Stripe is the gold standard for online payments. Lemon Squeezy positions itself as a Merchant of Record (MoR), handling VAT, US sales tax, and legal compliance for you. For an indie hacker, the choice is game-changing.
Criterion 1: tax compliance
Stripe bills, but you handle EU VAT, US sales tax (50 states), MOSS compliance. Past 10k€/month cross-border, that's hours of paperwork per month.
Lemon Squeezy is Merchant of Record: they bill your customers, pay the taxes, remit the net to you. You forget international tax forever.
Criterion 2: fees
Stripe: 1.5% + €0.25 (EU) or 2.9% + $0.30 (US). Lemon Squeezy: 5% + $0.50. The gap absorbs the cost of an accountant up to a certain volume.
Criterion 3: flexibility
Stripe wins hands down: complex subscriptions, credit packs, multiple payments, fine-grained webhooks. Lemon Squeezy is more limited — good for simple plans and one-shot products.
Criterion 4: integration
Stripe has the most mature docs and ecosystem for Next.js. Lemon Squeezy has a simpler but less rich API.
Criterion 5: tipping point
Rule of thumb: under $5,000/month cross-border → Lemon Squeezy. Above that, the 5% fee gets expensive and Stripe + an EU/US accountant becomes more profitable.
Verdict
Lemon Squeezy for early months: zero tax headache, fast launch, product focus.
Stripe once MRR exceeds $5k: rich features, low fees, full control.
Many indie hackers start on Lemon Squeezy then migrate to Stripe at $10k MRR.
Want Stripe without the pain? Boilerplate-Stack integrates Stripe fully: subscriptions, credit packs, customer portal, idempotent webhooks. Migrating from Lemon Squeezy later is trivial.
Conclusion
Pick based on your stage: Lemon Squeezy to start friction-free, Stripe to scale with control. Boilerplate-Stack gives you production-ready Stripe integration out of the box.