Comparison
LicensorPro vs Freemius
Freemius is a hosted platform that takes a cut of every sale and acts as your merchant of record. LicensorPro is software you run yourself for a flat subscription. Both sell WordPress plugins; they are not really the same product, and which one is right depends almost entirely on how much you sell and how much you want to own.
Freemius is about 7%, not 3.8%, if you sell WordPress
Freemius charges 3.8% + 50¢ a sale, plus a 2.3% WordPress surcharge, plus gateway fees. On a $59 order that is about 7% plus gateway. Cheaper orders pay more, because the 50¢ is fixed. The 3.8% steps down as monthly revenue grows: 3.7% above $50k/month, 3.5% above $60k, and so on down to 0.5% above $100k/month. Sellers already on Freemius can keep their current plan.
LicensorPro is a flat subscription — Solo $199/year, Studio $399/year, Agency $799/year — and takes 0% of what you sell. You pay your own gateway (Stripe is typically 2.9% + 30¢) and keep the rest.
| Your yearly revenue | Freemius (≈7% + gateway) | LicensorPro + Stripe | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| $5,000 | ≈ $500 | ≈ $370 | $130 cheaper here |
| $25,000 | ≈ $2,500 | ≈ $1,251 | $1,249 cheaper here |
| $100,000 | ≈ $10,000 | ≈ $3,808 | $6,192 cheaper here |
| $500,000 | ≈ $50,000 | ≈ $17,842 | $32,158 cheaper here |
The honest version of that table: below roughly $2,000–$3,000 a year in sales, the difference is small enough that it should not drive your decision. Pick on the other factors. Above about $10,000 a year, the percentage becomes the largest line item in your business and the arithmetic decides for you.
This is the part most comparison pages leave out. These are real, and for some sellers each one on its own is reason enough to pay the percentage.
If you want tax handled too, the gap narrows a lot
The table above assumes you take payments with Stripe and deal with sales tax yourself. That is a real choice plenty of people make, but it is not the like-for-like comparison with Freemius, who are your merchant of record. To match what Freemius actually does, you need a merchant of record in front of LicensorPro — and that re-introduces a percentage.
Here is the same table run with Polar at their entry rate of 5% + 50¢, which is what this site itself uses:
| Your yearly revenue | Freemius (≈7% + gateway) | LicensorPro + Polar | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| $5,000 | ≈ $500 | ≈ $492 | Effectively a wash |
| $25,000 | ≈ $2,500 | ≈ $1,861 | $639 cheaper here |
| $100,000 | ≈ $10,000 | ≈ $6,246 | $3,754 cheaper here |
| $500,000 | ≈ $50,000 | ≈ $30,036 | $19,964 cheaper here |
Read the first row carefully, because it is the one that matters to most people starting out. At $5,000 a year with tax handled, this is a wash. Freemius is one vendor and one invoice; ours is two vendors you wire together. If you are below roughly $10,000 a year and you want tax off your plate, Freemius is the easier answer and we would rather you knew that from us. The case for self-hosting gets strong somewhere past that, and it gets overwhelming by $100,000.
What Freemius does that we do not
- Merchant of record, including sales tax and VAT. Freemius is the legal seller. They collect, file and remit sales tax and VAT worldwide, and it is genuinely a lot of work you never have to think about. LicensorPro does not do this at all — we store a tax figure your gateway reports and nothing more. If you want tax handled for you, you either stay with Freemius or put a merchant of record (Polar, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy) in front of LicensorPro, which re-introduces a percentage.
- Install analytics and insights. Freemius's SDK reports usage back, so you can see activations, deactivations and uninstall reasons. LicensorPro deliberately has no telemetry — our own plugins advertise that they phone home for nothing but licence checks, and we are not going to ship the opposite. That is a principled choice, not a roadmap gap, and if you want install analytics we are the wrong tool.
- In-plugin marketing tooling. Upgrade prompts, trials-without-payment, review requests and promotional campaigns rendered inside the WordPress admin. We give you an SDK and a licence gate; the upsell UI is yours to write.
- A marketplace and an existing audience. Freemius has a large community of plugin makers and a support team that has seen every edge case. You are buying that too.
- Nothing to run. No server, no updates, no backups, no PHP version to keep current.
What LicensorPro does that Freemius does not
- You keep the customer relationship. Emails, licence keys and payment records live in your database, on your server. You can query it, export it, and email your own list without asking anyone.
- Your choice of gateway, and the money lands in your account. Nineteen drivers ship with it — Stripe, PayPal, Paddle, Polar, Lemon Squeezy, Mollie, Razorpay and more — with per-country routing, so a buyer in India sees a processor that works there. With a merchant of record you are paid out on their schedule; here you are paid on your gateway's.
- Costs stop scaling. A flat subscription means a good year does not cost you more.
- No platform risk. Nobody can change the rate, change the terms, or decide your plugin is no longer welcome. If we disappeared tomorrow the software keeps running on your server.
- One licensing system for other languages too. SDKs for PHP, Python, Java, .NET and JavaScript share one contract, so a plugin business that grows a desktop or SaaS side keeps a single licence server. (Freemius sells SaaS and apps as well; the difference is that this one is yours.)
Feature by feature, including where we lose
Freemius rows come from the feature list on its own pricing page. Our rows are checked against the LicensorPro 2.5.1 release, not our marketing copy. Where a feature needs a bigger plan, the cell says which.
