Comparison
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 charges 4.7% of revenue, plus a 2.3% WordPress surcharge, plus gateway fees. Call it about 7% plus gateway for a normal WordPress plugin business. The 4.7% steps down as monthly revenue grows — 4.5% above $50k/month, 4.0% above $60k, and so on down to 0.5% above $100k/month.
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.
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.
| LicensorPro | Freemius | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost model | Flat subscription from $199/yr, 0% of sales | 4.7% + 2.3% WP surcharge + gateway |
| Licence keys, activation limits | Yes | Yes |
| Auto-updates to licensed sites | Yes | Yes |
| WordPress SDK | Yes | Yes |
| Non-WordPress PHP apps | Yes | No |
| Subscriptions, upgrades, proration | Yes | Yes |
| Failed-payment dunning | Yes | Yes |
| Abandoned-checkout recovery | Yes | Yes |
| Coupons and public offers | Yes | Yes |
| Affiliate programme | Yes | Yes |
| Customer self-serve portal | Yes | Yes |
| Invoices | Yes | Yes |
| GDPR export and delete | Yes | Yes |
| Free trials | Stripe and PayPal only | Yes |
| Sales tax / VAT filing | No | Yes (merchant of record) |
| Install analytics / uninstall reasons | No, by design | Yes |
| In-plugin promo and review prompts | No | Yes |
| Conversion funnel reporting | Revenue, MRR and churn today | Yes |
| You host it | Yes — PHP 8.2+, SQLite or MySQL | Hosted for you |
| Source available | Yes | No |
Being straight about the two amber rows. Trials are honoured by Stripe and PayPal and no other gateway, because the rest do not expose a trial in their checkout API the same way — so we hide the option rather than promise something the checkout would break. And our reporting today covers revenue, MRR, churn and top products, not conversion rate or LTV. Both are on the roadmap; neither is finished, and we would rather you read that here than discover it after paying.
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 →
Freemius charges 4.7% of revenue plus gateway fees, and WordPress products carry an additional 2.3% surcharge listed on their pricing page as "WordPress & Templates +2.3%". That makes about 7.0% plus gateway the real rate for a plugin seller. The 4.7% component steps down above $50,000 a month, reaching 0.5% above $100,000 a month.
Their own FAQ answers this: "The extra 2.3% covers specialized WordPress features, compliance, and server resources that keep your software running." It is a real line on their pricing page, and it is the reason most articles quoting Freemius at 4.7% understate what a plugin seller actually pays.
Yes, and it is the strongest single reason to use them. Freemius becomes the legal seller, so global sales tax and VAT collection, filing and remittance are handled for you. A self-hosted licensing server does not do this at all.
Freemius require a minimum account balance of $100.00 before paying out. Payouts run monthly via PayPal, Payoneer, Wise or bank wire, and wire payouts may incur intermediate bank fees.
Roughly around $10,000 a year in sales, where 7% is about $700 and becomes a visible line item. Below about $2,000 to $3,000 a year the difference is small enough that it should not drive the decision, and the tax handling alone may be worth more than the fee.
Yes. Put a merchant of record such as Lemon Squeezy or Paddle in front of your own licensing server. Both charge 5% + 50¢, which is lower than 7.0%, and you keep licence data and the customer relationship on your own infrastructure.
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