Podia vs Polar
Pricing
Podia: From $39/mo, no transaction fees
Polar: Free plan at 5% + 50c per transaction; Pro $20/mo at 3.8% + 40c
Description
Podia: Sell courses, memberships, and digital downloads
Polar: Open-source merchant of record for selling software, subscriptions and usage-based billing, handling sales tax for you
Pros
- No transaction fees
- All-in-one for creators
- Built-in email marketing
- Acts as merchant of record: it collects and remits sales tax and VAT on your sales
- Usage billing, subscriptions and credits can be combined on one product, which suits AI products billed by tokens
- Open source under the Apache 2.0 licence
Cons
- Less customizable than alternatives
- Limited payment options
- Fees are higher than a plain payment processor: 5% + 50c per transaction on the free plan, plus 1.5% for non-US cards
- Disputes cost $15 each whatever the outcome, and transaction fees are not returned when you refund
- Payouts carry Stripe's charges: $2 a month while payouts are active, plus 0.25% + 25c per payout
Details
Podia lets creators sell courses, memberships, and digital products with zero transaction fees. Includes email marketing and community features.
Founded by Spencer Fry, lifelong entrepreneur who never took a paycheck from anyone else. Previously built Carbonmade (bootstrapped). 35-person team after 7+ years.
Polar is a billing platform and merchant of record. It meters usage, runs subscriptions and invoicing, and sells to your customers as the merchant of record, so sales tax is collected and remitted for you and the rest settles to your bank account. A hosted checkout and a single link are enough to start selling.
It is built for developers selling software, and especially for AI products that charge by tokens or agent runs: you send one event per model call, and Polar meters it, prices it and puts it on the invoice.
The free Starter plan charges 5% + 50c per transaction. Paid plans swap part of that for a monthly fee: Pro is $20/month at 3.8% + 40c and, by Polar’s own numbers, pays off above about $1,379 a month in sales. Organisations created before 27 May 2026 keep an Early Member rate of 4% + 40c, plus 0.5% on subscription payments.
Podia verified
Polar verified
