Feature Guide
How to build
Subscription Billing & Payments
Recurring payments, plan management, usage-based billing, invoicing, and payment method handling.
intermediate
2–5 weeks (manual)
3–7 days (with AI)
Best tools to use
[01]
Stripe
Industry standard. Subscriptions, invoicing, and payment links. Best docs.
[02]
Lemon Squeezy
Merchant of record — handles taxes and compliance for you.
[03]
Polar
Developer-focused monetization with built-in MoR.
[04]
Paddle
MoR for SaaS. Handles global tax compliance automatically.
[05]
Stripe + Billing portal
Self-serve plan changes, cancellations, and invoice history.
Key considerations
- ✓Decide between Stripe (you handle taxes) vs MoR (they handle taxes) early
- ✓Implement webhook handlers for payment events — don't rely on client-side confirmation
- ✓Support annual billing with a discount — improves cash flow and reduces churn
- ✓Build a self-serve billing portal for plan changes and cancellations
- ✓Handle failed payments with dunning emails (retry reminders)
Common mistakes
- ✗Not handling webhook idempotency (duplicate events)
- ✗Granting access before payment confirmation
- ✗No grace period for failed payments
- ✗Hardcoding prices instead of syncing from payment provider
- ✗Forgetting to handle proration on plan changes
Products that nailed this
Stripe
Lemon Squeezy
Paddle
Chargebee
Related features
Skip the research.
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