Creem vs Freemius

Creem is a payments and monetization platform for selling software and digital products worldwide. It says it acts as the legal seller for each transaction, handling payment processing, tax calculation and remittance, invoices, fraud, and chargebacks. Billing features include subscriptions, credit wallets, usage-based pricing, custom meters, free trials, discounts, and seat-based charges. Partner tools provide affiliate commissions, automatic revenue splits, and short links with click and conversion tracking. Developers can use an API, SDKs, CLI, webhooks, and an MCP server for agent-driven store management; listed compatible options include Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop, and any MCP client. Creem says merchants can sell in 190+ countries and lists cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Checkout can use a merchant’s domain and branding. Native iPhone and Android apps provide real-time sales notifications. Pay as you go costs $3.94, paid once per successful transaction, with no monthly or setup fees and no minimum volume. A Partner plan has custom pricing for higher-volume businesses.

Freemius is a merchant-of-record platform that handles software payments, subscriptions, taxes, licensing, fraud, and disputes. Its hosted or embedded checkout supports subscriptions, trials, licensing, cart recovery, and multiple currencies. Sellers can set trials of 7, 14, or 30 days, choose what features remain after expiry, and apply licensing rules that enable or disable features according to a customer’s plan. Customers can use a self-service portal to manage subscriptions, billing details, downloads, invoices, and licenses. Supported products include SaaS, desktop apps, Chrome extensions, Electron apps, and WordPress products. Named integrations include Zapier, Segment, Customer.io, HubSpot, and Mailchimp. Freemius says it calculates, collects, reports, and remits sales tax and VAT, and follows PCI DSS 4.0; it also says card details do not reach or remain on its servers. The company traces the platform to a micro-SaaS launched by its founder in 2010. Transaction pricing is 3.8% + 50¢ per transaction plus gateway fees; no setup or monthly fees are listed.