Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.

The grid says what these tools are. This says what builders did about it — one decision per person, changeable whenever you change your mind.

# Tool comparison — Polar vs Autumn vs Creem

Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects.
Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code.

## Polar (polar)
- URL: https://polar.sh
- Category: Payments & billing
- Cost: paid — Starter 5% + $0.50 · Pro $20/mo at 3.8% + $0.40 · Scale $400/mo at 3.4% + $0.30
- What it is: Open-source merchant of record built for developers, with usage-based billing, licence keys, digital file delivery and customer portals. New organizations pay 5% + $0.50 on the free Starter tier, and paid monthly plans buy the rate down. Polar acts as seller of record and handles VAT and GST.
- Why builders pick it: The best developer experience among the merchant-of-record options — real SDKs, a sandbox environment, and first-party adapters for Better Auth and Next.js let you wire up entitlements same-day.
- Trap: Rates rose in May 2026: organizations created before 27 May keep 4% + $0.40, while everyone new starts at 5% + $0.50. Moving to a paid plan to buy a lower rate permanently forfeits any grandfathered pricing.
- Wiring: npm i @polar-sh/sdk
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/polar

## Autumn (autumn)
- URL: https://useautumn.com
- Category: Payments & billing
- Cost: mixed — Free to ~$8k/mo processed · $375/mo to $50k · self-host free (Apache-2.0)
- What it is: Open-source billing layer that sits between your app and Stripe. It moves pricing from code into config and handles subscription state, usage metering, credits, entitlements and upgrade or downgrade proration, returning Stripe Checkout URLs. Stripe remains the processor, so Autumn is not a merchant of record.
- Why builders pick it: Kills the worst part of a Stripe integration — webhook handling and feature gating — behind calls like check and track, so usage-based AI pricing takes an afternoon instead of a sprint.
- Trap: Not an MoR: Stripe fees and your own global tax obligations still apply on top. The hosted free tier stops around $8k processed per month and the next step is a steep $375/mo, though Apache-2.0 self-hosting is an escape hatch.
- Wiring: npm i autumn-js
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/autumn

## Creem (creem)
- URL: https://www.creem.io
- Category: Payments & billing
- Cost: paid — 3.9% + $0.40 per transaction, MoR · optional Pro plan $99/mo
- What it is: Merchant of record for indie SaaS and digital products at 3.9% + $0.40 per transaction, the cheapest headline MoR rate in this list. Handles VAT, GST and sales tax across 190+ countries, plus subscriptions, chargeback protection and revenue splits, with payouts on the 1st and 15th.
- Why builders pick it: Roughly a full percentage point cheaper than Paddle or Lemon Squeezy on every sale while still taking tax compliance off your plate — a gap that compounds as revenue grows.
- Trap: Younger and smaller than Paddle or Stripe, so platform risk is real: merchant payouts are documented for only about 86 countries, and routing all of your revenue through a startup processor is itself a bet.
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/creem

## Rules
1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is.
2. Read the full dossier before integrating.
3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.

Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=polar,autumn,creem