Polar
A billing platform for the intelligence era
About Polar
Polar is an open-source, merchant-of-record billing platform built for software and AI products. It handles payments, subscriptions, usage-based billing, and global tax compliance through a developer-first API, letting companies monetize their software without managing VAT, GST, or sales tax themselves.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Merchant-of-record model offloads all international sales tax and VAT/GST compliance
- Transparent, publicly posted pricing with no sales-gated volume discounts or hidden negotiations
- Purpose-built usage and token metering for AI products and agent workloads
- Developer-first with clean SDKs, webhooks, and framework adapters
- Open source and built in the open
- Automated digital benefit delivery (license keys, GitHub access, Discord roles)
Cons
- Per-transaction fees are higher than raw payment processors since merchant-of-record service is bundled in
- Additional 1.5% fee on non-US international cards (a Stripe pass-through)
- $15 per dispute charged regardless of outcome
- New organizations created after May 27, 2026 no longer get the cheaper legacy Early Member rate
- Geared toward digital goods and software, not physical products
Key Features
Merchant of Record
Polar acts as the reseller of your digital goods, taking on liability for international sales tax (VAT, GST, US sales tax) so you don't have to register or file globally.
Usage-Based Billing
Meter token-based APIs, autonomous agents, and GPU workloads with real-time event ingestion; Polar counts prompt and completion tokens and bills consumption on the next invoice.
Subscriptions & Products
Recurring billing with automatic renewals and dunning, plus fixed-price, pay-what-you-want, or free products with optional minimums.
Automated Benefits Delivery
Instantly grant license keys, file downloads, GitHub repo access, Discord roles, and other entitlements when a customer purchases.
Global Tax Compliance
International VAT, GST, and sales tax are calculated, collected, and remitted by Polar as the merchant of record.
Developer-First API & SDKs
Integrate billing with Python and JavaScript SDKs, webhooks, and framework adapters for stacks like Next.js.
Events to Analytics to Billing
Real-time event ingestion powers unit economics and analytics in the same platform that handles billing.
Open Source
Polar is open source and built in the open with its community.
Pricing
- 5% + 50¢ per transaction
- Merchant of record & tax compliance
- Subscriptions, products & usage billing
- Standard support
- +1.5% for international (non-US) cards
- 3.8% + 40¢ per transaction
- Everything in Starter
- Prioritized support
- Breakeven around $1,379/mo in sales
- 3.6% + 35¢ per transaction
- Everything in Pro
- Prioritized support
- Breakeven around $5,634/mo in sales
- 3.4% + 30¢ per transaction
- Everything in Growth
- Slack + prioritized support
- Breakeven around $19,048/mo in sales
Best For
Monetizing AI products
Charge for token-metered APIs, autonomous agents, and GPU workloads with usage-based billing that matches how AI products consume resources.
SaaS subscriptions
Run recurring subscription billing with automatic renewals and dunning while Polar handles global tax as merchant of record.
Selling digital products
Sell one-time digital goods such as licenses, downloads, and templates with automated entitlement delivery.
Indie developers going global
Sell worldwide without registering for VAT/GST in each jurisdiction, since Polar is the merchant for each sale.
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