Gumroad vs Payhip
Gumroad vs Payhip: which storefront keeps more of each sale?
Gumroad and Payhip both let you sell digital products with no monthly fee, and both take a share of each sale for it. Gumroad takes 10% + $0.50 on every direct sale and is the merchant of record; Payhip takes 5% on its Free Forever plan, 2% on Plus at $29 a month and nothing on Pro at $99 a month, and remits VAT and sales tax for you. Each vendor’s figures come from its own pages, with Vonza alongside as a labelled third option.
Vendor figures read on 2026-11-14 from each vendor’s own pages.
Gumroad or Payhip: the short answer
The products overlap; the maths and the tax handling differ.
Choose Gumroad if
- You want one simple fee and no plan to pick, and you want Gumroad to be the merchant of record for your sales.
- You want Discover marketplace traffic and accept the 30% share on those sales.
- You sell e-books in several formats or audio in lossless quality and want format choices built in.
Choose Payhip if
- You sell enough that a plan with a lower cut pays for itself: 2% on Plus or no cut on Pro.
- You want physical products with inventory, courses, coaching and memberships beside your downloads.
- You want PDF stamping, a download limit per file and an affiliate system on every plan.
Consider Vonza if
- You want the store next to courses, a community, email and SMS, funnels and appointment scheduling in one account.
- You sell gift cards, bundles and services as well as downloads and licence keys.
- You want a monthly plan with the platform fee set by the plan rather than a share of every order.
Gumroad vs Payhip pricing
Gumroad’s figures as its pricing page stated them on 2026-11-05, Payhip’s as its pricing page stood on 9 November 2026, read on 2026-11-14. Vonza’s price is its live price today.
| Pricing | Gumroad | Payhip | Vonza |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lowest monthly price | $0 (no monthly fee) | $0 (Free Forever) | $99/mo |
| Higher plans | None: one fee-only account | $29/month (Plus), $99/month (Pro) | Higher plans and their live prices are on the pricing page |
| Annual billing | Not applicable | Not shown on the pricing page | Pay monthly, or save up to 30% with annual billing. |
| Transaction fee | 10% + $0.50 per direct sale; 30% on sales through Discover; Gumroad takes the payment as merchant of record | 5% on Free Forever, 2% on Plus, none on Pro; PayPal and Stripe charge their standard rates on top | Your payment provider’s own processing fee, plus a Vonza platform fee per transaction that depends on your plan (see the pricing page). |
| Free trial | Free to start; the fee is the only charge | Free Forever plan with every feature; no trial needed | Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial. |
Sources: gumroad.com (gumroad.com/features, with the fees from gumroad.com/pricing as read on 2026-11-05, read on 2026-11-14); payhip.com (payhip.com/pricing as saved on 2026-11-09, with the home and feature pages, read on 2026-11-14). A copy of each page as read is kept so the figures can be checked. Vonza’s price is its live price on the day you read this page.
Gumroad and Payhip feature by feature
Each column quotes that vendor’s own pages. “Not listed” means the pages we read did not mention it, not that the platform lacks it.
| Area | Gumroad | Payhip | Vonza |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product types | Digital products, e-books, courses, tutorials, memberships and subscriptions; licence keys for software; physical products not listed on the pages we read | Digital downloads (ebooks, software, design assets, templates, video, music), online courses, coaching, memberships and physical products with inventory | Seven kinds: digital downloads, physical goods, services, bundles of 2 to 20 products, gift cards, licence keys and links |
| Store and product pages | A Gumroad profile with product pages; “Already have a site? Link it to ours under a custom domain.” | A Payhip store with themes (count not published); “Connect a custom domain … to Payhip for free” | A store list with search, collections and filters; photo-led product pages with highlights, a promo video, reviews and a countdown; each page with its own URL, title and meta description, on your Vonza subdomain or your own domain, with a “Made with Vonza” badge |
| Pricing options | One-time prices, subscriptions and memberships; “charge more for lossless audio” | One-time payments and recurring payments for memberships; coupons | One-time, free, pay what you want, subscription (weekly, monthly or yearly) or instalments, with a compare-at price and a scheduled sale |
| Checkout and upsells | Gumroad hosts the checkout and takes the payment as merchant of record; upsells and order bumps not listed on the pages we read | “Embed checkout & shopping cart” on your own site; cross-sells and upsells | Classic, one-step or two-step checkout; an order bump at checkout and a one-click offer after payment, charged to the card just used within 15 minutes; coupon codes |
| Shipping and inventory | Not listed on the pages we read | “Sell and manage inventory for any physical products. Manage your store, fulfill orders, run promotions” | Stock per product or variant with low-stock alerts and back-in-stock requests; shipping profiles by country with flat, per-item or weight-banded rates, “free over” thresholds and local pickup |
| Digital delivery | Files delivered after purchase; buyers can pick PDF, ePub or Mobi for an e-book | Download limits (3 per file by default), PDF stamping; “no storage or bandwidth limits”, 5GB per file | Private links that expire; 100 downloads per buyer by default, with a download limit and an access expiry you set; a product can be released over weeks |
| Gift cards and licence keys | “Selling software? We can create your license keys”; gift cards not listed | “Selling software? We can handle the generation, storage and issuing of keys”; gift cards not listed | Gift cards with ten designs or your own picture, sent to up to 20 people, keeping their balance across orders; licence keys generated, pasted or imported, one per sale |
| Payments and fees | 10% + $0.50 per sale through your profile or direct links; 30% per sale when a new customer finds you through Discover; Gumroad is the merchant of record and handles sales tax | 5% per sale on Free Forever, 2% on Plus, none on Pro, through your own PayPal or Stripe at their standard rates; Payhip collects and remits VAT and sales tax | Your own Stripe account (card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Klarna) or PayPal for one-time payments, or Paystack for Nigerian naira; the Vonza platform fee depends on your plan. |
| Marketing and automations | Email broadcasts, automated workflows and import of an existing email list | An affiliate system, coupons and marketing tools; automations not listed on the pages we read | Facebook, Google, Google Tag Manager and TikTok pixels per product; automations that email, text or send a gift when an order is delivered, a cart is abandoned, stock runs low or a product is bought; every buyer becomes a CRM contact |
| Courses and community | Courses and memberships sold as products; a community is not listed | Courses, coaching and memberships; a community is not listed | Courses, community, email and SMS marketing, funnels, forms and appointment scheduling in the same account |
| Pricing | $0 a month; a fee on every sale | Free Forever $0, Plus $29/month, Pro $99/month; annual billing not shown | $99/mo |
Where Gumroad is stronger, and where Payhip is
From the same pages as the tables.
