The direct answer
Paddle publishes the most complete assisted path off Stripe, including subscription imports and payment-method transfer into its PCI vault. Polar offers low paid-plan rates for developer-led products but documents no Stripe subscription import. Dodo Payments has the lowest headline rate, and its importer covers products and customers rather than active subscriptions. Lemon Squeezy is owned by Stripe and steering users toward Stripe Managed Payments. If the real problem is your Stripe account rather than Stripe itself, a Stripe-to-Stripe migration keeps saved payment methods without customer action.
Reviewed August 15, 2026 by the MoveMRR product team.
What a merchant of record actually takes over
A merchant of record becomes the legal seller of your product. It runs the checkout, calculates and remits sales tax and VAT across jurisdictions, carries chargeback and payment-compliance liability, and answers billing disputes in its own name. That is genuinely valuable when global tax filings are the bottleneck, and it is priced accordingly: the 4–7% fee replaces Stripe processing plus your own tax tooling, so compare the total cost of compliance rather than the processing rate alone.
The main destinations, priced as of August 2026
All of the destinations below publish per-transaction pricing, and several changed their rates within the last year, so verify each one directly before deciding.
- Paddle: 5% + $0.50 per checkout transaction; custom pricing for products under $10, invoicing, and enterprise volumes.
- Polar: 5% + $0.50 on the free plan; paid plans from $20 to $400 per month reduce that to 3.8%–3.4% plus $0.30–$0.40, international cards add 1.5%, and organizations created before May 2026 keep the earlier 4% + $0.40 rate.
- Lemon Squeezy: 5% + $0.50 plus documented surcharges for international cards, PayPal, and subscription payments; owned by Stripe since 2024.
- Dodo Payments: 4% + $0.40 on US domestic transactions, +1.5% international and +0.5% subscriptions, with per-refund and per-dispute fees.
- Briefly: FastSpring is quote-based, with reviews commonly citing around 5.9% + $0.95 before volume discounts; Freemius starts at 4.7% of revenue (7% with the WordPress package), decreasing with volume.
What actually moves out of Stripe—and what does not
Customer records and subscription data can be exported and recreated, but saved cards move only through Stripe’s payment-data export, which requires the destination to be a PCI DSS Level 1 processor and always excludes Link credentials. Paddle documents this assisted transfer into its vault, delivered with an old-to-new ID mapping file, and Freemius advertises assisted migrations that keep existing Stripe renewals syncing during the transition. Polar’s self-serve importer covers Lemon Squeezy—not Stripe—and cannot move active subscriptions, and Dodo’s importer covers products, customers, and discounts without documenting subscriptions or saved cards. Where a vendor documents no card import, plan for customer re-consent or checkout re-entry and the churn that comes with it.
Many founders searching this do not need to leave Stripe
If the trigger is an acquisition, a legal-entity change, a country move, or trouble with one specific Stripe account, the platform is not the problem—the account is. A Stripe-to-Stripe migration copies eligible customers and saved payment methods between accounts through Stripe itself and recreates subscriptions with preserved renewal dates, without customers re-entering anything. That keeps Stripe’s processing rates and avoids re-consent risk entirely. Move to a merchant of record when global tax compliance is the pain you are actually paying to remove.
