Your SaaS isn't a side hustle
Whop is a marketplace built for selling access — communities, courses, trading signals. Creem is payment infrastructure for people who ship software. Taxes filed, billing handled, agents welcome.
A marketplace with a checkout
Whop's homepage says it best: “bet on yourself.” It's a storefront network where paid communities and course creators find buyers. Payments are the feature, not the product. For that world, it works.
The billing layer under your product
Creem is a Merchant of Record: the legal seller of your software, on the hook for VAT, GST, and sales tax worldwide. Subscriptions, seats, usage credits, license keys, webhooks. Infrastructure, deliberately boring, so your product doesn't have to be.
2.7% is the sticker, not the price
A $49/month subscription, international customer, taxes actually handled. Here's what each platform's own fee schedule says you pay.
*Whop figures from docs.whop.com/fees, June 2026. Whop's fee schedule lists Tax & Remittance at 0.5% per transaction; its Seller Terms §6A state 2% for the same tax modes and defer to the pricing documentation, so we used the lower number. Selling domestic-only, one-time, and filing your own taxes? Whop's 2.7% is genuinely cheaper. That math changes the moment you go global or recurring.
Who deals with the taxman?
Don't take our word for it. This is what Whop's own Seller Terms say.
Whop is “merchant of record for the purpose of card network rules and payment settlement only”.
Sellers retain responsibility for “assessing, collecting, reporting and remitting taxes due”.
Tax handling is an opt-in paid mode, and for direct sales, US sales tax registration and filing stay your responsibility.
We are the seller of record. VAT, GST, and sales tax — calculated, collected, filed, remitted.
- Worldwide tax compliance in the 3.9%, not an add-on
- Local payment methods and 42 checkout languages
- Chargebacks and compliance docs handled for you
Ten rows, two honest losses
We marked the rows Whop wins. The other eight are why software companies pick Creem.
CreemFair's fair — Whop's sticker price and its marketplace are real. Everything else on this list ships with the 3.9%.
Built for software & AI businesses
Billing primitives Whop's docs don't have. Selling access never needed them — your product does.
Credits ledger for AI billing
A first-party prepaid credits API: credit, debit, and reverse token balances with idempotency keys, freeze accounts, audit every movement. Built for LLM token billing and API metering.
Moderation API
Screen prompts before image or video generation: allow, deny, or flag. Ship an AI product without eating the policy violations and chargebacks.
AI wrapper compliance, documented
An explicit, published path to run an AI wrapper business under a Merchant of Record: branding, transparency, and moderation requirements you can actually read.
Agent-native by design
Point your coding agent at creem.io/SKILL.md and it integrates payments in one prompt. Persistent agents can monitor your store and flag failed payments before you wake up.
Seats, proration, pause
Per-seat pricing with unit multipliers, configurable proration on plan changes, pause and resume endpoints. Whop's docs stop at free, one-time, and recurring.
A toolchain that goes deeper
Whop has SDKs too. It doesn't have a Better Auth plugin with trial-abuse prevention, a Next.js drop-in checkout, or a CLI that runs your whole store from the terminal.
Honestly? Sometimes pick Whop.
- You sell access to a community, a course, or your trading calls. That's Whop's home turf.
- You want marketplace traffic: Discover attribution costs 0% since May 2025.
- You need instant payouts to Venmo or Cash App (4–5% + $1 per payout).
Building software or AI products with customers in more than one country? That's us. We'd rather you pick the right tool than regret picking ours.
Plus everything else you need
Tools built for digital product creators and SaaS builders.
Revenue Splits
Automatically split payments between co-founders, affiliates, or contractors.
Affiliate Platform
Launch affiliate programs in minutes with referral links and automatic payouts.
License Keys
Generate and manage license keys for your software products automatically.
Stablecoin Payouts
Get paid in USDC directly to your wallet. Perfect for global teams.
Customer Portal
Self-service portal where customers update cards, view invoices, and manage plans.
AI Business Assistant
Ask plain English questions about your revenue, customers, and forecasts.
Ship something worth charging for
Integrate in minutes, or send your AI agent to do it. We'll handle the taxes either way.