Gumroad Alternatives (2026): 12 Compared by Fees, Tested

The best Gumroad alternative for most creators selling digital products is Sellfy. You pay a flat monthly plan from $22 a month (billed yearly) and 0% transaction fees, where Gumroad takes 10% + $0.50 of every sale. At $2,000 a month in sales, that's $59 a month on Sellfy's Business plan against roughly $250 in Gumroad fees on $20 products. Payhip is the best free starting point, and Lemon Squeezy suits software sellers.

Gumroad made selling digital goods simple: upload a file, share a link, get paid. Creators usually start looking elsewhere for one of these reasons:

• Fees grow with every sale. Gumroad charges 10% + $0.50 per direct sale, plus card processing of 2.9% + $0.30. Sales through its Discover marketplace cost 30%.
• Slower access to your money. Sales sit for at least 7 days, then Gumroad pays out weekly. Instant payouts cost 3% and are US-only.
• Digital products only. Gumroad doesn't allow physical products, so there's no print-on-demand merch.

That's why we've compared 12 alternatives to Gumroad, each with a different take on how to build, manage, and grow your online store.

TL;DR — the best Gumroad alternatives in 2026

Short on time? Here's the cheat sheet:

• Best overall (digital + physical + print-on-demand). Sellfy has flat monthly pricing, no transaction fees, built-in print-on-demand, and email marketing — a solid pick if you're after the best ecommerce platform for a small business.
• Best for SaaS, subscriptions & license keys: Lemon Squeezy is a Merchant of Record that handles global tax for you, 5% + $0.50 per sale, no monthly fee.
• Best for physical products at scale: Shopify offers a massive app ecosystem, complete store control, but needs apps (and money) to match Gumroad's simplicity.
• Best for courses & memberships: Podia offers courses, downloads, communities, and email under one roof.
• Best free starting point: Payhip has a genuinely free plan, 5% transaction fee until you upgrade.

Sellfy vs Payhip vs Gumroad: fees and features compared

Sellfy, Payhip and Gumroad are the three platforms most creators compare when they leave Gumroad. Here's what each one costs per month at three sales levels, assuming a $25 average price:

Sellfy is the cheapest of the three up to about $5,000 a month. At $10,000 a month, Payhip Pro costs $20 a month less than Sellfy Premium, because Pro's $99 has no sales limit. Gumroad costs the most at every level: even past $20,000 in monthly sales, when its fee drops to 5% + $0.50, a per-sale cut keeps growing with your revenue.

The fees aren't the only difference:

Card processing (Stripe or PayPal, around 2.9% + $0.30 per sale in the US) is charged on top on all three. Sellfy prices from sellfy.com/pricing; Payhip from payhip.com/pricing (checked 2 November 2026); Gumroad from gumroad.com/pricing (checked 21 October 2026).

Verdict: PDF planners, about $2,000 a month and 5,000 email subscribers

Choose Sellfy's Business plan. At $2,000 a month you sell about $24,000 a year, which fits inside Business's $50,000 limit. It costs $59 a month billed yearly ($708 a year), with 0% transaction fees.

On Gumroad, the same sales at $20 per planner are about 100 orders a month. That's $200 in percentage fees plus $50 in per-sale fees, so about $250 a month, or $3,000 a year. Sellfy saves you about $190 a month.

The email list decides the plan. Business includes 10,000 emails a month, enough to email 5,000 subscribers twice. Starter is cheaper (about $45 a month with the 2% overage on sales above $10,000 a year), but its 2,000 emails a month won't cover a single send to your list. Business also adds upsells and cart abandonment emails.

Payhip would cost $69 a month on Plus ($29 + 2% of $2,000) or $99 on Pro.

The one point in Gumroad's favor: it's a merchant of record, so it collects and pays sales tax for you. Sellfy calculates EU and UK VAT at checkout and exports the reports, but you file them yourself. Run your own numbers with the Gumroad fee calculator.

How did I review Gumroad alternatives?

I looked at this from a creator angle, not a “build a big store” angle.

Gumroad is all about simplicity. You upload a product, share a link, and start selling. So I focused on tools that either keep that same low-friction feel or improve on things like checkout, subscriptions, and control.

