We briefly summarize current experimental and theoretical results on the two important processes of the low energy hadron physics involving neutral pions: the Dalitz decay of $\pi^0$ and the rare decay $\pi^0\to e^+e^-$. As novel results we present the complete set of radiative corrections to the Dalitz decays $\eta^{(\prime)}\to \ell^+\ell^-\gamma$ beyond the soft-photon approximation, i.e. over the whole range of the Dalitz plot and with no restrictions on the energy of a radiative photon. The corrections inevitably depend on the $\eta^{(\prime)}\to\gamma^\ast\gamma^{(\ast)}$ transition form factors. For the singly virtual transition form factor appearing e.g. in the bremsstrahlung correction, recent dispersive calculations are used. For the one-photon-irreducible contribution at the one-loop level (for the doubly virtual form factor), we use a vector-meson-dominance-inspired model while taking into account the $\eta$-$\eta^\prime$ mixing.