Macropay
Products
Billing
Usage-based billingSubscriptionsSeats & licensesCredits & walletsTrialsDiscounts
Payments
Payments & checkoutPayouts & coverage
Compliance
Merchant of RecordTax & VATDisputes & fraud
Intelligence
Margin & cost insightsAgents & MCP billingRevenue analytics
Solutions
By AI model
AI Inference & modelsAI agents & copilotsAPIs & usage products
By business
SaaS & subscriptionsDev tools & GitHub appsDigital goodsMarketplaces & platforms
PricingCoveragevs StripeJournalDocsStart free
Side by side · for AI & usage-based products

Macropay vs.
Stripe

Average customer saves$79,000 / yrat $14M ARR · vs Stripe+Tax+FX

Macropay is a flat 4.5% + $0.50 per transaction — all-in, merchant-of-record, tax filed in 142 countries. Compare us against the incumbent of your choice. Numbers come from public pricing pages as of Nov 12, 2026; switch the input below to model your own volume.

Cost calculator · live

Your stack, your
volume, your savings.

Drag the sliders. We compute the all-in cost on Stripe with Tax + FX + dispute handling included, then subtract what the same volume costs on Macropay. No spreadsheet required.

Inputs

$10k → $5M / month · drag for your scale
credit packs & subs sit higher · drives per-txn fee
AI startups are global · drives +1% intl & ~1.5% FX
$15 (Stripe) · $30 (Macropay/Paddle/LS)
Tax: Stripe Tax 0.5% · MoR included for others

Monthly cost · all-in live

Stripe · all-in
Stripe
$27,084
effective 6.45% · plus tax filing risk
VS
Macropay · all-in
Macropay
$19,239
effective 4.58% · tax liability: zero
You save · every month →
$7,845 / mo · $94,140 / yr
Stripe breakdown
Card processing2.9% + $0.30
International cards+1% on 42%
FX conversion~1.5%
Stripe Tax0.5%
Disputes$15 × N
All-in total$27,084
Macropay breakdown
Card processingincluded
International cardsincluded
FX conversionincluded
Tax registration & filingincluded
Disputes$30 × N
All-in total · 4.5% + $0.50$19,239
Feature matrix · 34 rows

What it actually does.

A pricing page is not a product. We benchmarked the four platforms on the features that matter for AI billing — from per-token metering to per-agent margin to chargeback evidence. Public docs, dated Nov 2026.

Feature
StStripe
PaPaddle
LmLemon Squeezy
Macropay
Pricing & effective rate
Headline rate per successful transaction
2.9% + $0.30
5.0% + $0.50
5.0% + $0.50
4.5% + $0.50 · all-in
International cards
+1.0%
included
included
included
FX conversion fee
~1.5%
included
included
included · 1.5% on payout
Tax engine
Stripe Tax · +0.5%
included
included
included · own engine, 92 US juris.
Dispute fee
$15 / case
$30 / case
$30 / case
$30 / case · evidence auto-filed
Liability & compliance
Merchant of record who legally owes the tax
You are
Paddle is
Lemon is
Macropay is · agent-aware
VAT/GST in 142 countries
via Stripe Tax add-on
included & filed
included & filed
included & filed
Chargeback evidence automation
manual upload
team-assisted
team-assisted
auto-submitted · 62% win rate
PCI DSS L1 / SOC 2
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Metering & AI usage
Meter any event · any cardinality tokens, tool calls, seconds, pages
limited · 1 unit per meter
SaaS-shaped
SaaS-shaped
any unit, any rate, any agent
OpenAI-compatible LLM proxy
drop-in base_url
MCP tool billing · per-call markup
native · agent-to-agent
Margin per agent · per customer · live
export to BigQuery
export to CSV
export to CSV
in the dashboard, default view
Pre-paid credits & drawdown
workaround
workaround
workaround
first-class · rollover & expiry
Value Receipts · bill for outcomes not just tokens burned
native · outcome-based pricing
Agent identity & spend caps per-agent budgets, kill-switch
native · per-agent & per-customer
Cost-of-goods ingestion net inference + infra against revenue
live margin per call
Revenue intelligence
Live ARR · MRR · churn computed on the billing ledger
export to BigQuery
basic dashboard
basic dashboard
live · board-ready
AI spend vs AI earnings net margin, per agent & model
default dashboard view
Cohort retention & LTV:CAC
build it yourself
limited
limited
by plan, segment & agent
Subscriptions & checkout
Hybrid plans (base + usage + seats)
requires custom logic
base + seats only
base + seats only
native · with proration
Adaptive trials & smart paywalls
manual rules
fixed duration
fixed duration
+38% lift in customer A/Bs
Hosted checkout · 38 currencies
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Customer portal
paid add-on
included
included
included · agent-aware
Developer experience
SDKs · TS, Py, Go, Rust
TS, Py, Go
TS, Py
TS
TS · Py · Go · Rust
Idempotent metering · exactly-once
at-least-once
exactly-once · idem keys
Edge ingest · sub-50ms in 20 regions
single region
20 regions · offline buffer
One-call migration importer
CSV upload
CSV upload
POST /v1/migrations · SSE
Operations & payout
Payout speed
T+2
Net 30 / 60
Bi-weekly
T+2 · 38 currencies
1099 / KYC for payee marketplaces
Stripe Connect add-on
native · per-payee
Ledger export · Parquet, Snowflake
CSV / API
CSV
CSV
Parquet · Snowflake · BigQuery
Slack / webhook alerts on margin drops
build it yourself
build it yourself
build it yourself
configurable thresholds
Status page SLA · 99.99% uptime
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes · audited monthly
All-in pricing · side by side