I tested each platform as if I were actually trying to sell something, not just reading feature pages. Here’s what I paid attention to:

1. How easy it is to start. Can you go from signup to selling in minutes, or does it feel like work?
2. Whether it actually fits creators. Digital downloads, memberships, simple product pages… the basics Gumroad does well.
3. Checkout experience. Does it help you sell more with upsells, bundles, better payment options?
4. Pricing and fees. Are you paying monthly, giving up a % of every sale, or both?
5. How much control you get. Branding, customer data, and how “yours” the experience feels.
6. Built-in stuff vs needing tools. Email, affiliates, analytics… do you get them or have to bolt them on?
7. Flexibility. Can it handle subscriptions, bundles, different product types without hacks?

How I tested each platform

1. Sign up for the free tier or trial period.
2. Build a basic store with available templates.
3. Add digital and/or physical products.
4. Test integrated marketing and automation tools (emails, funnels, popups, and upsells).
5. Publish a demo store and view how it performs on desktop and mobile. Since I had only days to test and verify all listed features, I based some of my evaluations on each platform’s potential to grow with your business rather than long-term live performance. For example, marketing efficiency, customer conversion, and analytics were assessed this way based on my prior experience in the niche.

Disclaimer: All the pricing, features, trial periods, and stats I offer here are based on the data publicly available at the time of my researching and writing this article. Things change quickly, so some details might be different by the time you read this. For getting the most up-to-date information, please always check directly with the platform.

Best Gumroad alternatives at a glance

12 best Gumroad alternatives

1. Sellfy

Here’s what makes Sellfy a good Gumroad alternative:

It was initially developed as a platform for selling digital downloads and has quickly become a leader in that niche. Later on, Sellfy was transformed into a full-fledged hosted e-commerce solution for creators and artists. Now, on par with its top competitors, Sellfy allows you to sell just about any type of product—digital, physical, subscriptions, and even print on demand.

Sellfy’s setup is even more effortless than Gumroad’s—something I wish I had known back in the day when I was trying to set up a shop on the same platform.

With Sellfy, you can start selling your products almost instantly—it won’t take you more than 10 minutes to build an online store from scratch. All you need to do is upload your first product, choose a payment method and start selling.

It’s also important to note that Sellfy stores are fully customizable—you’ll be able to make your store look the way you want just by using the Store Customizer tool.

Built-in print on demand is one of the coolest Sellfy features. So, if you decide to sell custom print-on-demand products you won’t have to look for external solutions or costly integrations (like you’d have to do with Gumroad). Moreover, Sellfy will take care of everything—after you make a sale, each order is automatically fulfilled, printed, and shipped to your customers worldwide. With Sellfy’s print on demand, you won’t have to make any upfront investments or worry about the unsold leftovers—you’ll be charged for product fulfillment only after you sell something.

Unlike Gumroad, Sellfy doesn’t take a part of your income in commission, transaction fees, or any other way. You also never have to worry about unnecessary or hidden costs. Plus, Sellfy offers flexibility with payments by supporting both PayPal and Stripe for transactions and payouts—something Gumroad recently struggled with due to issues with PayPal support. This makes it easier for you to receive funds smoothly, with payment options that suit both you and your customers.

Finally, Sellfy offers a great set of marketing tools to help you grow your business:

• Discount and coupon codes feature that allows you to issue discount codes, discount separate products, and even customize your sales by adding start/end time, changing the look of SALE badges, etc.
• Sellfy’s built-in email marketing tool is the best for email marketing automation. You’ll be able to craft your own email campaigns, send out newsletters with the latest product updates, and thank customers for shopping in your store.
• You’ll be able to send cart abandonment emails and offer additional discounts to customers who left your store without checking out.
• Instead of offering freebies, you can just use pay-what-you-want pricing and let your customers decide how much they want to pay for your product.
• There’s an upselling and cross-selling feature to offer an additional (discounted) product to the buyer when they add one of your products to the cart.

Is Sellfy right for you?

As the best Gumroad alternative, Sellfy is a perfect solution for all types of creators and artists. Everyone looking for an e-commerce platform with an effortless setup and tons of useful features will find Sellfy an excellent fit.

How much does Sellfy cost?

In January 2023, Gumroad moved from tiered pricing to a flat 10% fee (now 10% + $0.50 per sale), excluding payment processing. Many big sellers left the platform, as the new pricing left some of them with a fee four times higher. Since 2026, direct sales past $20,000 in a calendar month drop to 5% + $0.50. Our Gumroad fee calculator shows what that works out to on your own prices, once processing is added on top.

