What is Payhip and how does it work?

Payhip keeps its model simple. You own the payment account, Payhip takes a percentage set by your plan, and every plan gets the same tools.

What is Payhip used for?

Payhip is used to run a store for your own products, with every tool on every plan. Payhip's pricing page gives each plan "All features", unlimited products and unlimited revenue, and says there is "no feature-gating" even on the free plan.

That shapes who it suits. A creator selling a few downloads gets the same courses, memberships and checkout tools as one selling thousands, and pays a monthly fee only to lower the percentage. Nobody has to upgrade to unlock a feature.

Payhip is built around a store, not around tips or fan support. It fits people who sell products to an audience they already reach. It also collects and remits sales tax in several big markets, from the EU and the UK to the US and Canada, which takes a job off the seller in those places.

How does Payhip work?

You connect a payment processor, list your products, and buyers pay through your Payhip store into your own account. Payhip works with 13 payment processors, and in most cases you connect PayPal plus one other for cards. Payhip takes its plan percentage from each sale, and the processor charges its own fee.

At checkout, Payhip can offer a second product before the buyer pays. It calls this cross-selling: the offer shows in the cart, and if the buyer takes it, it joins the same order. That works as an order bump, and our look at whether Payhip has order bumps goes through the details.

After checkout there is a second kind of offer, the upgrade discount. Payhip's help center describes it as prompting the buyer to "make another transaction", and the same offer also goes out in the email receipt. So it is a new purchase, not a one-tap add-on to the first one.

Payhip also runs a marketplace. It lists digital products only, adds no fee on top of your usual plan rate, and a store becomes eligible once it has $10 in total sales and passes a review.

What can you sell on Payhip?

Digital downloads, online courses, memberships, coaching and physical products. Payhip's homepage lists all five, with courses that can include quizzes and completion certificates, and one-to-one coaching that works with Zoom and Calendly.

Every plan can sell all of them, and every plan allows unlimited products and unlimited revenue, so the free plan is not a cut-down version of the paid ones. The marketplace is narrower than the store: it lists digital products only.

Payhip is less suited to tips and one-off support from fans. It is built around products, so if most of your money comes from people supporting you rather than buying something, a platform built around supporters fits better. Our guide to the alternatives to Payhip covers that case and the others that lead people away.

How much does Payhip cost?

Payhip costs $0, $29 or $99 a month depending on the plan, and the plan sets its cut: 5% on Free Forever, 2% on Plus and nothing on Pro. Stripe or PayPal charge their standard processing on top of every plan, no card is needed to sign up, and you can cancel at any time. Our breakdown of Payhip's fees works out the monthly sales at which each paid plan starts to cost less than the free one.

How do you get paid on Payhip?

Straight into your own payment account, as soon as the sale completes. Payhip's pricing page says it will "deposit your sales to you immediately after a transaction has been completed", because the buyer pays into the Stripe or PayPal account you connected.

So there is no Payhip balance. Nothing waits with Payhip, there is no Payhip payout fee, and there is no minimum to reach. From there, your processor's own payout schedule decides when the money reaches your bank, and you manage that inside your Stripe or PayPal account.

That puts Payhip on the pay-you-directly side of our comparison of who holds your money, alongside Stakk. That comparison sets out what each model means when something goes wrong.

Who handles sales tax on Payhip?

Payhip does, in its main markets. Its pricing page says it collects and remits EU VAT and UK VAT on your behalf automatically.

Since 1 July 2026 it has also handled US sales tax as a marketplace facilitator, and its US sales tax article answers the question of what that costs with "Nothing at all." Canadian GST/HST and PST moved over on the same date, with Quebec's QST still pending while Payhip registers.

Outside those places, Payhip lets you set up other taxes and reports them to you rather than paying them for you. Its own pages never use the phrase merchant of record. Gumroad does take that role, as the legal seller wherever it has a tax obligation, and our Gumroad and Payhip comparison sets the two models side by side.

What does Payhip not do?

Payhip does not have a one-click upsell after payment. Its upgrade discount comes after checkout but asks the buyer to make another transaction, so there is no offer the buyer accepts with one tap against the card they just used.

It does not include card processing in its percentage. Payhip's FAQ says PayPal and Stripe "will still charge at their standard rates", and that this "applies for all plans". On the free plan that means 5% to Payhip and your processor's fee as well.

It has no plan below 5% without a monthly fee. To pay less per sale you pay $29 or $99 a month, and the pricing page shows no annual discount and no trial on the paid plans.

And it does not handle tax everywhere. Outside the EU, the UK, the US and Canada, Payhip reports other taxes to you rather than paying them on your behalf.

When would I send you somewhere else?

If the fee is what you are comparing, Stakk is the wrong choice: Payhip's free plan costs $1.88 on a $20 card sale and Stakk costs $2.50, and two platforms go lower still, Whop at 2.7% + $0.30 with no monthly costs and Systeme.io at 0% on its free plan. Payhip is also the better fit if you want sales tax handled in the EU, the UK, the US and Canada, which Stakk does not do, or if you sell courses, memberships or coaching booked through Calendly, which Payhip has on its free plan. Stakk has no course hosting, no memberships, no subscriptions, no tips, no booking and no link-in-bio page builder, prices nothing above $999, sells in US dollars only and needs a Stripe account, while Payhip takes PayPal too.

Want an upsell the buyer accepts with one tap?

Payhip's cart cross-sell already does the job of an order bump. What Stakk adds is the step after payment: a post-purchase upsell the buyer accepts with one tap against the card already on file, on every account with nothing behind a tier. The order bump rides the same charge as the product, so it carries one fee rather than two, and the upsell is charged as its own sale at the same rate. Stakk costs nothing a month and takes from 10% + $0.50 a sale, card processing included, and the buyer pays into your own Stripe account, the same way Payhip deposits into yours. The layout came out of funnels that ran for agency clients before Stakk existed.

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