The same $1,000 charge.
Four wildly different bills.

Sample: a single $1,000 charge in Germany (intl card, FX from USD, VAT remitted). Stripe's number includes Stripe Tax. Paddle & Lemon include MoR. Macropay's is all-in — the only line you'll ever see.

StStripe
2.9% + $0.30 + intl + FX + Tax
Card processing (2.9% + $0.30)$29.30
Intl cards (+1%)$10.00
FX (~1.5%)$15.00
Stripe Tax (0.5%)$5.00
You still owe VAT (DE 19%)your problem
Effective$59.30
You are the seller. You file the German VAT return. You answer the audit.
PaPaddle
5.0% + $0.50, MoR included
All-in fee (5.0% + $0.50)$50.50
Tax engineincluded
FXincluded
VAT remittedby Paddle
Usage meteringlimited
Effective$50.50
Clean for SaaS subscriptions. No real metering for tokens, tools, or per-agent margin.
LmLemon Squeezy
5.0% + $0.50, MoR included
All-in fee (5.0% + $0.50)$50.50
Tax engineincluded
FXincluded
VAT remittedby Lemon
Agent & MCP primitives
Effective$50.50
Beautiful for indie shops. Hits the ceiling fast for inference billing or agent commerce.
Macropay
4.5% + $0.50, all-in · MoR · for AI
All-in fee (4.5% + $0.50)$45.50
Tax engine (own, +0.5% saved)included
FX in 38 currenciesincluded
VAT remitted & filedby Macropay
Agent metering · margin · MCPnative
Effective$45.50
The whole price list. €0 tax owed by you. Disputes & chargebacks auto-handled at $30/case.
Migration · one API call

Off Stripe, on
Macropay — same afternoon.

Our migration agent reads your Stripe account, paginates everything, replays it idempotently into Macropay, and streams progress over SSE so your terminal (or your own UI) shows live status. Safe to re-run after a partial failure. Most teams cut over in under four hours.

01
~2 minutes

Connect your Stripe key

Paste a restricted, read-only key. We never write back. Pulls customers, products, prices, subscriptions, coupons, tax IDs.

// restricted read-only
POST /v1/migrations/connect
provider = stripe
02
~15 min · streamed

Dry-run & reconcile

We diff everything, flag duplicates, and suggest fixes. You approve. Nothing charges. Nothing breaks.