Sellfy takes no cut of your sales. You pay a monthly plan, and Stripe or PayPal charge their usual processing fee. There are three plans:

How the plans work:

• The sales limit is a soft cap. It counts per billing year, not over a rolling 12 months. If you go over it, Sellfy tells you and may charge 2% on the sales above the limit until you upgrade. Your store is never paused and you're never forced to upgrade.
• Every plan includes 0% transaction fees, a custom domain with free SSL, built-in print-on-demand, email marketing, discount codes, license keys and EU and UK VAT calculation.
• Business and Premium add upsells, cart abandonment emails, an affiliate program, custom checkout fields and no Sellfy branding. Sellfy's team also moves your products and store design over for you on these plans.
• Payouts go straight to your own Stripe or PayPal account. Sellfy doesn't hold your money. PayPal payments land in your balance right away, and Stripe usually deposits to your bank in about 2 business days.
• There's no free plan. You get a 14-day free trial with no card required, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Pros and cons

2. SendOwl

SendOwl has proven to be one of the best Gumroad alternatives for people looking for a simple way to sell digital downloads. Its main focus has always been to provide a straightforward and clean checkout solution for creators and small businesses. And they’re doing it pretty well.

SendOwl is super easy to use. All you have to do is create an account and upload your product. Once it’s done, you immediately get a Quick Sell link, a possibility to share your product on social media, and a generated code snippet that allows you to embed a Buy Now button on your website or blog.

To make your life easier there are some use cases and demos on their home page that will help you understand how their service works.

Apart from that, SendOwl offers a bunch of useful marketing features like upselling, cart abandonment, discounts and vouchers, pay-what-you-want pricing, and gift certificates. SendOwl also works well with most e-commerce solutions and external marketing services.

But, there’s one very important thing that’s worth mentioning:

Even though SendOwl offers a simple and quick way to start selling online, you won’t be able to build a storefront with this platform. So, if you’re looking for a way to create an online store you’ll find platforms like Gumroad or Sellfy much more useful.

Is SendOwl right for you?

If you’re looking for an e-commerce back office for your existing website or a blog, you will find SendOwl a great alternative to Gumroad. Not only is it easy to use, but it also offers a solid set of e-commerce features.

How much does SendOwl cost?

SendOwl offers flexible pricing with a free trial and no transaction fees on any plan. The Launch plan is $39/month ($32.50/month billed yearly), Grow is $87/month ($72.50/month billed yearly), and Scale is $159/month ($132.50/month billed yearly). Business plans start at $299/month.

Pros and cons

3. Shopify

As one of the most popular e-commerce platforms, Shopify definitely deserves a spot among Gumroad alternatives.

Shopify is an all-in-one e-commerce platform that allows you to build an online store without any previous experience or web design background. Moreover, they’ve managed to create a whole ecosystem that includes 3000+ useful apps and countless store themes.

Shopify’s main advantage is that it’s fully customizable and with the right set of app integrations, you can sell pretty much anything in your store—from tangible items to subscriptions and digital goods.

On the flip side, you should be ready for Shopify to charge you extra for most third-party app integrations. For example, Shopify’s paid store themes cost between $100 and $500, and many apps add their own monthly fee on top. Add this to your subscription fee (Shopify doesn’t have a free plan) and you get a considerable amount of money you should be ready to pay every month. If Shopify's costs give you pause, our guide to lighter-weight alternatives to Shopify covers options built for creators.

Plus, even though Shopify gives you access to advanced marketing integrations, solutions like Gumroad and Sellfy offer much more advanced in-built marketing functionality.

Lastly, Shopify positions itself as an easy-to-use platform for building an online store. In reality, even though you don’t need to have web development skills to use Shopify, it still comes with a huge learning curve. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many “how-to” guides on starting a Shopify store.

Is Shopify right for you?

In general, almost anyone looking for a complete e-commerce solution and who is ready to invest time and money (mainly on third-party apps) will find Shopify a great fit.

How much does Shopify cost?

Unlike Gumroad, Shopify doesn’t offer a free plan and has three paid plans with prices ranging from $29-299/month.

Pros and cons

4. Podia

If you're looking for a Gumroad alternative to sell your online courses, digital downloads, membership, or webinars then you definitely should consider Podia.

