Standard — 5% + $0.50 per transaction Per transaction, no monthly fee
Custom — Custom pricing Negotiated
Pros & Cons
Kill Bill
Pros
Completely free and open source under Apache 2.0
No vendor lock-in and full ownership of billing data
Highly customizable via plugin architecture for gateways, tax, and notifications
Proven at scale in production since 2010
Optional Aviate enterprise layer for teams wanting managed support
Cons
Requires engineering effort to deploy, configure, and maintain self-hosted
No published pricing for the Aviate enterprise tier
Steeper learning curve than hosted SaaS billing competitors like Chargebee or Recurly
Smaller ecosystem and community than some commercial alternatives
Payment gateway and tax integrations depend on plugin maturity
Lemon Squeezy
Pros
No monthly fee, only pay a percentage on actual sales
Removes the burden of registering for sales tax and VAT in multiple countries
Fast setup, popular with solo developers and small SaaS teams
Now backed by Stripe's payments infrastructure post-acquisition
Built-in licensing and affiliate tools reduce the need for extra integrations
Cons
The flat $0.50 per-transaction fee hurts margins on low-priced products
Less checkout customization than building directly on Stripe
Long-term roadmap is uncertain as Stripe develops its own Stripe Managed Payments product
Extra surcharges stack for PayPal, international sales, subscriptions and affiliates
Payout schedules and reserve holds can feel restrictive for new sellers
Use Cases
Kill Bill
Custom recurring billing infrastructure — Engineering teams build tailored subscription billing logic without vendor lock-in.
Usage-based and metered billing — Companies with consumption-based pricing models implement custom metered billing workflows.
Multi-tenant white-label billing — Platforms and marketplaces run billing for many tenants or resellers from a single installation.
Lemon Squeezy
Selling a subscription SaaS product globally — A small SaaS team uses Lemon Squeezy to bill customers in multiple countries without registering for VAT and sales tax in each region themselves.
Selling one-time digital downloads — A creator selling templates, ebooks or plugins uses Lemon Squeezy's hosted checkout and licensing to deliver and protect digital products.
Running an affiliate-driven launch — A software company uses Lemon Squeezy's built-in affiliate manager to recruit promoters and track referred sales at launch without extra tooling.