Gumroad is stronger at
- Simplicity: one account, one fee, nothing to upgrade.
- Being the merchant of record: Gumroad collects and remits sales tax worldwide on your sales.
- Reach: the Discover marketplace brings new customers, at 30% of those sales.
- Formats: PDF, ePub and Mobi for e-books, and a higher price for lossless audio.
Payhip is stronger at
- The fee ladder: 5% on Free Forever falls to 2% on Plus and nothing on Pro, with every feature on every plan.
- Range: physical products with inventory, courses, coaching and memberships beside digital downloads.
- Protecting files: PDF stamping, a download limit of 3 per file by default, and 5GB per file with no storage or bandwidth limit.
- Selling through others: an affiliate system and an embeddable checkout and cart for your own site.
A third option: Vonza
Vonza is our product, so it is labelled here rather than ranked. It fits creators whose downloads are the start of a business with courses, a community and email around them.
- A store for seven kinds of product: digital downloads, physical goods, services, bundles of 2 to 20 products, gift cards, licence keys and links.
- Digital files delivered through private links that expire, with 100 downloads per buyer by default and a limit and access expiry you set.
- Courses, community, email and SMS marketing, funnels, forms and appointment scheduling in the same login, with every buyer a CRM contact.
- A monthly plan with a 14-day free trial; the platform fee depends on the plan and is set out on the pricing page.
Gumroad vs Payhip: your questions
Answered from each vendor’s own pages, with the date we read them.
Payhip gives more for less once you sell steadily: its Free Forever plan takes 5% against Gumroad’s 10% + $0.50, Plus takes 2% for $29 a month, and every plan includes physical products, courses, memberships, PDF stamping and an affiliate system. Gumroad is simpler, with one fee and no plan to choose, is the merchant of record for your sales, and brings Discover traffic. If you want to stop thinking about tax, Gumroad; if you want to keep more of each sale and sell more kinds of thing, Payhip.
On the fee, yes: Payhip’s Free Forever plan takes 5% of each sale, where Gumroad takes 10% + $0.50 on direct sales and 30% through Discover, as each vendor’s pricing page stated. Payhip’s Plus plan at $29 a month cuts the fee to 2%, and Pro at $99 a month removes it. On both platforms PayPal and Stripe charge their own processing rates; Gumroad’s fee includes processing because Gumroad takes the payment itself.
“10% + $0.50 per transaction for all sales through your profile or direct links” and “30% per transaction when new customers find and buy from you through our discover marketplace”, as its pricing page stated on 2026-11-05. There is no monthly fee, and Gumroad is the merchant of record.
Three plans with the same features and a falling fee: Free Forever at $0 a month with “+5% transaction fee”, Plus at $29 a month with “+2% transaction fee”, and Pro at $99 a month with “No transaction fee”, as the pricing page stood on 9 November 2026. The page adds that PayPal and Stripe still charge at their standard rates, and that Payhip collects and remits EU and UK VAT and US and Canadian sales tax on your behalf.
Both, in different ways. Gumroad is the merchant of record: it takes the payment and “will automatically handle all sales tax collection and remittance worldwide”. Payhip says it “automatically collects, reports and remits digital EU/UK VAT as well as US/Canadian sales tax on your behalf” while you take the payment through your own PayPal or Stripe account.
Payhip, yes: its home page says “Sell and manage inventory for any physical products. Manage your store, fulfill orders, run promotions.” Gumroad’s features page does not mention physical products, shipping or inventory. Vonza, the third option here, sells physical goods with stock per variant, shipping profiles by country and local pickup beside its digital products.
Yes. Gumroad: “Selling software? We can create your license keys.” Payhip: “We can handle the generation, storage and issuing of keys.” Vonza’s Licence key product generates up to 1,000 keys at a time or imports up to 5,000 from a CSV, and gives each buyer one key on the thank-you page, the receipt and their downloads page.
Payhip sells courses, coaching and memberships beside downloads, and Gumroad sells courses and memberships with email broadcasts; neither lists SMS, a CRM or appointment scheduling. Vonza, our own product, includes courses, community, email and SMS marketing, funnels, forms and appointment scheduling beside its store, and every buyer becomes a contact in its CRM.
Want to see the third option?
Every Vonza plan starts with a free trial, so you can set up a store beside Gumroad or Payhip before you decide.