Podia is a hosted e-commerce platform with a focus on selling online courses. It allows you to sell anything digital and has a relatively clean interface that lets you construct a landing page for digital downloads—no coding, just simple drag-and-drop.

Apart from decent customization options, Podia also offers a great set of built-in marketing features including email marketing campaign, upselling and cross-selling, product bundles, coupon codes, affiliate marketing, and more. Plus, they offer speedy and clean checkout that is optimized to improve your conversion rates as it doesn't require customers to create an account.

Of course, there are some limitations to Podia that more experienced users may find unacceptable, like basic customization options or almost no possibility to integrate external services. It also won’t fit anyone who at one point may decide to start selling physical products (including merchandise).

One of the main differences between Gumroad and Podia is that the latter only takes a transaction fee (5%) on its cheapest plan. On the other hand, Podia’s pricing seems to be a bit too steep when compared to other solutions. So, we’ll leave it to you to decide which one is better.

Is Podia right for you?

There’s nothing much to say here. Like Gumroad, Podia is great for small business owners who focus on selling digital downloads. It’s easy to use and it doesn’t take a lot of time and effort to start selling.

How much does Podia cost?

Podia doesn’t have a free plan, but it offers a 14-day free trial and three paid plans: Mover at $49/month ($42/month billed yearly), Shaker at $99/month ($84/month billed yearly), and Earthquaker at $179/month ($150/month billed yearly). Keep in mind that Mover comes with a 5% transaction fee. Shaker and Earthquaker have none.

Pros and cons

5. Lemon Squeezy

Lemon Squeezy is one of the best Gumroad alternatives for people selling software, SaaS, or digital products. It launched in 2021, was acquired by Stripe in 2024, and has built a strong following among indie SaaS founders, app developers, and creators selling license keys.

What makes Lemon Squeezy stand out is that it acts as a Merchant of Record (MoR). When a customer in Germany buys your $29 download, Lemon Squeezy collects, files, and remits VAT for you. The same goes for sales tax in the US, GST in Australia, and dozens of other countries. Gumroad has worked the same way since January 2025, so tax handling alone isn't a reason to switch between the two.

Setting up a store takes about 10 minutes. You get a hosted storefront, an embeddable checkout, license key generation, subscription billing, an affiliate program, and email automations like cart recovery and post-purchase follow-ups. The checkout runs on Stripe, so it's fast and works well on mobile.

Apart from that, Lemon Squeezy handles refunds, fraud detection, and chargeback protection. If a customer disputes a charge, Lemon Squeezy fights it instead of you.

Lemon Squeezy works best for digital products, SaaS subscriptions, software licenses, and one-time downloads. It's not built for physical products or print-on-demand, so if your roadmap includes merch, it's not the right pick.

Is Lemon Squeezy right for you?

If you're selling software, SaaS, or digital products and want someone else to handle global tax compliance, Lemon Squeezy is one of the best Gumroad alternatives out there. If you sell physical products or want flat, predictable pricing as you scale, Sellfy or Shopify are a better fit.

How much does Lemon Squeezy cost?

There's one thing worth mentioning: the fee. Lemon Squeezy charges 5% + $0.50 per transaction with no monthly subscription. That's lower than Gumroad's 10% + $0.50, but it's still a per-sale cut — the more you sell, the more you pay.

Pros and cons

6. Teachable

Teachable is another great alternative to Gumroad for selling digital content. Just like Podia, the platform mainly concentrates on selling online courses, but it has also proven to be a great fit for selling digital products.

Simply speaking, Teachable is another online course platform that helps people deliver their learning and educational experiences. Teachable lets you easily create an unlimited number of online courses as well as build a website from scratch, or integrate your educational content into an existing website or blog.

Just like Gumroad, Teachable allows you to upload any type of files and content including video, audio, photos, text, PDFs, etc. However, in case you’re looking for a way to sell a mix of digital content and physical products, it’s impossible to do it on Teachable.

Teachable has a beginner-friendly setup. So, you’ll be able to quickly and easily create a sales page with their drag-and-drop builder—no previous experience is needed. Even though Teachable’s customization options are somewhat limited, there’s a tool called Power Editor that allows more experienced users to tap into the code.

Teachable offers a solid marketing toolkit that includes coupons, promotions, affiliate programs, and email marketing. You’ll also have the possibility to create bundle courses and subscriptions, as well as choose various pricing options.

