You're the seller
Your customers buy from your company. The invoice carries your name, VAT ID and logo, and your brand is on the card statement, not a platform's.
For any company selling online by card
Be your own merchant of record.
Ownrecord is the tax, billing and accounting back office for selling digital products and services worldwide in your own name, run by agents you control, for a fraction of what a platform merchant of record charges.
- No fixed fee per sale
- Test mode is free
- Hosted in the EU
It's your margin they take
Stripe Managed Payments, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy and other platform merchants of record charge a share of every sale plus a fixed fee per sale. Measured against revenue it looks small. Measured against what you actually keep, it often isn't. Enter your margin.
Your margin: €9,000 a month
A platform merchant of record takes 44% of it. With Ownrecord, payments and tax cost 24%.
- Left with a platform merchant of record
- €5,000
- Left with Ownrecord Growth + card processing
- €6,851
+€1,851 a month, +€22,212 a year
37% more profit
With the default average sale and card rate of our comparison, and the cheapest Ownrecord plan for the volume; every assumption and its source is on the pricing page. Not included: what you take on as the seller, such as registration fees in some countries and an adviser if you use one.
A platform merchant of record, or your own record
| Platform merchant of record | Ownrecord | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sells to your customer | The platform. Your customer buys from them, and their name is on the checkout, the card statement and the invoice. | You. Your company is on the checkout, the card statement and the invoice. |
| What it costs | A share of every sale plus a fixed fee per sale, card processing included. Our comparison assumes about 5% + €0.50. | Card processing at your own processor, plus a monthly plan and 1% of live volume or less. No fee per sale. |
| Where the money goes | Into the platform's account, paid out to you on its schedule. | Straight into your own Stripe account. Ownrecord never holds it. |
| Customers and payment methods | Held on the platform's processor account. Leaving means a migration project. | In your account and at your processor, from the first sale. |
| Tax registrations and returns | The platform's, which is the service you pay for. | Yours. Ownrecord tracks thresholds and deadlines, computes the tax and prepares every return. |
| Prices, checkout and refunds | Within the platform's rules for products, payment methods and refunds. | Your own: any price model, checkout on your domain, your refund policy. |
What owning the record gives you
A platform merchant of record is a fast way to start. It gets expensive and hard to leave as you grow. Ownrecord does the work behind it while everything stays in your name.
Your customers stay yours
Customer records, subscriptions and saved cards live in your account and at your own processor. There's no export to request and no one between you and your customers.
Scale without moving records
Start free in test mode, go live on Starter, add entities and brands as you grow. You change the plan, never the system: one ledger, one customer list, one history.
Margins that survive low prices
A fixed fee per sale weighs most on low prices. On a €30 sale, a platform merchant of record at about 5% + €0.50 takes €2, or 6.7%. If your margins are thin, that is most of the difference.
Your accounting team, as software
The work a platform merchant of record does for you, and the work a finance team does after it, done by one system you own.
Agents and the assistant do the routine work through the same API you use, under scoped credentials, approval policies and limits. Anything that matters waits for a person to approve, and every action is in the audit log.
Tax desk
VAT, GST and US sales tax for digital products, from location evidence, tax ID checks and reverse charge, with a rule trace for every decision.
Compliance calendar
Thresholds, grace deadlines and registrations per entity and jurisdiction. Checkout follows the state, and nothing is sold where the rules aren't certain.
Billing operations
Trials, seats, metered items and tiers, proration, coupons, dunning, prepaid wallets, entitlements and a customer portal.
Bookkeeping
A real-time double-entry ledger behind every balance, invoice and credit note, with reconciliation against your payouts and bank.
Filing preparation
A filing package per regime and period, built from the ledger, with a task to submit it. You, your adviser or an agent you authorize submits it.
Agents and the assistant
Everything in the console is also an API call and an MCP tool. Ask the assistant how a rule works or what to do next; it changes things only after you confirm.
Live in three steps
From test mode to your first live sale, then every quarter after it.
Connect your Stripe account
Your customers pay into your own processor account. Ownrecord never holds your money. Test mode is a complete copy of the live setup, so you can build and try everything first.
Sell with correct tax
Checkout locates each customer from the evidence, checks business tax IDs, picks the regime and rate, and issues the invoice in your name. Where the rules aren't certain, the sale stops instead of guessing.
File with ready-made packages
Every sale lands in the ledger. At the end of each period you get a filing package per regime, built from the ledger, and a task to submit it.
What you take on
Being your own seller is the point, and it comes with duties
- Registrations. You register for tax where the rules require it. Ownrecord tracks thresholds, prepares registration packets and warns you before deadlines, but the registrations are yours.
- Tax liability. You charge, report and pay the tax on your sales. Ownrecord computes it and prepares the returns; you or your adviser submit them.
- Chargebacks and fraud. Disputes and fraud losses are yours, through your own processor. Ownrecord gives you risk controls and dispute evidence packs.
A platform merchant of record takes these on for you, and charges for it on every sale. If you'd rather not hold registrations at all, a platform merchant of record is the simpler choice.
Pricing
No fixed fee per sale. Test mode is free.
Growth
More entities, brands, members and registered jurisdictions.
€149 a month
€119.17 a month
€1,430 billed yearly, save €358
Also CHF 149 or $149 a month
+ 0.5% of live volume
Scale
Many brands and entities at high volume.
€499 a month
€399.17 a month
€4,790 billed yearly, save €1,198
Also CHF 499 or $499 a month
+ 0.3% of live volume
Enterprise
Groups and high volume, on an annual contract.
From €1,500 a month
Annual contract, invoiced
0.2% of live volume or less
Questions
Is Ownrecord a merchant of record?
No. Ownrecord is software. You sell in your own name, through your own processor account, and your customers see your company on the checkout and the invoice. Ownrecord never collects or holds your money.
How is this different from Stripe Managed Payments, Paddle or Lemon Squeezy?
Those are platform merchants of record: they resell your product, hold the tax registrations and charge a share of every sale for it. With Ownrecord you're the seller, the registrations are yours, and Ownrecord does the tax, billing, ledger and filing preparation for you, for a monthly plan and a small share of volume.
Which payment processors does it work with?
Stripe, connected with your own account. A second processor with failover is in development.
Does Ownrecord file my tax returns?
No. It prepares a filing package per regime from the ledger and creates a task for each return. You, your adviser or an agent you authorize submits it, and the evidence is recorded with the task.
Which countries are covered?
The knowledge base has researched 97 jurisdictions. Only records a person has reviewed are used for live sales and published on our jurisdictions pages, with their sources and review dates.
Is the tax information advice?
No. Ownrecord gives you the rules with their sources and verification dates, as a tool. It isn't tax or legal advice.
Can I try it before paying?
Yes. Test mode is free on every plan, and Starter has no monthly fee: you pay only 1% of live volume once you sell. The Growth and Scale plans come with a free trial of 14 days.
Own your record from the first sale.
Build and test everything for free in test mode. Go live when your entity is verified.