July 26, 2024. Stripe announced the acquisition of Lemon Squeezy. Both companies posted blog updates the same day.
April 2025. Stripe quietly launched a new product: Stripe Managed Payments, their first proper merchant of record offering, built using lessons from the Lemon Squeezy team.
Most recent update from Lemon Squeezy. They published their annual update confirming the product continues to operate, while acknowledging Stripe Managed Payments is now a thing too.
Today. You’re a SaaS founder, plugin developer, or course creator wondering: should I trust my revenue to Lemon Squeezy right now, or am I about to get migrated against my will?
This piece walks through the actual current evidence. What’s running. What changed. What hasn’t. What you should do if you’re already on LS, considering it, or thinking about leaving.
The current operational status
Lemon Squeezy as a product is fully operational right now. Not maintenance mode. Not deprecation warnings. Actively working.
| Signal | Current status |
|---|---|
| Checkouts processing successfully | Yes |
| Webhooks firing reliably | Yes |
| Customer dashboard accessible | Yes |
| API endpoints responding | Yes |
| Email support active | Yes |
| Documentation being updated | Yes |
| Most recent product blog post | Within the last few months |
| Pricing changed since acquisition | No |
| Feature deprecations announced | None |
If you have a Lemon Squeezy account, log in. Everything works the same way it did in 2023.
What Stripe acquired and what they’re doing with it
Stripe paid an undisclosed amount in July 2024 to buy Lemon Squeezy. The 13-person LS team mostly stayed.
What Stripe wanted from the deal:
- LS’s experience building a merchant of record platform (something Stripe didn’t have at the time)
- LS’s indie SaaS user base (loyal, vocal, perfectly fitting Stripe’s expansion plans)
- The brand recognition LS had built among solo founders
In April 2025, Stripe used that experience to launch their own MOR product, Stripe Managed Payments. It’s a Stripe-branded service. It uses Stripe’s payment infrastructure. It handles tax compliance, fraud, and disputes the way LS does.
This is where it gets interesting: Stripe now has two merchant of record products in their portfolio. Lemon Squeezy and Stripe Managed Payments. They don’t compete head to head exactly. Each has things the other doesn’t.
Lemon Squeezy vs Stripe Managed Payments today
The comparison is uncomfortable for Lemon Squeezy fans, so let’s be direct about it:
Where Lemon Squeezy still wins:
- Cheaper pricing: 5% + 50¢ base vs SMP’s 6.4% domestic
- Global availability: tax handling in 80+ countries vs SMP’s 35
- Built-in affiliate program (SMP doesn’t have one)
- Built-in digital download delivery (SMP doesn’t)
- Built-in storefront builder (SMP doesn’t)
- License key generation that’s been battle-tested for years
- A mature WordPress integration ecosystem (including the Lemon Squeezy for WooCommerce plugin we built)
Where Stripe Managed Payments wins:
- Runs on Stripe’s payment infrastructure (more proven at huge scale)
- Stripe customer support resources behind it
- Direct integration with Stripe’s other products (Connect, Treasury, etc.)
- Slightly faster payout cycles in some markets
For most independent sellers, especially anyone using WordPress, the Lemon Squeezy column is the more practical pick today.
Reading between the lines: what Stripe’s intentions look like
This is the speculation section. Mark it as opinion. Here’s what I read into the public moves Stripe has made:
They’re not killing Lemon Squeezy abruptly. If they were, they’d have stopped public communication, frozen the roadmap, and started forcing migrations. They’ve done none of that.
They’re not investing heavily in Lemon Squeezy either. Major new features have slowed since the acquisition. Recent LS updates have been short. Most of Stripe’s R&D for MOR seems to flow into SMP, not LS.
They’ve built a soft on-ramp from LS to SMP. Stripe documentation references migration paths, and recent LS communications mention SMP as an option for existing users.
The realistic interpretation: Lemon Squeezy is in friendly maintenance mode under Stripe. Existing users are welcome to stay. New growth is being pushed toward SMP. Over the next year or two, more SMP features will roll out, and at some point Stripe will probably encourage a real migration push.
This is not the same as “shutting down.” Plenty of products live in maintenance mode for years.
