From 3.9% all in · No monthly fee · Test mode is open today
| 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.
Polar is a merchant of record with a developer-first surface and tiered plans that reduce the per-transaction rate as volume grows. If you want MoR compliance without an enterprise sales process, it is a serious option, and at higher tiers its rate can land below our floor. Check their current pricing — tiering means the honest answer to "which is cheaper" depends entirely on your volume.
Polar is still the merchant of record. It is the seller, the money passes through it, and it handles and owns the tax. CANDI is not, does not, and never holds your funds. Your customers pay your account directly.
If cross-border sales tax is the problem you are actually trying to solve, a merchant of record solves it and CANDI does not. That is a real reason to choose Polar, and we would rather say so here than have you find out after you migrate. Check their current pricing and terms directly — we deliberately do not restate them, because a number we copied today is a number that is wrong later.
MoR at a rate close to ours, tax remittance included.
The established MoR for software, deep compliance.
Popular with indie sellers; surcharges on the headline rate.
Creator storefront and marketplace, MoR, at a much higher rate.
The underlying decision, without a vendor attached.
From 3.9% all in · No monthly fee · Test mode is open today
It depends on your volume, and at Polar's higher paid tiers it may not be. We are not going to claim a price win we cannot back. Compare on the model first.
No. You stay the seller of record and the money lands in your own account.
No. CANDI does not calculate, collect, remit or file tax.