What is Gumroad and how does it work?

Gumroad looks like a simple store, but one choice sits under all of it: Gumroad is the seller, not you. That decides who handles tax, where the money waits and when you get paid.

What is Gumroad used for?

Gumroad is used to sell digital products to buyers you mostly bring yourself. Gumroad's pricing page lists digital products, e-books, courses and memberships, and there is no plan to choose and no monthly fee to pay before your first sale.

Most sales come from people you send. A buyer arrives through your Gumroad profile or a link you shared on social media, in an email or on your website, and checks out on Gumroad. Gumroad also runs a marketplace of its own, Discover, which can put a product in front of people who were not looking for you.

The other reason people choose it is tax. Because Gumroad is the merchant of record, its pricing page says it handles sales tax collection and remittance worldwide, wherever it has an obligation as the seller. For a creator who sells into many countries, that is often the whole point of being there.

How does Gumroad work?

Gumroad sits in the middle of every sale as the seller. You create a product and share its link. The buyer pays Gumroad, and in general the sale lands in your Gumroad balance. Gumroad takes its fee and the card processing out of that balance and pays you the rest on a schedule.

Tax follows the same model. Gumroad collects and remits sales tax where it has an obligation as the seller, and the tax settings in your dashboard are switched off because Gumroad takes care of them. That describes what Gumroad does, not what you owe.

At checkout, Gumroad can show an add-on offer. Its help article on creating upsells describes an offer shown after the buyer enters their card and presses Pay, which can add a product, swap in a different one, or offer an upgraded version. It is free on every account, and our look at whether Gumroad has order bumps goes through how it compares.

Refunds follow the seller model too. When a sale is refunded, Gumroad returns its own fee on the refunded part and keeps the card processing, because processors do not give that back.

What can you sell on Gumroad?

Digital products, e-books, courses and memberships, which are the kinds of product Gumroad's pricing page lists. There is one rate across all of them, so the type of product does not change the fee. A direct sale costs 10% + $0.50 plus card processing whether it is an e-book or a course.

There are limits on what is allowed. Gumroad's own list of what you cannot sell names copyright infringement, so the product has to be yours to sell. A design built on characters or brands that belong to someone else runs straight into that rule.

A Gumroad product can reach buyers two ways. Through your own links it is a direct sale at the standard rate. Through Discover, Gumroad's marketplace, a sale costs a flat 30%. The rate depends on where the buyer came from, not on the product.

How much does Gumroad cost?

Nothing a month, and a cut of each sale. Gumroad's fees article puts a direct sale at 10% + $0.50 and says that does not include card processing at 2.9% + $0.30, or PayPal fees, so a direct card sale costs 12.9% + $0.80 in all. Discover sales are a flat 30% with processing included, and once your paid sales in a calendar month reach $20,000, new direct sales that month drop to 5% + $0.50. Our breakdown of Gumroad's fees works through refunds, payout charges and the numbers on a real sale.

What is Gumroad Discover?

Discover is Gumroad's own marketplace, where buyers can find your product without coming through you. It is the part of Gumroad that a store on your own link cannot copy, because it reaches people who were not looking for you.

It is priced on its own. Gumroad's pricing page says the 30% applies "when new customers find and buy from you" through Discover. That 30% already includes all processing, so a $20 Discover sale costs $6.00 and nothing is added on top. The word that matters is new: the 30% is the price of a buyer Gumroad found for you, not a charge on buyers you sent yourself.

Two details are worth knowing. Discover sales stay at 30% whatever your monthly volume, because the $20,000 discount applies to direct sales. And you pay the 30% only when a sale actually comes through Discover. Whether that is good value depends on whether those buyers would ever have found you another way.

How do you get paid on Gumroad?

From your Gumroad balance, on a payout schedule. Because Gumroad is the seller, the money is Gumroad's first, and Gumroad's payout article sets out how it reaches you.

On the weekly, monthly and quarterly schedules you need a balance of at least $100, higher in some local currencies, and each sale waits at least 7 days before it can go out. A normal bank deposit carries no listed fee and takes 2 to 7 business days to process, depending on your country. The payout day varies by method, from Tuesday to Friday.

There are faster routes. US accounts with an eligible bank and at least four earlier payouts can get daily payouts. Eligible US creators can take an instant payout for a 3% fee, up to $10,000, once the account is 60 days old, and that skips both the hold and the minimum. Where Gumroad cannot pay a bank in your country, it pays through PayPal for a 2% fee.

Our comparison of who holds your money shows how this route compares with a checkout that charges straight into your own account.

What does Gumroad not do?

Gumroad does not have a one-click upsell after payment. Its checkout offer appears when the buyer presses Pay, and no post-purchase offer that the buyer accepts with one tap against the card on file is documented.

It does not include card processing in its headline rate. The 10% + $0.50 is Gumroad's own cut, and 2.9% + $0.30 of processing comes on top of every direct card sale. Discover is the exception, at 30% with processing inside it.

It does not pay into an account you own. In general the money waits in a Gumroad balance first, with a hold and a minimum on the standard schedules. That is the trade our guide to Gumroad alternatives that pay you directly looks at from the other side.

And it has no plans to choose between, so you cannot pay a monthly fee to lower the percentage. The one change is automatic: 5% + $0.50 on direct sales past $20,000 in a calendar month, with no step between 10% and 5%, resetting on the 1st.

When would I send you somewhere else?

Stakk is the wrong choice if you want someone else to be the seller and handle sales tax, which Gumroad does and Stakk deliberately does not, or if Discover is bringing you buyers, because Stakk has no marketplace. Gumroad is also the better fit for courses and memberships, which are both on its list, while Stakk has no course hosting, no memberships, no subscriptions, no tips, no booking and no link-in-bio page builder, sells in US dollars only and prices nothing above $999. And if cost per sale is the whole decision, two platforms beat both Gumroad and Stakk: Whop charges 2.7% + $0.30 with no monthly costs, and Systeme.io takes 0% on its free plan.

Want your sales to land in your own Stripe account?

Stakk is a checkout that charges the buyer straight into a Stripe account you own, so there is no balance of ours, no hold and no minimum before Stripe pays your bank. It costs nothing a month and takes from 10% + $0.50 a sale, card processing included, which is $2.50 on a $20 sale against $3.38 on a direct Gumroad card sale. The order bump rides the same charge as the product, so it carries one fee rather than two, and the upsell after payment is one tap against the card already on file. Both are on every account, and the layout came out of funnels that ran for agency clients before Stakk existed.

Start selling on Stakk, free