Can I migrate from Paddle to Stripe?

Yes. You set up Stripe as your processor, add a tax tool to replace Paddle merchant-of-record compliance, and a licensing layer to replace Paddle license keys. Existing customers are transitioned gradually.

What do I lose by leaving Paddle?

You lose automatic merchant-of-record tax compliance. You replace it with Stripe Tax or a third-party tool. In exchange you gain lower fees, customer ownership, and no platform lock-in.

Will migrating break my existing customers apps?

It should not, if you keep honouring existing licenses. Issue new licenses through the new system and leave old ones valid, so current customers are unaffected until they renew.

Migrating from Paddle to Stripe

Leaving Paddle is not a single switch you flip — it is a migration, because Paddle is doing several jobs at once. Done carelessly it breaks customers’ apps and your tax compliance. Done deliberately it is straightforward. This post is the deliberate version.

Understand what you are actually replacing

The reason migration feels daunting is that Paddle, as a merchant of record, bundles three jobs behind one integration:

Payments — charging the customer.
Tax compliance — calculating, collecting, and remitting sales tax and VAT worldwide as the legal seller.
Licensing — issuing license keys and a checkout-to-delivery flow.

You are not replacing “Paddle” with “Stripe.” You are replacing three things, and Stripe only covers the first. Name all three before you start, or you will discover the gaps in production.

The replacements:

Payments → Stripe.
Tax → Stripe Tax (≈0.5%, built into Stripe Checkout) or a tool like Quaderno or TaxJar.
Licensing → a dedicated licensing layer on top of Stripe.

Why developers make the move

Briefly, the motivation, so the work is worth it. Paddle’s fee is around 5%; Stripe’s is about 2.9% + $0.30 (US card pricing; rates vary by country, card type, and Stripe products used), and even with a tax tool added the Stripe path usually totals less at meaningful revenue. More importantly, with Stripe you own the customer — email, billing history, subscription status — instead of Paddle owning it. And because Stripe is standard infrastructure, there is no platform to be locked into next time. The full argument is in the Paddle alternative write-up.

Step 1: Stand up Stripe and tax

Create your Stripe account, recreate your products and prices, and build or connect your checkout — Stripe Checkout or Stripe Elements on your own page.

Then deal with tax before you take a single live payment. This is the job Paddle did silently, and it is the one most likely to bite you. Turn on Stripe Tax, or wire up a third-party tool, and confirm it covers the jurisdictions you actually sell into. Migrating payments without migrating tax is the classic mistake.

Step 2: Replace licensing

Paddle’s license keys are tied to Paddle. When you leave, those keys’ issuance and validation path goes with it, so you need a licensing layer connected to Stripe.

The clean setup: connect the licensing layer to your new Stripe account, map your Stripe products to license tiers, and let it issue a signed license automatically whenever a Stripe payment completes. Your app verifies that license — offline, with a bundled public key:

import KeylightSDK

await licensing.checkOnLaunch()

switch licensing.state {
case .licensed:     enablePaidFeatures()
case .trial(let d): showTrialBanner(daysLeft: d)
case .expired:      showRenewalPrompt()
case .invalid:      showActivationSheet()
}

Step 3: Move customers without breaking anything

This is the step that needs the most care. Your existing customers have working Paddle-issued licenses, and the migration must not turn their apps off.

The safe approach is dual-running, not a hard cutover:

Keep honouring existing licenses. Do not invalidate Paddle-era keys. If your new app build can still recognise them, current customers notice nothing.
Issue all new purchases through Stripe. From the cutover date, new sales and new licenses come from the new system.
Transition existing customers at a natural boundary — their next renewal, or a major version upgrade — by issuing them a fresh license from the new system. For one-time-purchase apps with no renewal, you can migrate in a batch by issuing new keys and emailing them, while leaving the old ones valid as a safety net.
Export your customer data from Paddle early, so you have the records to contact people and to reconcile.

The principle: a customer should never experience the migration as a broken app. Old licenses stay valid; new infrastructure handles everything going forward; the two overlap for as long as it takes.

Step 4: Wind Paddle down

Once new sales flow through Stripe and active customers are transitioned or safely dual-covered, you can stop selling through Paddle. Keep the account open until the last Paddle-era subscription has lapsed or migrated, and keep your exported records. There is no rush on the final close — the migration is effectively done once Stripe is the path for everything new.

Migrating from Paddle to Stripe is a few weeks of deliberate work, not a weekend hack — but the payoff is lower fees, an owned customer list, and infrastructure you are not locked into. If you have migrated and hit something we should warn others about, send us your feedback.