On the downside, Teachable has no free plan, and its cheapest plan, Starter, charges a 7.5% transaction fee on every sale. Builder and Growth drop that to 0% if you use Teachable Payments, but standard payment processing fees still apply.

Is Teachable right for you?

Teachable is a great service for everyone who is ready to share their skills with the world and make some income on the side by selling their knowledge and experiences.

How much does Teachable cost?

Teachable doesn't have a free plan, but it offers a 7-day free trial and three paid plans: Starter at $39/month ($29/month billed yearly), Builder at $89/month ($69/month billed yearly), and Growth at $189/month ($139/month billed yearly).

Pros and cons

7. Payhip

When we compare Payhip to Gumroad, it appears that these two platforms are more similar to each other than the other ones mentioned in the list. Just like Gumroad, Payhip is a basic checkout solution for artists and creatives looking to start selling digital or physical products, as well as memberships.

Payhip is an all-in-one e-commerce platform that offers a host of useful tools to start an online business. You can easily embed the service right into your website or blog, or build your own Payhip storefront to sell products directly to your audience.

Though Payhip works much better as an integration for your own website, you can still build a basic storefront for your products. However, you shouldn’t expect full customization—the storefront you get with Payhip looks very basic.

Payhip’s main benefit is that it’s fantastically easy to use. Even if you have no clue about how e-commerce works, you should feel right at home with Payhip.

Payhip includes the same features on every plan: email marketing, coupons, order bumps, abandoned cart recovery, an affiliate program, license keys, memberships, courses and coaching. It also calculates, collects and remits sales tax and VAT for you. What changes between plans is the transaction fee: 5% on the free plan, 2% on Plus and 0% on Pro. It doesn't have built-in print-on-demand.

Is Payhip right for you?

Payhip is a good fit if you're just starting out and want to pay nothing until you make sales, or if you sell more than about $10,000 a month, where Pro's flat $99 has no sales limit. Between those two points, its percentage fees usually make it cost more than Sellfy. See the fee comparison above.

How much does Payhip cost?

Payhip has a very simple pricing scheme. There’s a free plan with a 5% transaction fee, a Payhip Plus plan that comes at $29/month and has a 2% transaction fee, and a Payhip Pro plan that comes at $99/month and has no transaction fees. Additionally, you also have to pay the transaction fees charged by payment processors (usually 2.9%).

Pros and cons

8. SamCart

SamCart is a shopping cart software that helps creators start selling online by building an optimized product page.

Yes, there’s a reason for calling SamCart a shopping cart instead of e-commerce software. The difference is that a shopping cart may not offer the same extended functionalities as a typical e-commerce platform like Sellfy.

At first sight, SamCart seems to be a more feature-reach solution than Gumroad as they offer some great e-commerce tools to help sellers increase their conversions. For example, one-click upsells, A/B split testing, coupons and trial offers, cart abandonment, affiliate programs, and many more.

Designing your product page with SamCart won’t be a difficult task thanks to the drag-and-drop editor. Apart from that, SamCart offers a host of premade page templates you can use instead of designing from scratch.

However, SamCart will only build a simple product page instead of a fully-fledged online store. It means that this solution might not be a perfect fit for someone looking to sell various products at the same time.

Is SamCart right for you?

If you want to sell just one or a few products, SamCart might be a good fit for you. However, even with all of the built-in e-commerce features, SamCart’s pricing might appear a little too high.

How much does SamCart cost?

SamCart doesn’t have a free plan, but it offers a 7-day free trial and two self-serve plans that are quite expensive compared to most other solutions on this list: Core at $79/month and Pro at $199/month, both 25% off when billed yearly. A custom plan is available on request.

Pros and cons

9. Stan Store

Stan Store is a platform tailored specifically for content creators and social media influencers who prioritize quick setup and seamless integration with platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Its link-in-bio style allows creators to sell digital products, subscriptions, and services directly to their followers. It is an ideal solution for those looking to monetize their content effortlessly.

Stan’s biggest strength is its simplicity. The setup process is quick—just upload your products, select a theme, tweak some colors and fonts, and you're ready to go.

While Stan Store primarily focuses on digital downloads like PDFs, templates, and eBooks, it also supports services such as webinars via Zoom or Google Meet, coaching sessions, and eCourses. However, there are some limitations, such as a maximum file size of 4GB and basic customization options that might not satisfy users looking for more advanced features.

