subscriptions, payments, invoicing and tax in one product for software and apps. Teams with contract-specific pricing, revenue schedules or European direct-debit mandates tend to add or switch to a dedicated billing engine, and several are listed below.
a regulator or customer demands a European vendor and on-premise deployment
#12
03
What each one does differently
1
Twikey
Belgium · Published
Twikey, a Belgian company, collects recurring money by SEPA direct debit and keeps the mandate signature, amendment and revocation inside the product. Our category record lists plans from EUR 78 a month with volume packs extra, and subscriptions and card payments from its Professional plan. It collects and reconciles but is no pricing engine, and it does not act as seller.
Switch from Paddle if you bill European customers who pay by direct debit and you remain the seller.
Kill Bill is Apache 2.0 software that you run on your own infrastructure, with plugins connecting the payment gateway you choose. Paid Aviate tiers, support plans and a hosted option are quoted. Staff must operate upgrades and reconciliation, and tax filing stays with you, since nothing in it takes the merchant role.
Switch from Paddle if you want billing rules on servers you control and can staff the work.
ChargeOver, from Minneapolis, charges flat monthly fees starting at $229, stated on its pricing page as not a share of invoiced revenue. Plans include unlimited invoices, a self-service portal, dunning reminders, metered and quantity billing, and QuickBooks, Xero, HubSpot and Salesforce links. Payments run over cards, PayPal and ACH.
Switch from Paddle if a fixed fee suits you better than a cut of revenue and your buyers are mostly American businesses.
Zoho Billing is published per organisation per month, from $50 ($39 billed annually), with subscription billing from $100 ($79). The draw is connection to Zoho Books and the rest of that suite. Usage rating and tax handling cover common cases only, and heavier customisation needs Premium functions or the REST API.
Switch from Paddle if you already keep your books in Zoho and want a low published price.
Ordway targets finance teams in mid-sized companies: contracts, amendments and the revenue schedules an auditor requests, configured without engineers. Connectors exist for NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Online and Xero. Pricing is by quote and an implementation with a named owner is expected.
Switch from Paddle if finance, not engineering, should own billing and revenue schedules.
Lemon Squeezy is another merchant of record with the same 5% plus 50 cents listed in our category record. Its own pricing page now carries a notice about Stripe Managed Payments, and our record says users were promised an easy migration there in January 2026. Entitlements and enterprise invoicing are thin.
Switch from Paddle if you sell small digital products and keep customer exports current.
FastSpring has sold software as merchant of record for longer than Paddle and supports local payment methods many processors skip, with a long history in desktop licensing. Rates are negotiated, not published, and the storefront styling is dated. Customer relationships sit with FastSpring.
Switch from Paddle if you sell downloadable software and need local payment methods abroad.
Stripe Billing charges 0.7% of billing volume pay-as-you-go, or volume-capped monthly plans from EUR 500 on a one-year contract, per our record. Stripe's product list also names a Managed Payments merchant-of-record offer and a separate Tax product, so tax filing is a choice you configure. Subscription logic is hard to carry elsewhere.
Switch from Paddle if you want charges, invoices and retries in one developer-first system.
BillingPlatform is configured, not coded, for tiered, metered and contract-specific pricing that changes per customer. It is sold and implemented as an enterprise project with a partner, priced by quote. Well-documented configuration matters, because an undocumented one is as hard to leave as bespoke software.
Switch from Paddle if your pricing is unusual enough that a standard catalogue cannot express it.
Comarch BSS comes from Poland and is a suite for telecoms and utilities that can still be deployed on your own infrastructure if a regulator requires it. Comarch engineers join the project and the billing module arrives with neighbours. It is oversized for a small software seller.
Switch from Paddle if a regulator or customer demands a European vendor and on-premise deployment.
You want a fixed monthly fee instead of a share of revenue
ChargeOver: Plans start at $229 a month and are stated as not based on a percentage of invoiced revenue.
02
You bill European customers by direct debit
Twikey: It centres on SEPA mandates, and our record lists plans from EUR 78 a month.
03
You want the billing software on your own servers
Kill Bill: It is Apache 2.0 licensed, with hosted and support options quoted, and tax stays with you.
04
You still want a merchant of record, but with a different vendor
FastSpring: It sells software as merchant of record and supports local payment methods; rates are negotiated.
05
You keep your books in Zoho
Zoho Billing: Published from $50 a month ($39 billed annually), connected to Zoho Books.
04
When Paddle is still the right choice
Paddle remains a sound choice for a small software or app company that does not want to register for VAT and sales tax in every market. Its pricing page includes tax filing, fraud protection, chargebacks and buyer support in the one percentage, and says there are no lock-in periods and that your data can be migrated. If the real worry is the fee, ask for the custom pricing it offers on volume before rebuilding anything.
05
What moving off Paddle involves
01
Subscriptions and the card on file
Active subscriptions are the hard part. Ask Paddle what customer and subscription data can be exported, and check with the new provider whether stored payment details can be carried over. If not, plan a window in which customers re-enter details, and keep the old plan running until renewals have moved.
02
You become responsible for tax
Leaving a merchant of record means you, or a new merchant of record, become the party that registers, charges and files. Price a tax tool or an accountant into the comparison before judging a lower headline fee, and check which countries you actually sell to.
06
Questions about replacing Paddle
6 answers
What does Paddle charge?
The pricing page lists 5% plus 50 cents per Checkout transaction on pay-as-you-go, with no monthly, migration or hidden fees.
Custom pricing exists for high volume, and for products under $10 you can ask for bespoke terms. Payouts and minimums are not on the page we read.
Is there a cheaper way to take recurring payments?
ChargeOver lists flat plans from $229 a month and Zoho Billing from $50 ($39 billed annually). Both leave tax compliance to you. Whether that is cheaper depends on your revenue and on what filing costs you.
Which alternatives are merchants of record?
Lemon Squeezy and FastSpring are the two in this list that sell on your behalf in the same way. Stripe's product menu also names Managed Payments as a merchant-of-record solution, separate from Stripe Billing itself.
Can I run billing on my own servers?
Kill Bill is open source under Apache 2.0 and can be self-hosted, with hosted and support options quoted. You operate it, connect a payment gateway and handle tax yourself.
Is there a European option for direct debit?
Twikey is Belgian and built around SEPA mandates. Our record lists plans from EUR 78 a month; we could not open its pricing page this session, so check the current figure.
How many countries can Paddle sell to?
Paddle's documentation says over 200 countries and territories, and its list shows 229 entries. The page describes buyer-side blocks for sanctions and anti-money-laundering reasons but says nothing on payouts.
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Sources
Checked 4 November 2026
Paddle pricing: 5% plus 50 cents per transaction, no monthly fees, custom pricing, under $10 bespoke, merchant of record, tax filing, no lock-in.
Paddle home page: Merchant of Record for SaaS and apps; checkout, subscriptions, invoicing, tax and compliance products.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Author and fact-checker: Sebastiaan Smits. This page was last reviewed on 4 November 2026; our review process is public.