What this means if you’re using Lemon Squeezy today
You can keep using it. No emergency. Your subscriptions, license keys, and tax handling continue normally.
Three practical things to do:
- Keep using LS as long as it serves you. Don’t migrate proactively unless you have a specific reason.
- Watch for the LS-to-SMP migration tool when Stripe releases it. When it’s ready, evaluate then.
- Have a backup plan in mind. Paddle, FastSpring, or even SMP itself would be reasonable fallback options if LS does eventually wind down. Switching merchant of record services isn’t fun, but it’s done routinely in this industry.
What this means if you’re considering Lemon Squeezy now
Starting fresh today? You have a few options.
Use Lemon Squeezy. Recommended for most WordPress sellers, especially if you want the Lemon Squeezy for WooCommerce plugin integration. Cheaper fees, more countries, more features. Subscriptions, license keys, and the full digital seller stack all included. Worst case in 2-3 years you migrate, with full warning, to whatever Stripe offers then. For a full setup walkthrough see our Lemon Squeezy WordPress plugin setup guide. For the digital seller stack overview see how to sell digital products on WordPress.
Use Stripe Managed Payments. Reasonable if you’re already a Stripe power user, are in one of the 35 supported countries, and don’t need affiliate/downloads/storefront. More expensive but more “future-proof” if you think Stripe will eventually consolidate everything into SMP.
Use Paddle or FastSpring. Two other major MOR services that exist outside the Stripe orbit. Worth considering if you specifically don’t want Stripe-owned anything in your stack. We compared them in our merchant of record guide.
For most WordPress-based digital sellers, Lemon Squeezy is still the practical pick.
What this means if you’re thinking about leaving Lemon Squeezy
If the uncertainty bothers you enough that you’d rather switch now than wait, that’s a fair choice. Here are the realistic options ranked by ease of migration:
- Stripe Managed Payments. Probably the smoothest migration path because Stripe builds the bridges. Wait for their official migration tool though.
- Paddle. Established MOR. Different API, different pricing, but a known quantity in this space.
- FastSpring. More enterprise-focused, slightly higher fees, but stable.
Migrating means:
- Asking existing customers to re-subscribe on the new platform (card data doesn’t transfer)
- Re-linking your products to the new platform
- Updating your checkout integration
- Re-doing your tax compliance setup with the new provider
For a small business, it’s a long weekend of work plus a few weeks of customer support handling the re-subscription requests. Not pleasant but doable.
A note about this article’s bias
Quick disclosure. DevTonic Studios sells the Lemon Squeezy for WooCommerce plugin. If Lemon Squeezy gets shut down tomorrow, our plugin’s market shrinks fast. So our incentive is to tell you LS is fine. We’ve tried to write this honestly anyway, because the actual status (still working, future uncertain) is more useful to you than a sales pitch.
If we ever need to update our plugin to support Stripe Managed Payments directly, we will. But that’s not the situation today.
What to actually do this week
If you’re a current LS user: nothing urgent. Keep working.
If you’re evaluating MOR services: read our LS vs Stripe comparison, pick the platform that fits, and start there.
If you’re a WordPress seller specifically: the path of least resistance is still Lemon Squeezy + the DevTonic plugin. Setup walkthrough in the Lemon Squeezy WordPress plugin setup guide. Deeper technical reference in the full plugin documentation. Buy the plugin directly from the product page.
If something changes (Stripe announces a sunset date, SMP becomes available everywhere, fees change), we’ll update this article. Bookmark it if you want to come back and check.
Related resources on devtonicstudios.com
Plugin pages:
- Lemon Squeezy for WooCommerce plugin page, overview, features, pricing
- Full plugin documentation, technical reference, hooks, filters, troubleshooting
Related blog guides:
- Lemon Squeezy WordPress plugin setup guide, full step-by-step setup
- Merchant of Record for WordPress, what MOR is and why it matters
- Software License Management for WordPress, sell software with auto-generated license keys
- How to Sell Digital Products on WordPress, the complete digital seller stack
- Lemon Squeezy vs Stripe on WordPress, honest comparison of both platforms
Sources used in this status report:
