Lemon Squeezy is a platform that was founded in 2020 by entrepreneurs JR Farr, Gilbert Pellegrom, and Orman Clark. The company officially launched in 2021 and was acquired by Stripe in July 2024. The company was created to make selling online more accessible.
What is Lemon Squeezy?
Lemon Squeezy is an ecommerce platform for software companies that manages payments, tax, and subscription services. They’re a merchant of record that handles your business’s tax compliance, so that business owners can focus on just that: their business. Sellers can also create online stores and sell digital products on the platform.
How does Lemon Squeezy work?
Since Lemon Squeezy is a Merchant of Record, it manages global tax compliance, including VAT and sales tax, on behalf of the company. Sellers will create products, such as software or online stores. From there, they’ll upload their product to Lemon Squeezy. Lemon Squeezy can manage software license keys, subscriptions, hosting, and payment processing.
From there, sellers will either build a store or design their website by including product descriptions, custom pricing, and more. They’ll be able to accept payments from over 130 countries worldwide via credit cards, PayPal, and country-specific payment gateways.
They’ll have access to built-in tools, such as affiliate management, that help them get affiliates to promote their business. From there, it’s their responsibility to market their own products. Yet, Lemon Squeezy does have a marketplace where you can market your products as well.
What you need to know about selling on Lemon Squeezy
One thing to know about selling on Lemon Squeezy is that, because it’s owned by Stripe, there are many account reviews. During an account review, your funds may be frozen, even though you might not have a clear reason as to why your account was reviewed in the first place.
Lemon Squeezy also has high fees. They charge 0.5% + $2.50 on top of the 5% + $0.50 transaction fee when you want to get paid out. The payout rate increases to 2.5% + 2.50 when you have a bank account outside of the US. Overall, it’s not a great platform for getting paid if you’re an international seller.
Payouts for your sales don’t usually happen immediately. They can sometimes take up to 1 to 5 days to appear in your bank account. However, payouts are made only twice monthly on the 1st and 15th, with the 14th and 28th of the month. Unfortunately, if your payment is below $50, you will not receive your payment until you earn and pass the $50 threshold.
This ecommerce platform offers free email marketing, but only up to 500 subscribers. After 500 subscribers, you’ll need to pay $10 monthly up to 1,000 subscribers. If you end up with 100,000 subscribers, you’ll need to pay $500 per month.
According to a Reddit post, when a customer stops subscribing to a business, their account is cancelled immediately instead of until the end of the pay period. Overall, customers may complain that they got their subscription time cut short.
Is Lemon Squeezy the best platform to sell products?
No, Lemon Squeezy isn’t the best platform to sell products. You can sell software, digital, and physical products on a platform like Payhip for only 5% in transaction fees. You can receive instant payouts the same day you get the sale when you use PayPal or Stripe. You’ll have the freedom to fully customize your website on an easy-to-use website builder with a large support team who will help you with any questions you may have. To start selling products, sign up for free today.