MERCHANT OF RECORD
Merchant of Record for AI SaaS: Sell Globally in 2026
Anyway Team
· 7 min read ·
A Merchant of Record for AI SaaS is the legal seller that handles a customer payment, applicable sales tax, invoices, and the payment-side transaction record. The AI company builds and delivers the product. The MoR sells the approved product to the customer and pays the developer's available net revenue through a supported payout route.
Start selling your AI product with Anyway
AI software turns one checkout into several operating jobs
An image generator can go from demo to paying customers in a weekend. The payment operation is rarely as quick.
One buyer wants a monthly plan. Another wants a fixed credit pack. A German consumer needs the correct VAT treatment. A Chinese founder needs the resulting revenue to reach an account they can use. And the app must grant exactly the product that was paid for, even when a webhook arrives twice.
Those jobs sit behind the buy button:
Legal seller and customer receipt
Card checkout and order confirmation
Subscription or one-time product records
Sales tax, VAT, or GST
Post-purchase transaction records
Merchant payout
Anyway places these parts inside one Merchant of Record flow for approved AI products.
Why use a Merchant of Record for AI SaaS?
An AI SaaS uses a Merchant of Record when the founder wants to sell globally without assembling a separate company, payment processor, tax operation, invoice system, and international payout stack before launch. The MoR owns the covered customer transaction while the founder owns the model, application, customer experience, and product delivery.
This distinction starts with the receipt. The buyer purchases from the MoR. The developer supplies the product under the merchant agreement and receives net revenue after the transaction has settled.
It also changes the tax workflow. AI tools sold online can fall under digital-service or software rules in the buyer's jurisdiction. The legal seller needs to classify the product, determine the buyer's location and status, calculate applicable tax, issue the invoice, file, and remit.
Anyway states that it calculates, collects, and files applicable sales tax, VAT, and GST as the Merchant of Record. Read what a Merchant of Record does for the full seller model.
Pick a billing model your product can explain
AI products have variable inference costs, but the customer still needs a price they can understand before purchase. Start with a simple commercial promise and keep the usage accounting inside the app.
Recurring subscription
A subscription works when the product provides ongoing access with clear limits. Examples include 500 image generations per month, a fixed number of research runs, or a Pro plan with a defined feature set.
Anyway's current subscription records support daily, monthly, and yearly billing intervals for supported Card/USD pricing. The app can follow billing periods and lifecycle updates from one consistent subscription record.
One-time credit pack
A one-time product can represent 100 generations, 50 minutes of transcription, or a fixed API-credit bundle. Anyway records the paid order; the AI app owns the credit ledger and decrements usage after fulfillment.
This is often a clean launch model because the customer pays before compute is consumed. Keep the credit amount, validity, and customer-support terms visible on the pricing page.
Fixed product purchase
Desktop software, model prompts, datasets, plugins, and downloadable tools can use a one-time payment link. The app or delivery system should release the approved file or license only after the order is confirmed on the server.
How Anyway supports an AI SaaS launch
Anyway Business combines the product, hosted checkout, order, subscription, Finance, and payout records used in the launch.
Individual and business applications
The verification flow supports Individual and Business account types. Applicants provide their product URL, public pricing, support details, and required verification information through Anyway's secure onboarding flow.
This gives a solo AI founder a documented route to launch with a real product before an overseas company becomes commercially necessary.
Hosted payment links
Create a product with its name, description, price, and currency. Publishing it returns a customer-facing link:
Place the link behind the pricing-page CTA or send it directly to an early customer. Anyway hosts the checkout and creates the corresponding order.
Order attribution for a webapp
Several customers can use the same link. Attach your own purchase and user references as URL-encoded parameters:
Anyway stores these strings in merchantMetadata, and it promotes merchant_reference to merchantReference. Use opaque internal references, then compare the paid order, product, amount, currency, and reference with the pending purchase on your server.
Signed fulfillment events
Anyway sends signed order and subscription events to a configured HTTPS endpoint. Fulfill only after a verified order.paid event or a server-side order lookup.
Use the webhook-id header as the idempotency key. A repeated delivery should update the same purchase, never issue a second credit pack or subscription entitlement.
From AI demo to paid product
Define the paid unit. Choose a subscription, one-time credit pack, or fixed purchase.
Publish the product site. Explain output, limits, price, renewal, delivery, and customer support.
Apply for merchant verification. Submit the true applicant and product details.
Create the Anyway product. Match its name, price, currency, and billing interval to the website.
Connect the payment link. Add a stable merchant reference from your database.
Verify the webhook. Check the Ed25519 signature against the raw request body before parsing.
Grant access once. Make fulfillment idempotent and compare the order with your server record.
Add a payout account. Choose an approved receiving route after verification.
For the code-level process, use the guide to accepting payments for an AI app.
Payouts for China-based AI founders
Anyway's current Finance documentation lists Alipay and mainland China bank accounts alongside US, UK, and Hong Kong bank routes. The minimum payout request is $50.
Finance separates the displayed balance from the payout-ready available balance. Each eligible posted sale records the buyer's gross amount, the Anyway fee, the net seller amount, and the related order ID, giving founders a clear path from order to payout.
This gives an eligible Chinese AI founder a documented path from global card checkout to a local receiving account without opening a USD bank account first.
Merchant of Record pricing for AI SaaS
Anyway publishes one per-transaction price of 3.9% + $0.50, with no monthly fee or setup fee. The published plan includes the MoR service, global tax and compliance, billing, and subscriptions.
The published formula makes pricing easy to model before launch. Founders can compare several pack sizes, choose a price that fits their product value and compute cost, then use the fee recorded on the completed order for reconciliation.
Read Merchant of Record fees explained for worked pricing examples.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sell an AI app without a company?
Yes. Anyway welcomes Individual applications as well as Business applications and provides a documented onboarding path for eligible founders with a ready product.
Can an AI SaaS charge subscriptions through Anyway?
Yes. Anyway documents recurring Card/USD subscriptions with daily, monthly, and yearly intervals. Subscription events include current status, billing interval, amount, currency, period end, and scheduled-cancellation information.
Can I sell AI credit packs?
You can configure a one-time product that represents a credit bundle. Anyway confirms the purchase; your app maintains the credit balance and usage rules.
Does Anyway handle tax for AI software sales?
Anyway states that it calculates, collects, and files applicable sales tax, VAT, and GST as the Merchant of Record for covered transactions.
How does my app know which user paid?
Create a pending purchase in your database, pass its ID through merchant_reference, and verify the signed order.paid event. Match the order fields before granting access.
Put the payment operation behind one product link
The AI product should spend compute after payment is confirmed, give the customer clear usage terms, and leave an order trail that can be reconciled later.
Anyway supplies the Merchant of Record, hosted checkout, transaction-tax handling, order records, subscriptions, and supported payout routes. Create an Anyway account when your AI product is ready for its first paid user.