If Stripe is not available in your country, check this before rebuilding your SaaS billing

If Stripe is not available in your country, the tempting move is to rebuild the entire billing system around the first alternative you find.

That is usually too much work too early.

Before replacing everything, I would check the revenue path as a system:

pricing page
  -> checkout provider
  -> payment confirmation
  -> webhook handler
  -> user / organization mapping
  -> entitlement unlock
  -> failed payment recovery
  -> customer support fallback

The provider matters, but the handoffs matter more.

The common mistake

Founders compare payment providers like this:

• Stripe supports my country: yes/no
• fees: low/high
• subscriptions: yes/no
• checkout page: yes/no

That is useful, but incomplete.

The bigger question is:

After someone pays, does the correct account get the correct access every time?

If the answer is not proven, you do not have billing. You have a checkout demo.

What I would audit first

1. Pricing CTA

Can a visitor clearly choose a plan and understand what happens next?

2. Checkout ownership

Are you using a payment gateway, merchant of record, invoice flow, or manual payment path?

Each one changes taxes, refunds, support, customer communication, and account recovery.

3. Webhook idempotency

Can the same payment event arrive twice without double-unlocking, double-emailing, or corrupting access state?

4. User mapping

Does payment map to the right userId, organizationId, or workspace?

This gets messy fast in B2B SaaS.

5. Access unlock

Where is the source of truth for paid access?

Do not scatter this across frontend checks, local storage, and one-off database fields.

6. Failure and recovery

What happens when:

• checkout succeeds but the webhook is delayed
• the customer closes the tab
• the payment provider retries
• the email address differs from the app account
• the subscription is canceled or refunded

This is where most early billing systems break.

Polar, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, manual invoice, or Stripe?

The right answer depends on your country, product type, tax burden, buyer expectations, and whether you need subscriptions, one-time payments, licenses, or usage credits.

But the implementation checklist is mostly the same:

• one clear pricing path
• one checkout provider per offer
• one webhook handler strategy
• one source of truth for entitlement
• one support fallback when automation fails

I am reviewing 5 flows today

If you are building a Next.js SaaS and payment access is the blocker, drop your URL in the comments or email it to [email protected] with the subject Free mini-audit request. I will reply with 2 concrete issues I would check first.

I also packaged the deeper review as a small USD 49 audit:

https://productized-webdev.vercel.app/audit

Related checklist:

https://dev.to/cekuu35/how-i-wire-polar-mor-payments-in-a-nextjs-saas-without-stripe-1pb0