Payhip vs Stan Store: Which Keeps More of Your Sales?

When you boil it down to basics, the question of Payhip vs Stan Store ultimately comes down to your monthly sales. Payhip is cheaper when your sales are under roughly $580 a month. Above that, Stan Store's flat $29 plan keeps more of your money.

But fees are only half the story. Payhip is a store you can put on your own site. Stan Store is a link-in-bio page built for social selling. And if your focus is on selling courses, I'll share a third option for you towards the end of this guide.

Let's get into the details...

The table below gives you a breakdown of the prices and overview of the features of Stan Store and Payhip. Prices here are in USD and apply for a monthly subscription. Stripe or PayPal processing fees will apply for both Payhip and Stan Store on top of the prices quoted here

Payhip's fee per month decreases as you pay more per month. Stan Store charges a flat price and has no platform fee. This is all that there is to the two companies' pricing models, and it's how one will beat out the other at particular sales numbers.

With Payhip pricing, all three of their plans have identical features:

• Free Forever: $0 a month and a 5% fee per sale.

• Plus: $29 a month and a 2% fee.

• Pro: $99 a month and no platform fee.

Payhip lists unlimited products and unlimited revenue on all plans. There is no annual price listed for any of their plans.

Payhip’s pricing plans

Stan Store has two plans, both are charged with a 0% platform fee.

• Creator: $29 a month, or $300 a year ($25 a month).

• Creator Pro: $99 a month, or $948 a year ($79 a month).

There's no free plan, but they do offer a 14-day free trial. Stan says upsells, order bumps and payment plans need Creator Pro.

Here is the Stan Store vs Payhip maths. Payhip Free costs 5% of sales. Stan Creator costs $29. They cost the same at $580 in monthly sales ($29 divided by 0.05). Below that, Payhip is cheaper. If your sales are above $580/month, Stan is the cheaper option.

Here is the monthly cost for three different levels of sales before the cost of processing by Stripe or PayPal:

Annual payment of Stan Creator costs $25/month (instead of $29/month) whereas Payhip pages don't offer an annual payment option.

One catch with Stan Creator: it does not include order bumps or payment plans. If you need those (and we'd definitely recommend this for optimizing your AOV), compare Payhip's plans against Stan Creator Pro at $99/month.

For Payhip, the free starting point combined with the option to sell from your own website is where it wins. You sell online with no monthly charge and then switch to a paid option when the small fee starts to eat into your margins.

• Free to start. The free plan comes with all the features you need, you won't have to worry about monthly payments.

• Embeddable checkout. You can sell from your own site, not only a hosted page.

• EU and UK VAT. Payhip says it collects and remits both automatically.

• Affiliates. Marketing tools: affiliates, coupons, referrals and reviews.

• Wide product range. It sells downloads, courses, memberships, coaching and physical products.

It lists video, quizzes, assignments, drip feed and certificates in its course tools but I couldn't find any mention of community spaces in its pages.

Stan Store wins when you're driving traffic to your products from Instagram or TikTok accounts. This is a mobile-first storefront that you can add to your bio. All plans have a flat price and no platform fee.

• Built for link-in-bio. Your store is one page, set up for social traffic.

• AutoDM. The Creator plan includes automated Instagram replies.

• Flat price. $29 a month makes it easy to plan as your sales grow.

• Zero platform fees. Just process through Stripe or PayPal at the standard rate.

On the other hand, the functionality to offer upsells, order bumps, payment plans and email flows is available only on Creator Pro for $99.

Choose based on the location of your buyers and how much you sell.

• Social-first creator: Stan Store.

• Website-first seller of downloads: Payhip.

• Seller in the EU or UK: Payhip, for the built-in VAT handling.

• Selling under about $580 a month: Payhip Free.

• Selling well above $580 a month: Stan Creator, or Payhip Pro to sell directly from your own website.

• Selling a course, program or want community features? read on.

Need more? Find out about other similar tools in our guides to Stan Store alternatives, Stan Store pricing and Payhip vs Gumroad. If you're new to Stan then read about what Stan Store is and our Stan Store review.

When you're selling a course or programme, it's worth taking a look at Kourses before making a decision. 

What sets Kourses apart is that it's a course and community platform that doesn't charge platform transaction fees, regardless of the plan you choose. The only fee you'll pay is Stripe's processing fee.

It's also designed to make your content look premium, with beautiful, mobile optimized content delivery portals, as well as conversion optimized checkout functionality.

In-app communities, digital downloads and an in-app checkout are also part of Kourses. All plans offer order bumps, one-click upsells, payment plans and abandoned cart recovery.

There are three plans: Starter ($15/month), Pro ($59/month) and Unlimited ($99/month). If you pay yearly, these are reduced to $9/month, $49/month and $79/month respectively.

For a $497 course sold 20 times a month ($9,940 in sales) here is the fee maths before Stripe or PayPal fees:

Kourses checkout example highlighting an order bump.

In the interests of full disclosure, Kourses might not be the best option for everyone. 

There's currently no link-in-bio storefront, no PayPal checkout and no sales page builder. If you're selling low-price downloads to a social audience, Stan Store might be a better fit. If you want a free start and EU VAT handled then Payhip is worth a look.

Kourses payment options include one-time payments, subscriptions and instalment plans. Example from the Kourses marketing site.

Selling online courses? Want your content to look like a million dollars? You can start a 14-day free trial of Kourses. For a closer look, see Kourses vs Stan Store.

If you are selling under about $580 per month then Payhip's free plan will cost you less than Stan Store's $29 per month Creator plan. After that Stan Store will cost less. Note that both platforms charge processing fees on sales.

Payhip charges 5% on Free, 2% on Plus, and 0% on Pro. Stan Store charges no platform fee for either plan. In both cases you will have to pay the normal processing fees of Stripe or your PayPal account.

Payhip offers a free plan with all features, whereas Stan Store offers a 14-day free trial. After which there is no free plan.

If you're using Payhip, they say they'll take care of collecting and sending EU and UK VAT for you. But if you're with Stan Store, you should check their help pages to see how they handle taxes, don't just assume it's all taken care of.

This would be around $580 per month when Stan Creator is better than Payhip Free and then around $3,500 per month when the $99 of Payhip Pro is better than Plus. Switch when the fee you are paying is greater than the fee for the next plan.

Stan Store lists the yearly rate for each, such as $300/yr for Creator instead of $348/yr and $948/yr for Creator Pro instead of $1,188/yr, whereas Payhip does not list any yearly rates on the various pages.

Both use Stripe and/or PayPal as payment processors. Payment terms will therefore vary by processor. Please refer to the help pages of each for full information.

Payhip sells online courses, memberships and coaching. Stan Store only offers payment plans if you are on Creator Pro. For building a complete online course business, however, you will need a course platform that gives you more scope.