CANDI vs the merchant-of-record platforms

The split

One decision sits underneath all of them. Everything else follows from who the seller is.

	Merchant-of-record platforms	CANDI
Who is the seller	The platform. Their name is on the charge and the invoice.	You. Your name is on the charge.
Whose payment account	Theirs. Your customers pay them.	Yours. You connect your own account.
Where the money lands	With them, then paid out to you on their schedule.	In your account, on your own payout schedule. CANDI never holds it.
Sales tax / VAT	They calculate, collect and remit it.	Yours. CANDI does not calculate, collect, remit or file it.
Who verifies you	They do, as part of onboarding.	Your payment provider does. Not us.
Chargebacks	Theirs to fight, under their terms.	Yours, on your own account.

This is a structural comparison of the two billing models, not a claim about any one vendor. Business models change — check the vendor's own pricing and terms before you decide.

Compare

Side by side. Each page compares the model, and links to the vendor's own live pricing.

CANDI vs Creem

Creem is an MoR at a rate close to ours, with tax remittance included. The comparison is about control, not price.

CANDI vs Paddle

The established MoR for software. Deep compliance, and it owns the customer relationship.

CANDI vs Lemon Squeezy

Popular with indie software sellers. MoR, with surcharges layered on the headline rate.

CANDI vs Polar

Developer-first MoR with paid tiers that cut the rate as you grow.

CANDI vs Gumroad

A creator storefront and marketplace rather than billing infrastructure. Different job, much higher rate.

Before you sign up

What CANDI is not. None of this is softened anywhere else on the site either.

Where CANDI actually is today. Live payments are not switched on yet, so nobody is taking live money through CANDI. Test mode is fully open — its own database, its own keys, the whole API, and Stripe onboarding, so you can connect a Stripe account and build the entire integration today. Stripe hosts the verification; CANDI never sees your identity documents.

Get started

Start in test mode. The whole API, its own database, its own keys.

Start in test mode Read the docs

From 3.9% all in · No monthly fee · Test mode is open today

Questions

Answered plainly. Including the ones where the answer is no.

Is CANDI a merchant of record?

No. You are the seller of record. Your name is on the charge, the customer is yours, and the money lands in your own payment account. CANDI is the billing layer on top — it never holds your funds.

Does CANDI handle sales tax or VAT?

No. CANDI does not calculate, collect, remit or file tax, and orders are recorded with a zero tax line. If automatic cross-border tax compliance is what you need, a merchant of record is the right tool and CANDI is not.

Can I take live payments through CANDI today?

Not yet. Live payments are not switched on. Test mode is open now with the full API, so you can build the integration and connect when it lands.