been running a SaaS for about a 6mo now, have a Wyoming LLC, Wise account, Stripe set up through the LLC. everything is technically legitimate.
but i can't shake this feeling that i'm one dispute away from losing access to everything. i've read enough horror stories about Pakistani founders getting their Stripe accounts terminated with no warning and funds held for 90 days. sometimes for no obvious reason. which is why i haven't integrated stripe with my site yet.
a few things that keep me up:
- my customers are businesses in the US and UK. they're not shady. but even one chargeback from a confused client could push my dispute rate over 1% and trigger a review.
- as i scale and revenue grows, large inflows into a relatively new account could flag something.
- i have no real recourse if Stripe decides to terminate. no phone support, no appeal process that actually works.
i've been looking at switching to Paddle as my primary processor since they act as the merchant of record, meaning chargebacks and disputes are their problem not mine. seems like the obvious solution but i wanted to hear from people who've actually dealt with this.
before anyone says "just use Paddle", i already looked into it and yes, the API is solid, webhooks, Node/Python SDKs, usage-based billing built in, and you can embed the checkout directly on your site without redirecting customers anywhere. PCI compliance is also fully handled by them. so the technical side seems fine. what i actually want to know is the real-world experience.
questions for anyone who's been through it:
- has your Stripe account actually been terminated or held? what triggered it?
- are you using an MoR like Paddle or Lemon Squeezy? has it actually been smooth or is there still always a chance of getting banned?
- is there any way to actually reduce the risk on Stripe, or is it just permanent anxiety?
- for those doing B2B SaaS specifically, do your clients care which checkout they see (Stripe vs Paddle)?
- are there any other better options than the ones discussed above?
would really appreciate honest answers over theoretical ones. there's a lot of generic advice online but not many people talking about their actual experience running this stack from Pakistan.