Paddle was founded in 2012 by Christian Owens and Harrison Rose in London. Owens was just 18 at the time and had already built and sold a software product — the tax and compliance headaches from that experience directly inspired Paddle.
The platform works as a merchant of record for SaaS and digital products. When a customer makes a purchase, Paddle is the legal seller. It handles payment processing, sales tax collection and remittance, invoicing, and fraud prevention across 200+ countries. Software companies get their revenue minus Paddle’s fees without managing international tax obligations.
Paddle acquired ProfitWell in 2022 for around $200 million. ProfitWell’s subscription analytics, retention tools, and pricing optimization products complemented Paddle’s payment infrastructure. The combined platform gives SaaS companies both billing and intelligence about their subscription metrics.
The platform supports complex subscription billing — upgrades, downgrades, proration, trials, usage-based pricing, and multi-product bundles. Paddle Billing (the next-generation product) introduced a more flexible API and checkout experience while maintaining the merchant-of-record compliance layer.
Paddle counts over 4,000 software companies as customers, processing billions in annual payment volume. Major users include Framer, Linear, and ClickUp. The company has raised over $290 million in total funding. Paddle employs roughly 500 people across London, New York, and other offices.
