Polar vs RevenueCat
Merchant of Record for devs — usage-based billing, MoR, 4% + 40¢
vs. Mobile subscription infrastructure — iOS + Android + web in one API
Pricing tiers
Polar
Pay-as-you-go
4% + 40¢ per transaction. Cheapest Merchant-of-Record. No monthly or setup fees.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. Volume discounts for high-growth teams.
Custom
RevenueCat
Starter
$0. Free up to $2,500 MTR (monthly tracked revenue). All core features. Email support.
Free
Pro
$0 base + 1% of MTR above $2,500. All features + priority support + SLA.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. Volume discount, dedicated support, custom contract.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing payg on Polar vs starter on RevenueCat.
| Metric | Polar | RevenueCat |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Polar · 15 features
- Customer Portal — Self-serve subscription management.
- Feature Flags — Simple flag mgmt tied to subscription tiers.
- Framework Adapters — Next.js, BetterAuth, TS, Python, Laravel, Ruby, 11+ more.
- Fraud Protection — Chargeback + fraud handling included.
- GitHub Sponsors Import — Import existing sponsors to Polar.
- Global Tax Compliance — VAT/GST/sales tax filed by Polar.
- Hosted Checkout — Polar-hosted + embeddable checkout.
- License Keys — Generate + validate license keys for software.
- Metering — Track API calls, tokens, custom units.
- One-off Purchases — Single purchases + digital downloads.
- Open-Source Backend — Full platform code on GitHub.
- Sandbox Environment — Test transactions without charging.
- Subscriptions — Tiered plans with upgrades/downgrades.
- Usage-Based Billing — Event ingestion → meter → invoice.
- Webhooks — Resource events with HMAC signatures.
RevenueCat · 13 features
- Audiences + Targeting — Target users by cohort, country, event.
- Charts — Cohort retention, LTV, MRR dashboards.
- Customer Center — Native UI for subscription management.
- Data Integrations — Push events to Mixpanel/Amplitude/Segment/etc.
- Entitlements — Server-authoritative feature unlocks independent of SKU.
- Experiments — Built-in A/B testing.
- Offerings + Packages — Remote product groupings + package targeting.
- Paywalls — Remote-configurable native paywall UI templates.
- Purchases — Unified purchase API across stores.
- Receipt Validation — Server-side App Store + Play receipt validation.
- Restore Purchases — Cross-device + reinstall restore.
- Web Billing (Stripe) — Accept subs via web with Stripe, reconcile with mobile.
- Webhooks — Subscription lifecycle events.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Polar | RevenueCat |
|---|---|---|
| SDK | polar-sdk-python, @polar-sh/better-auth, @polar-sh/nextjs, @polar-sh/sdk | RevenueCat Android SDK, RevenueCat Flutter, RevenueCat iOS SDK, RevenueCat React Native, RevenueCat Web Billing |
| REST | Polar REST API | RevenueCat REST API |
| MCP | Polar MCP | — |
| OTHER | Polar Checkout, Polar Webhooks | RevenueCat Dashboard, RevenueCat Webhooks |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Polar and RevenueCat are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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