Stan Store also provides basic marketing tools such as discount codes, affiliate marketing, and email sequences, but these are only available on the higher-tier plan. The platform offers analytics to track store visits, revenue, and leads, although these features are not as comprehensive as those offered by Sellfy.

Want more options tailored for creators? Check out our full guide on Stan Store alternatives.

Is Stan Store right for you?

Stan Store is an excellent choice for social media influencers and content creators who want a straightforward, efficient way to sell digital products and services directly to their audience.

How much does Stan Store cost?

Stan Store operates on a subscription-based pricing model without any transaction fees. The platform offers two pricing plans: Creator at $29/month ($300/year) and Creator Pro at $99/month ($948/year), with the latter including advanced marketing features like email flows and affiliate management.

Pros and cons

10. Etsy

Even though Etsy doesn’t seem like an obvious alternative to Gumroad, it’s still an option worth considering.

Why is that?

Well, the main reason is that Etsy is usually the first solution that pops up in people’s heads when they think about selling creative work.

But, what is Etsy? And, most importantly, what makes it so different from solutions like Gumroad?

First and foremost, Etsy is not a fully hosted e-commerce platform—it’s a creative marketplace. In other words, comparing Etsy to Gumroad is like trying to compare an art fair to a standalone art store. Plus, you should keep in mind that there's no way to sell your services on Etsy as it’s mostly a marketplace for handmade and physical goods.

Etsy’s main benefit is that, just like most marketplaces, it has an established customer base interested in the arts and crafts. It gives you a chance to access your target audience more easily.

On the one hand, you have 30+ million potential buyers browsing Etsy who can notice your products. And, on the other hand, you have 50+ million other products to compete with.

However, Etsy offers a bit more than just a marketplace. There’s also a service called Pattern by Etsy that allows you to create a personal storefront for your products. The solution is somewhat similar to fully-hosted platforms like Gumroad, but not as advanced or customizable. It’ll cost you a monthly fee of $15, but it’s nothing more than an add-on for someone already selling their products on Etsy.

Is Etsy right for you?

Etsy can be a great place for a small business as it’s free and easy to use. So, if you’re not looking for any complicated setups and customization (the only thing you can customize on Etsy is your logo), you should definitely give it a try.

How much does Etsy cost?

Etsy doesn’t have a subscription fee, but there’s a 6.5% transaction fee for every item you sell, a payment processing fee (3% + $0.25 per order in the US), and a $0.20 fee for every item you list.

11. Ko-fi

Ko-fi is another great alternative to Gumroad for digital creators. In essence, Ko-fi is a platform that resembles Patreon as it allows people to donate money to support their favorite creators. In other words, you may think of Ko-fi as a virtual tip jar. If memberships are what you're after, see how it stacks up against other Patreon alternatives.

There are several ways to earn money on Ko-fi. For example, you can set up a fan page where your audience donates your money (buy a virtual cup of coffee) in exchange for some additional content.

Apart from gathering donations from fans, you can also create your own Ko-fi Shop to sell digital and physical products (just like Gumroad). Yes, setting up a Ko-fi Shop allows you to start selling your work directly to your fans, but the number of available e-commerce features is very limited. Storefront customization is also super basic and there are almost no built-in marketing features to help you promote your products.

It goes without saying that Ko-fi is super easy to set up. You just need to pick a username, add a photo and bio, and connect a payment source like PayPal or Stripe. The whole process will literally take just a minute or two and you’ll have your page up and running.

With the Ko-fi Free option, Ko-fi doesn’t take a single cent from your tips. However, there’s a 5% transaction fee for every item you sell from your Ko-fi Shop. Do you also want a mobile app for your online store? Well, there’s also no mobile app on this platform, so you won’t be able to manage your account from your phone.

Is Ko-fi right for you?

Ko-fi is an effortless way to crowdsource your creative business. Bloggers and content creators will find this platform more suitable since they already have an audience that’s ready to support them or buy their products.

How much does Ko-fi cost?

Ko-fi is free to use, but Ko-fi Shop users should be ready to pay a 5% service fee for each product sold, plus payment processing fees. There’s also a Ko-fi Gold plan that costs $12/month and drops the service fee to 0% on all payments, including shop sales.

