Payhip vs Gumroad: Fees per Sale and Who Finds the Buyer

The short answer: if you bring your own buyers, Payhip keeps less of every sale: 5% on its $0 plan, 2% on Plus at $29 a month and nothing on Pro at $99, against Gumroad's 10% + $0.50 per sale, with card processing charged on top of both (checked on 26 October 2026 on the Payhip pricing page, the Gumroad pricing page and Gumroad's fees article). Gumroad earns its higher fee when its own marketplace sends the buyer: a sale through Discover costs a flat 30%, processing included, but it comes from people who had never heard of you. Choose Payhip if your job is selling templates, ebooks or courses to a newsletter or social audience you already have. Choose Gumroad if your job is testing a first product with no audience yet, where a marketplace of browsing buyers is worth the 30%.

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Both take care of the tax that makes selling files abroad tedious, and both let you start without a monthly fee. They differ on who holds the money and who the buyer belongs to. Payhip routes each payment through your own Stripe or PayPal account and pays out immediately after the transaction; Gumroad is the merchant of record, collects the money itself and pays you on a schedule.

Price a month of your own sales:

1. One $40 sale, all fees in. For example, on Payhip's $0 plan with Stripe, Payhip keeps 5% = $2.00 and Stripe 2.9% + $0.30 = $1.46, so $36.54 reaches you. On Gumroad, a direct sale costs 10% + $0.50 = $4.50 plus the same $1.46 of card processing, leaving $34.04; through Discover the flat 30% is $12.00, leaving $28.00. Fees from Payhip's pricing and Stripe article and Gumroad's fees article, before VAT.
2. Your monthly sales against Payhip's plans. For example, at $2,000 a month in 50 sales, Payhip's fees are $100 on the $0 plan, $29 + $40 = $69 on Plus and $99 on Pro, while Gumroad's direct fee is $200 + 50 x $0.50 = $225 (Payhip, Gumroad). Gumroad drops new direct sales to 5% + $0.50 once paid sales pass $20,000 in a calendar month.
3. Where last quarter's buyers came from. Open your current store's sales or referrer report and sort buyers by source. If most came from your own list and posts, a marketplace is not what you are paying for. After a switch, keep the funnel in Payhip's conversion rate report, from page views through to paid checkouts, as the baseline.

A worked example: what a $40 sale leaves you

Fees read on 26 October 2026 from the Payhip pricing page, Payhip's Stripe article and Gumroad's fees article. Stripe's rate varies by country, and Payhip's monthly plan fees are not spread over the sale here.

Three differences beyond the fee

Who is the seller of record

Since the start of 2025 Gumroad sells as merchant of record, collecting and remitting sales tax wherever it carries the obligation, EU and UK VAT on digital products included (pricing page, VAT article). Payhip takes the same paperwork off you for EU and UK VAT on digital goods and for US and Canadian sales tax, the US part free of charge since 1 July 2026, while the payment itself runs through your own processor (US sales tax article). Both spare you the filing. Only Gumroad sits between you and the buyer's card.

When the money arrives

Payhip deposits each sale immediately after the transaction completes (pricing page). Gumroad needs a $100 minimum balance, and on weekly, monthly or quarterly payouts a sale is held at least 7 days, per its payouts article. For a seller with uneven months, the second means waiting.

Who finds the buyer

Gumroad Discover recommends products to buyers outside your audience once your account has $100 in genuine sales, payout details and a risk review that takes about three weeks on average (Discover article). Payhip runs a marketplace too: it lists digital products after $10 in sales and an account review, and charges no extra fee on those sales (marketplace article). Gumroad's window charges 30% for the introduction; Payhip's costs nothing more to stand in.

Price the switch with Gumroad's MCP connector

If you already sell on Gumroad, its MCP server lets an AI assistant such as Claude read your store from a chat. The setup article lists what it can do: list products with prices, read recent sales and payouts, create products as unpublished drafts and, with product access, publish or unpublish them. It cannot refund, change a price or upload files.

1. Connect the Gumroad connector and grant only the products and sales permissions. Sales access shows buyers' email addresses, so grant it only if you are comfortable with that. Products access also lets it publish, so keep publishing with a person: approve any publish action in your MCP client, as Gumroad's MCP page advises, or publish from the Gumroad dashboard yourself.
2. Ask for every product with its price and the recent sales the connector can list, grouped by product, then ask the assistant to apply the five routes in the table above to those totals, with the arithmetic shown.
3. The human check: download the sales CSV from Gumroad, which breaks down the fee on every sale, and compare its totals with the assistant's before anyone decides. Then revoke the connector under Authorized Applications in Gumroad's settings; disconnecting it inside the chat app does not end its access.

Payhip documents no AI assistant of its own; its public API covers coupons and license keys, and its Zapier triggers fire on new sales, refunds and memberships.

Free first, and the marketplace setting

Both start at no monthly cost: Payhip's $0 plan asks for no card, and Gumroad charges no monthly fee. Put the same product on each, send both links to a few people on your list, and read what arrives in your account against the table above.

Then open the Share tab of any Gumroad product. Its Discover article says Discover is enabled for all your products by default, and that products on Discover are automatically opted into Gumroad's affiliate program; once the account qualifies, a buyer who reaches you through Gumroad's search costs 30% instead of 10% + $0.50. That default fills Gumroad's marketplace with your catalogue, which is the point of it, and it is your margin that pays for the reach. If the buyers are yours already, remove the product's category to take it off Discover.

Sell on Payhip if

• You bring the audience, and a fee of 0% to 5% beats 10% + $0.50 (Payhip pricing).
• You want each sale in your own Stripe or PayPal account the moment it completes.
• You sell courses, coaching or physical products from the same store.

Sell on Gumroad if

• You have no audience yet and want a marketplace to test ideas in.
• You prefer the platform as merchant of record for every sale.
• You sell over $20,000 a month directly, where the fee falls to 5% + $0.50 (fees article).

The Payhip entry explains its plan break-evens, how to use Payhip turns a free download into sales, and Payhip vs Shopify sets it against a full store. Gumroad has no entry on this site.

FAQ

Is card processing included in Gumroad's 10% + $0.50?

No. Gumroad's fees article says the 10% + $0.50 on direct sales does not include card processing of 2.9% + $0.30 or PayPal's fees; the 30% on Discover sales does include processing.

Does Payhip have a marketplace like Discover?

Yes. Stores with at least $10 in sales can submit digital products, which are reviewed within about 10 days, and marketplace sales carry only the usual Payhip fee (marketplace article).

Who handles EU VAT on each?

Both, for digital products. Gumroad acts as merchant of record for EU and UK sales; Payhip handles digital VAT for EU and UK buyers unless you untick it in the Taxes settings (Gumroad VAT article, Payhip VAT article).