Why I chose Polar.sh over Stripe🐻‍❄️

Hey everyone!

When it comes to payments, almost everyone defaults to Stripe. I didn't.

Don't get me wrong—I’m not saying Stripe is bad or too expensive. It’s a great product. But I decided to go with Polar.sh instead, and it came down to one absolute dealbreaker for me: Merchant of Record (MoR).

Here is why that won me over definitively:

• Total Tax Peace of Mind: As an MoR, Polar acts as a reseller. This means they issue the invoices to the customers and handle all the VAT, sales tax, and other annoying bureaucratic nightmares.

• Convenience Over Everything: I know Stripe has "Stripe Tax," but MoR is a step further. It takes the liability completely off my plate. Every indie hacker knows that when you finally start generating revenue, the absolute last thing you want is a stressful audit or a meeting with the tax office. I just want to write code and build my product.

• Discount Codes on the Free Plan: This is the second biggest reason. Polar includes discount codes right out of the box on their free tier, which is incredibly helpful when you are just starting out and trying to get those first early-bird users.

Has anyone else made the switch to an MoR like Polar or LemonSqueezy? Curious to hear your thoughts on this vs. standard Stripe!