Merchant-of-record approval checklist (Paddle, Polar, Lemon Squeezy)
Updated August 2026
A merchant of record (MoR) doesn't just process your payments — it legally resells your product. Every chargeback, refund dispute, and spam complaint lands on their merchant account, under their name. That's why MoR review is stricter than opening a plain processor account, and why perfectly legitimate indie products get rejected: the review prices risk from your website, because your website is all the reviewer has.
What reviewers actually check
- Your copy's vocabulary. Phrases that imply unsolicited contact, guaranteed outcomes, or restricted categories get flagged — usually automatically, before a human ever looks. This is the single most common indie failure mode. (Full list: the vocabulary guide.)
- Legal pages. Terms of service, privacy policy, refund policy — live, linked, and consistent with what you're selling. (Minimum contents here.)
- Product inspectability. Can the reviewer see what they'd be reselling? A live demo, screenshots, a video, or a test account. "Coming soon" pages and empty dashboards stall reviews.
- Consistency. The application form, the website, and the product should describe the same thing at the same price. Mismatches read as evasion even when they're just sloppiness.
- A reachable business. A real contact email on the domain, and a site that looks maintained. Anonymous one-page sites with a payment link are what fraud looks like from their side of the table.
Check your own copy in 30 seconds. The free Audeza scanner flags the phrases payment platforms treat as risk signals — and suggests safer wording. No signup.
Run the free checkThe 10-minute pre-flight checklist
- ☐ Read your landing page as a complaints inspector: does any phrase imply contacting people who didn't ask, guaranteed results, or income?
- ☐ Terms, privacy, and refund pages exist, are linked in the footer, and name the same product and business as the application.
- ☐ Pricing is public and matches what you put in the application.
- ☐ The product can be seen: demo, screenshots, video, or test login.
- ☐ A contact email on your own domain is visible on the site.
- ☐ Anything the product does with email or messaging explicitly states the human-in-the-loop and opt-in mechanics.
- ☐ No borrowed screenshots, testimonials, or logos you can't back up.
Platform notes
All three MoRs check the fundamentals above; the differences are mostly in process, and they change often enough that specifics go stale — verify against each platform's current documentation before applying.
| Platform | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Paddle | The most established review process; expect verification questions about your product and business before going live. (Paddle guide) |
| Polar | Fast, largely automated first pass — which means wording matters disproportionately, and human review is worth requesting after a fix. (Our rejection teardown) |
| Lemon Squeezy | Store activation review before you can sell; same fundamentals apply. (Lemon Squeezy guide) |
If you get rejected anyway
Fix first, appeal second. An appeal that says "please reconsider" against an unchanged website gets the same automated answer. Change the copy, add the missing pages, then request human review and say what changed. That exact sequence is how the product behind our teardown went from auto-denied to approved in one day.
Check your own copy in 30 seconds. The free Audeza scanner flags the phrases payment platforms treat as risk signals — and suggests safer wording. No signup.
Run the free check