Lemon Squeezy Fee Calculator

Lemon Squeezy Fees at a Glance

Lemon Squeezy charges its fees on the order total.

Fee	Percentage	Flat	Notes
Merchant-of-record fee	5%	$0.50	—

Fees That Apply in Some Cases

Fee	Percentage	Flat	When
International card	1.5%	—	Applies in some cases

What You Keep

The flat component is what makes small sales expensive. The same fee schedule costs a very different effective rate depending on the order size:

Sale	Fees	You receive	Effective rate
$5.00	$0.75	$4.25	15.00%
$20.00	$1.50	$18.50	7.50%
$50.00	$3.00	$47.00	6.00%
$100.00	$5.50	$94.50	5.50%
$500.00	$25.50	$474.50	5.10%

The Fee Includes Tax Compliance

Lemon Squeezy is a merchant of record: it is legally the seller, which means it collects and remits VAT, GST and US sales tax on your behalf. The single rate covers processing and that compliance work together.

Component	Rate
Merchant-of-record fee	5% + 50¢
International cards	+1.5%
Separate processor fee	None

Comparing Against Stripe Directly

Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ is visibly cheaper — until you price the rest of what a merchant of record does.

Cost	Stripe direct	Merchant of record
Processing	2.9% + 30¢	Included
VAT/GST registration	Yours, per jurisdiction	Included
Tax filing and remittance	Yours, ongoing	Included
Invoices with correct tax	Yours to build	Included
Liability for errors	Yours	Theirs

For a solo developer selling software into the EU, the registration and filing burden alone is worth more than two percentage points. For a company that already has a finance function and existing registrations, it is not.

Where the Break-Even Sits

The rate difference is roughly 2–3 points. At $10,000 monthly revenue that is $200–$300 a month — comparable to a few hours of an accountant's time. Below that, the merchant of record is almost always the right call; well above it, bringing tax in-house starts to pay.

Refunds and Chargebacks

Confirm which components are returned on a refund. A merchant of record that keeps its flat fee on refunds costs more than the rate suggests if you sell into a high-refund category.

Charging to Hit a Target Payout

Adding 5.00% to your price under-recovers, because the percentage then applies to the larger amount as well. The correct gross-up divides:

`` charge = (target + flat fees) ÷ (1 − percentage rate) ``

To receive	Charge
$100.00	$105.79
$1,000.00	$1,053.16

Reducing What You Pay

• Raise average order value. The flat fee is fixed, so bundling two $20.00 orders

into one $40.00 order saves the second flat charge outright.

• Watch the optional surcharges. International and currency-conversion fees stack on top

of the base rate and are easy to miss when you price for a domestic market.

• Negotiate at volume. Most processors will discuss custom rates once you are processing

meaningful monthly volume; the published rate is a starting point, not a law.

• Do not migrate for 0.2%. The engineering and support cost of changing platforms

usually exceeds a small rate difference for years.

The fee covers processing and sales-tax remittance, so no separate processor is charged.