✓ included✓ Pro+ only from that tier up~ partly (catch noted)✗ not availablenot tested hands-on paid screen we did not buy
Business model6 rows
| Feature | Freemius | LicensorPro |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay | 3.8% + 50¢ + gateway fees, +2.3% for WordPress products | Flat: $199, $399 or $799 a year; 0% of sales |
| Merchant of record (sales tax and VAT filed for you)LicensorPro can sit behind Polar, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy or FastSpring, which are merchants of record and charge their own fee | ✓ Yes | Through an MoR gateway you choose |
| Tax calculated at checkout without an MoR | n/a | Stripe Tax on the Stripe gateway; you file |
| Payment gateways | Cards and PayPal via Freemius | 19 drivers; Solo uses 1, Studio and Agency any |
| Where customer and licence data lives | Freemius | Your server (SQLite or MySQL) |
| Hosting and maintenance | Hosted for you | You run it (PHP 8.2+) |
Licensing and updates8 rows
| Feature | Freemius | LicensorPro |
|---|---|---|
| Licence keys with activation limits | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Automatic updates to licensed sites | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Beta versions / release channels | ✓ Yes | Studio: beta, RC, dev |
| Staged rollouts | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Products beyond WordPress | SaaS, desktop apps, extensions, key-only licensing | SDKs for PHP, Python, Java, .NET and JS |
| Staging and dev sites that don't use a seat | not tested hands-on | ✓ Yes |
| Per-customer build watermarking | not tested hands-on | ✓ Yes |
| Licence transfer between customers | not tested hands-on | ✓ Yes |
Selling9 rows
| Feature | Freemius | LicensorPro |
|---|---|---|
| Subscriptions, plan changes | ✓ Yes | Yes; proration on Stripe and Polar |
| Free trials | ✓ Yes | Stripe and PayPal gateways |
| Failed-renewal recovery and renewal reminders | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Cart abandonment recovery | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Coupons and bundles | ✓ Yes | Coupons on Solo; bundles from Studio |
| Affiliate programme | ✓ Yes | Studio |
| Customer self-service portal | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Invoices | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Sell from inside the WordPress admin | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
Insight and integration7 rows
| Feature | Freemius | LicensorPro |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue reports | Payment analytics | Revenue, MRR, churn, LTV, ARPU, conversion, refund rate |
| Opt-in usage tracking and deactivation feedbackLicensorPro sends only licence checks, by design | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| wordpress.org review collection | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| REST API and webhooks | ✓ Yes | Studio |
| GDPR export and delete | not tested hands-on | ✓ Yes |
| Two-factor login for staff | not tested hands-on | ✓ Yes |
| White-label | not tested hands-on | Agency |
Sources (2)
- Freemius: https://freemius.com/pricing/
- LicensorPro: https://jnkplugins.com/licensorpro/pricing.php
What only one of them does
Only in Freemius
- Merchant of record in one product: global sales tax, VAT, fraud and chargebacks handled, with payouts by wire, Wise, Payoneer or PayPal.
- Opt-in usage tracking, audience analytics, deactivation feedback and wordpress.org review automation.
- Selling from inside the WordPress admin, and nothing to host or maintain.
- A community of 3,000+ makers and support with hands-on migration help.
Only in LicensorPro
- A flat price with 0% of sales, so a good year doesn't cost more.
- Your customers, licences and payments in your own database, with 19 gateway drivers to choose from, merchants of record included.
- Dev and staging domains that don't use a seat, per-customer build watermarking and licence transfers.
- No telemetry beyond licence checks, and source you run yourself.
Being straight about the partial rows. Trials work on the Stripe and PayPal gateways only, because the other providers don't take a trial through their checkout the same way, so we hide the option rather than promise something the checkout would break. Tax: without a merchant of record, the Stripe gateway can calculate tax at checkout, but filing and remitting is still yours.
What it looks like
Screens from LicensorPro 2.5.1 running on our own machine with demo data. The licence page's API address is shown as licenses.northwind.studio instead of our local address.
Freemius, for fairness: we haven't opened a Freemius account, so there are no screenshots of their dashboard here. Their sign-up has no setup or monthly fee if you want to look for yourself.
How we compared. Freemius fees and features come from freemius.com/pricing, re-read on 1 November 2026. LicensorPro rows were checked against the 2.5.1 release and our pricing page. Polar, Lemon Squeezy and Paddle rates were read from their own pricing pages on 17 September 2026. Lemon Squeezy and Paddle were checked again on 1 November 2026 and had not changed. Rows marked not tested are features Freemius's pricing page doesn't mention either way.
Which one should you actually pick
Choose Freemius if…
- You want sales tax and VAT to be somebody else's problem. This is the strongest single reason.
- You are early, selling very little, and want to think about product rather than infrastructure.
- You want install analytics and in-plugin marketing tooling out of the box.
- You do not want to run a server, ever.
Choose LicensorPro if…
- You are selling enough that 7% is real money you would rather keep.
- You want your customer list in your own database, queryable and exportable.
- You already have a merchant of record you are happy with, and only need the licensing layer.
- You sell something that is not a WordPress plugin, or expect to.
- Platform risk bothers you on principle.
Moving from Freemius
Export your customers and licence keys, import them, and point your plugin at the new API URL in your next release. Existing keys keep working — the SDK validates against whatever endpoint it is told to. The awkward part is not the data, it is that your subscriptions live on Freemius's gateway and have to be re-created on yours; there is no way around that with any platform. Email us before you start and we will look at your actual setup rather than guessing.
Found something wrong on this page? Freemius change their pricing and features, and we would rather be corrected than be inaccurate. Tell us and we will fix it — [email protected].
See LicensorPro pricing Or compare against Easy Digital Downloads →