Pros and cons

12. Paddle

Paddle is a service that makes it quite easy to sell apps, games, and other digital downloads. Their main focus is on helping businesses that sell software as a service with processes like handling payments, managing subscriptions, and streamlining checkouts.

Paddle allows you to easily create a checkout page for your software and digital downloads that you can integrate into your existing website. The good thing is that Paddle takes care of all the complicated stuff like managing checkout processes, invoicing, subscriptions, and recurring payment.

Paddle allows you to customize the checkout page to match your website's overall look and feel. Plus, with the help of an overlaid checkout screen, your customers can buy your product without leaving the product page.

On the other hand, you won’t have the possibility to build your own storefront, which automatically makes this platform not suitable for those looking for a way to build an online storefront.

Is Paddle right for you?

If you create and sell apps, games, and similar software products and don't mind the transaction fees, you should definitely give Paddle a try.

How much does Paddle cost?

There are no monthly costs for using Paddle. You will be charged a flat 5% of the transaction amount + 50 cents per transaction.

Pros

• Perfect for selling apps, games, and software
• It’s free to use
• Possibility to integrate a shopping cart into a website
• Great set of built-in e-commerce features

Cons

• No possibility to build a storefront
• Transaction fees
• Limited customization options
• Limited marketing features
• Not suitable for selling physical products

Why consider Gumroad alternatives for e-commerce?

Gumroad is simple. That’s the appeal. But once you start selling seriously, the cracks show pretty fast.

Here’s where it falls short:

High transaction fees

Gumroad takes a big cut.

You're looking at 10% + $0.50 on every direct sale, plus card processing of 2.9% + $0.30, so closer to 13% on a typical sale. Sales that come through Gumroad's Discover marketplace cost 30%. Past $20,000 in a calendar month, direct sales drop to 5% + $0.50, but most creators never reach that tier.

That's fine at the start, but it adds up quickly once you get traction. At that point, you're paying a premium for simplicity.

Slow payouts

Every sale sits in your Gumroad balance for at least 7 days, and payouts run once a week. US creators can get paid within minutes, but instant payouts cost 3%. PayPal payouts carry a 2% fee.

On Sellfy and Payhip, the buyer's payment goes straight to your own Stripe or PayPal account.

Digital products only

Gumroad doesn't allow physical products. If you want to add merch, prints or physical copies of your work, you'll need a second platform. Sellfy has print-on-demand built in, and Payhip and Shopify support physical products.

Where Gumroad is still strong

To be fair, Gumroad has caught up in a few places. PayPal is back at checkout and for payouts. It has email workflows, upsells, affiliates, bundles and license keys. Since January 2025 it's also a merchant of record, so it collects and pays sales tax for you. Sellfy calculates VAT but leaves filing to you.

If those matter more to you than fees, Gumroad (or Lemon Squeezy, which works the same way) may still be the right call.

What to check before you switch from Gumroad

Whichever platform you pick, compare these points:

1. Total fees at your sales level. Add the monthly price, the transaction fee and card processing. Use the table above or the Gumroad fee calculator.
2. Payouts. When does the money reach you, and is there a holding period, a minimum amount or a fee?
3. Payment methods. Sellfy takes cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay through Stripe, plus PayPal. Lemon Squeezy and Payhip add more local methods through Stripe.
4. Sales tax. A merchant of record (Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle) files tax for you. On Sellfy you file it, with EU and UK VAT calculated at checkout and reports ready to export.
5. What you sell. Subscriptions, license keys and bundles are on Sellfy, Payhip, Gumroad and Lemon Squeezy. Only some platforms handle physical products and print-on-demand.
6. Marketing tools. Look for email marketing, upsells, cart abandonment emails and an affiliate program. On Sellfy, email marketing is on every plan, and the rest come with Business and Premium.
7. Integrations and API. Sellfy has a public REST API, an app marketplace, Zapier, and an MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT.
8. Moving your store. Sellfy imports your email contacts on every plan. On Business and Premium, its team uploads your products and recreates your store design for you. Lemon Squeezy also offers a free Gumroad migration.

Over to you

As you may have noticed, there are plenty of sites like Gumroad for you to choose from. Which of these Gumroad alternatives did you find suitable for your business?

One thing is clear:

If you’re looking for a better alternative to Gumroad that is suitable for beginners, has a better feature list, and simply performs better, you should take a closer look at Sellfy.