Gumroad vs Payhip

Both let a seller open a store today for nothing and both fund themselves from sales rather than subscriptions. For anyone testing whether a digital product sells at all, they are the two obvious places to start — and they diverge sharply once it does.

What the free route actually costs

Payhip takes five per cent of every sale on its free plan, and that share is escapable: a paid plan reduces it to two per cent, and the tier above removes it entirely. The decision point is arithmetic — once five per cent of monthly sales exceeds the subscription, paying is cheaper.

Gumroad takes ten per cent plus a fixed charge on a direct sale, close to thirteen per cent once card processing is counted, and thirty per cent through its own discovery marketplace. There is no plan that reduces any of it, because there are no plans at all. A seller taking ten dollars a month and one taking ten thousand pay the same rate.

That makes Gumroad the cheaper place to fail and the more expensive place to succeed, with no mechanism to change course.

Whose address is it

Payhip's free plan connects a domain you already own, issues the certificate for it, and lets the vendor mark be switched off in the store builder — a complete, unbranded store at no cost, which almost nothing else offers.

Gumroad also attaches a domain, with the certificate issued for it, but the arrangement is additive rather than a move: the vendor address stays live and serves the same content, and buyers still collect their files from a vendor download link. Design control over the storefront is minimal in a way Payhip's is not.

Which should you choose?

Choose Gumroad if you have one thing to sell, no certainty it will sell, and you want the shortest possible path to a checkout — accepting that the rate never improves.

Choose Payhip if you expect steady sales, want the storefront to look like your business on your own address, and want the option of buying your way out of the commission later.