Lemon Squeezy vs Gumroad: SaaS Checkout or Creator Shop

The short answer: on a $30 template bought by a customer outside the US, Lemon Squeezy keeps $2.45 and Gumroad keeps $4.67 once card processing is added to its fee, and a buyer who finds you through Gumroad's Discover marketplace costs $9.00 (fees checked on 26 October 2026 on the Lemon Squeezy fees page, the Gumroad pricing page and Gumroad's fees article). Both act as merchant of record and collect the buyer's sales tax themselves, Gumroad wherever it carries the obligation. Choose Lemon Squeezy if your job is selling software, licence keys or a SaaS subscription through a checkout on your own site, knowing that its owner, Stripe, is building Stripe Managed Payments as the next home for its users. Choose Gumroad if your job is selling ebooks, courses or memberships to an audience, with a marketplace that can send you buyers you have not met.

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Sum one sale on each, then the month:

1. A $30 sale, before tax. For example, Lemon Squeezy charges $0.50 + 5% of $30 = $2.00, plus 1.5% for a buyer outside the US, $0.45, leaving $27.55; card costs are inside that fee. Gumroad charges 10% + $0.50 = $3.50 and card processing of 2.9% + $0.30 = $1.17 on top, leaving $25.33. Rates from the Lemon Squeezy fees page and Gumroad's fees article.
2. What you already sell, and on what terms. If your products are memberships on Gumroad today, count the active subscribers: Lemon Squeezy's Gumroad migration guide moves products, customers and licence keys from a sales export, but not subscriptions, which customers have to cancel and start again.
3. Net received per $100 of gross sales, every month. Lemon Squeezy issues a reverse invoice for each payout and Gumroad's sales CSV breaks down the fee on every sale, per their payout docs and fees article. That single ratio tells you whether a switch paid off.

The $30 sale, line by line

Sources: the Lemon Squeezy fees page, Gumroad's fees article and its payouts article, read on 26 October 2026. Gumroad's direct fee falls to 5% + $0.50 for the rest of any calendar month once paid sales pass $20,000. PayPal as the buyer's payment method adds 1.5% on Lemon Squeezy.

Three differences beyond the fee

What each one is built to sell

Lemon Squeezy calls itself payments, tax and subscriptions for software companies, with licence keys, signed download links and dunning on its homepage. Every store is reviewed before it can sell, approval typically takes 2 to 3 business days, and its activation guide says stores selling services or physical goods are typically not approved. Gumroad sells digital products, ebooks, courses and memberships, per its pricing page, and runs Discover, where buyers search across creators. One is a billing system with a shop attached. The other is a shop with a marketplace attached.

When the money arrives

Lemon Squeezy creates payouts on the 1st and 15th, holds net sales for 13 days, pays out from $50 and sends bank payouts in USD converted to your currency (getting paid). Gumroad pays from a $100 balance, daily for eligible US accounts, otherwise weekly, monthly or quarterly with a 7-day hold, in your local currency where it supports a bank in your country (payouts article). A European seller paid in euros gets fewer conversions from Gumroad.

How the tax is shown

Gumroad handles EU and UK VAT on digital sales and does not let you make VAT inclusive in the price, per its VAT article. Lemon Squeezy lets you switch on tax-inclusive pricing store-wide and states that income tax on your payouts remains yours to report, per its sales tax page. Gumroad's pricing FAQ adds that it collects only where it has an obligation as merchant of record, and offers a reseller certificate to creators who already file sales tax returns. If your prices are round euro figures that buyers expect to pay exactly, only one of the two can do that.

What Stripe's ownership means today

In the 2026 update dated 28 January 2026, Lemon Squeezy's CEO wrote that the team has been building Stripe Managed Payments, that support responses had slowed and product updates had become less frequent, and that the goal is an easy way for Lemon Squeezy users to migrate to it. Stripe's pricing page lists Managed Payments as Stripe's merchant of record at 3.5% per transaction on top of its payment fees. Lemon Squeezy's pricing page still takes sign-ups on 26 October 2026. Neither page gives a closing date, so do not plan around one; plan around exports you keep current.

A resubscribe list, drafted by an agent

Gumroad documents an MCP connector for Claude that reads products, recent sales with buyer emails, and payouts, and cannot refund, change prices or move money, per its setup article.

1. Add Gumroad from Claude's connector directory and grant only the Products and Sales permissions; Sales exposes buyer email addresses.
2. Ask for every membership product, then the recent sales of each with buyer email, amount and date, as one table of people who will need to restart their subscription on Lemon Squeezy.
3. The human check: the connector lists recent sales, not every sale, so match the table against the full sales export before writing to anyone. A person writes the email with the new checkout link and sends it; afterwards, end the connection under Authorized Applications in Gumroad's settings, because removing it inside Claude leaves the token working.

Free first, and where the percentage lands

Neither charges a monthly fee. Lemon Squeezy's pricing page asks for no card to sign up, and its test mode lets you build the whole checkout before activation; Gumroad charges nothing until a sale. Put one product on each and run a real purchase.

Then read how Lemon Squeezy computes its share. Its fees page takes the percentage from the order total, tax included, so part of every fee is charged on VAT that the platform passes on to a tax authority: in its own French example, 6.5% of the $4.00 of VAT is $0.26 of the $2.06 fee. Price with that in mind when most of your buyers pay VAT.

Lemon Squeezy is the fit when

• You sell software, a SaaS plan or licence keys, and the checkout lives on your own site.
• Buyers are international and you want subscriptions, dunning and licences in one system.
• You keep customer, subscription and licence exports current while Stripe builds what comes next.

Gumroad is the fit when

• You sell creative work and want Discover's browsing buyers as well as your own.
• You prefer payouts in your local currency to USD conversions.
• Gumroad's sales already run through memberships you would rather not restart.

The Lemon Squeezy entry covers its fee surcharges; how to use Lemon Squeezy sets up a SaaS plan with a trial, and Payhip vs Gumroad sets Gumroad against a store that charges by plan.

FAQ

Is Lemon Squeezy closing down?

Its pages do not say so. Sign-up and pricing are live on 26 October 2026, and the CEO's 2026 update describes Stripe Managed Payments as the future, with an easy migration as the goal.

Is card processing extra on Gumroad?

On direct sales, yes: 2.9% + $0.30 for cards, plus PayPal's fees, on top of 10% + $0.50; Discover's 30% includes processing (fees article).

Can my Gumroad subscriptions move to Lemon Squeezy?

Not directly. Lemon Squeezy's migration guide asks subscribers to cancel on Gumroad and subscribe again when their next billing cycle starts.