Merchant-of-record destinations for a Stripe migration (reviewed August 2026)
| Destination | Published pricing as of August 2026 | Documented migration path from Stripe |
|---|---|---|
| Paddle | 5% + $0.50 per checkout; custom below $10, for invoicing, and at enterprise volume | Assisted subscription import plus payment-method transfer into Paddle’s PCI vault, with an ID mapping file |
| Polar | 5% + $0.50 free plan; $20–$400/mo plans from 3.8% + $0.40 down to 3.4% + $0.30 | Importer covers Lemon Squeezy only and no active subscriptions; ask Polar about assisted options |
| Lemon Squeezy | 5% + $0.50 plus international, PayPal, and subscription surcharges | Owned by Stripe; users are being pointed toward Stripe Managed Payments—confirm onboarding first |
| Dodo Payments | 4% + $0.40 US domestic; +1.5% international, +0.5% subscriptions | Importer covers products, customers, and discounts; subscriptions and saved cards are undocumented—check with the vendor |
| FastSpring | Quote-based; reviews commonly cite about 5.9% + $0.95 before negotiation | Sales-led onboarding with assisted imports; confirm the exact scope in your contract |
| Freemius | From 4.7% of revenue; 7% with the WordPress package; decreases with volume | Advertises assisted migration that keeps existing Stripe renewals syncing during the transition |
| Stay on Stripe (MoveMRR) | Stripe processing rates unchanged; MoveMRR priced by migrated volume | Stripe copies eligible customers and cards between accounts; subscriptions—and optionally the Stripe webhook endpoints—are recreated on the destination, rehearsed first in a free, unlimited Stripe sandbox |
A controlled workflow
- 1
Name the reason you are leaving
Separate account problems—acquisition, entity change, account risk—from the platform problem of global tax compliance.
- 2
Model fees on your real order sizes
Fixed per-transaction fees dominate on small payments; compute the effective rate on your actual price points.
- 3
Ask each vendor exactly what it imports
Get subscriptions, saved payment methods, renewal dates, and ID mappings confirmed in writing rather than implied.
- 4
Plan the re-consent fallback
Where cards cannot move, budget for churn from checkout re-entry and prepare the customer communication.
- 5
Keep Stripe access during the transition
Stripe data remains readable after you stop processing; do not close the account until every renewal is accounted for.
Frequently asked questions
Which merchant of record is best for migrating off Stripe?
It depends on what must move. Paddle publishes the most complete assisted path, including payment-method transfer. Polar suits developer-led products that can rebuild subscriptions at checkout. Dodo Payments has the lowest headline rate but no documented subscription import. Freemius fits software businesses that want assisted migration with license keys.
Do saved cards transfer from Stripe to a merchant of record?
Only through Stripe’s payment-data export, which requires the receiving processor to be PCI DSS Level 1 compliant and always excludes Link credentials. Paddle documents this assisted route. Where a vendor does not document card import, customers must re-enter payment details or approve a new mandate.
Will my subscribers have to do anything after the switch?
With a vendor-assisted card transfer, most renewals continue without action, though issuers can still request authentication. Without one, every subscriber must re-enter payment details, and some will not. A Stripe-to-Stripe migration avoids customer action for eligible payment methods because Stripe copies them between accounts.
What if I need to leave my Stripe account, not Stripe?
Then a merchant of record solves the wrong problem. For acquisitions, legal-entity changes, and account restructuring, a Stripe-to-Stripe migration keeps saved payment methods and renewal dates while the business moves to a new account. That is the scenario MoveMRR is built for.
Can I rehearse the move before I commit to it?
With a merchant of record, the rehearsal depends on that provider’s sandbox and the import itself is vendor-run, so you are largely evaluating a promise. A Stripe-to-Stripe migration can be rehearsed by you: MoveMRR sandbox projects use Stripe test keys, are free and unlimited, and sandbox seeding recreates your live catalog, discounts, tax rates, and subscription shapes in a Stripe sandbox. You can run the full migration there as often as you want before paying for the live run. Webhook endpoints are the one thing seeding does not copy into the sandbox; create them there by hand if you want to rehearse that step too.
Is Lemon Squeezy still a sensible migration target in 2026?
Stripe acquired Lemon Squeezy in 2024 and is moving users toward Stripe Managed Payments, its own merchant-of-record product. Both currently operate, but confirm onboarding availability and the long-term product path before making it the destination of a migration.
Primary sources
- Paddle pricing (opens in a new tab)
- Paddle: subscription migration process (opens in a new tab)
- Polar: merchant-of-record fees (opens in a new tab)
- Polar: migrate to Polar (opens in a new tab)
- Dodo Payments pricing (opens in a new tab)
- Freemius migration service (opens in a new tab)
- Lemon Squeezy: 2026 update on Stripe Managed Payments (opens in a new tab)
- Stripe: export payment data to another processor (opens in a new tab)