// SSE stream
event: customer.matched
event: price.diff_resolved
event: ready_to_cutover
03
~30 min

Dual-write window

Run both for an hour. Your dashboard shows charges landing on both — green when they match. You decide when to cut.

mode = dual_write
primary = stripe
shadow = macropay
04
~30 seconds

Flip primary · done

One call. Macropay becomes primary. Stripe stays alive in shadow until you turn it off. No customer ever sees a downtime.

POST /v1/migrations/cutover
✓ 18,400 customers · 142ms
ledger #91823
StripeMacropay
Most teams cut over in 4 hours, with zero downtime.Idempotent · resumable · SSE-streamed · audited. We don't write back to Stripe — your old account stays exactly as you left it.
POST /v1/migrations · provider: stripe
We left Stripe + Avalara + Wise on a Friday, ran the dual-write through the weekend, and flipped primary Monday at 10am. By 10:14 the dashboard showed margin per agent for the first time in 18 months.
JQ
Jesper QvistFounder · Salestools AI · Stripe → Macropay
Paddle was great for our SaaS layer. The moment we shipped agents, we needed something that could meter tool calls, not seats.
CN
Christian NilssonCTO · Grain.sh · Paddle → Macropay
Lemon kept our checkout pretty. It couldn't tell us our worst customer was costing us $312/mo. Macropay did, on day one.
LO
Lina OkaforVP Finance · Nimbus AI · Lemon → Macropay
Common questions

Migration, briefly,
without the sales pitch.

The questions we get on every demo call — the answers, before the call. Anything missing? email us and we'll add it.

Is 4.5% really the whole bill?

Yes. 4.5% of the charge, plus $0.50 per successful transaction, plus $30 per disputed transaction. That's everything: card processing, FX, tax registration, tax filing, MoR liability, the SDK, the dashboard, the ledger, payouts in 38 currencies. No platform fee. No quarterly Avalara invoice. No "Stripe Tax" upsell. No FX surcharge.

What happens to my existing Stripe subscriptions?

They keep running. We import them as Macropay subscriptions with the same cadence, prices, and tax behavior. Customers' cards stay on file via a tokenized handoff — they don't have to re-enter anything. We dual-write for as long as you want, then you flip primary in one call.

Can I run both Stripe and Macropay at the same time?

Yes — that's the recommended migration path. The dual-write window can last hours or weeks. Both platforms see the same events, the dashboard shows you a diff in real time, and you cut over when the green-match rate hits whatever bar you choose (most teams use 99.95%).

How does the tax liability transfer actually work?

From the day you flip primary, Macropay is the seller of record on every invoice. We register, collect, remit and file VAT/GST/sales tax in your customers' jurisdictions. You're not on the hook for the tax we collect — we are. Your historical liability (anything billed before cutover) stays where it was.

What about my existing Stripe Connect marketplace?

We support multi-party flows natively. Payouts to third-party tool providers or contributors are handled the same way — Macropay collects, takes the platform fee, withholds 1099 where required, and pays out the rest. Migration imports your Connect accounts and pending balances.

Is the SDK really OpenAI-compatible?

The proxy is. Swap your base_url to Macropay and every OpenAI / Anthropic / Google call meters, prices, and bills automatically — streaming included, cached tokens counted, tool calls attributed. Your code doesn't change.

What's the payout speed and FX?

T+2 to your bank, in 38 currencies, FX at 1.5% on the conversion. You can keep balances in any of the 38 currencies and pay out manually if you'd rather batch. No minimum balance.

Who is Macropay built for, exactly?

AI-first teams selling inference, agents, copilots, voice, vision, or any usage-based product. If your bill changes per request, per token, per second, or per tool — we built this for you. If you're a pure SaaS shop with a $99/seat plan, Paddle or Lemon Squeezy is probably fine, and we'll tell you that on the demo call.

Off Stripe by Friday

Switch to 4.5% + $0.50.
Keep the difference.

One API call to migrate. Zero downtime. Your old Stripe account stays exactly as you left it — we don't write back to it, ever.

$curl -X POST api.macropay.ai/v1/migrations -d provider=stripe