Polar — Monetization for Developers

Overview

Polar (polar.sh) is a billing platform that acts as the merchant of record: it collects payment, handles VAT, GST and sales tax worldwide, and pays you out. You define products (one-time, subscription, seat-based or metered), attach benefits (license keys, file downloads, Discord roles, GitHub repo access, feature flags, credits), send customers to a checkout, and react to webhooks. The Starter plan is listed at 5% plus 50 cents per transaction; check the pricing page before quoting numbers to a user.

The TypeScript SDK is @polar-sh/sdk. Current docs create the client with createPolar imported from a dated path such as @polar-sh/sdk/2026-10; the date pins the API version, and Polar asks production integrations to pin one. The older @polar-sh/sdk repository (polarsource/polar-js) is archived; the SDK now lives in sdk/typescript of polarsource/polar.

Instructions

1. Set up and test in the sandbox

Sandbox is a fully separate environment at sandbox.polar.sh with its own account, organization and tokens. Create an organization access token (scope it to what you need) and keep it on the server only.

npm install @polar-sh/sdk
export POLAR_ACCESS_TOKEN=polar_oat_...   # sandbox token while testing