Payhip vs Gumroad: Which is best for you? (2024)

Let’s compare Payhip vs Gumroad based on their features, pros and cons, and key differences.

Joanna Taylor

By Joanna Taylor  •  Updated 26 May 2024

Payhip vs Gumroad

Writing an ebook, creating a course, or building a community is already quite challenging. The last thing you need is the hassle of switching platforms because one doesn't suit your online business needs.

Payhip offers a wide range of built-in features like a course builder, marketing tools, product variants, an affiliate program, and more. 

Gumroad, on the other hand, is easier to use and best for someone who is just getting started with selling digital products.
So, how do you decide which one to use?

This article will help you choose. We'll compare Payhip vs Gumroad based on their features, pros and cons, and key differences. Let's get started.

Payhip vs Gumroad – At a Glance

FeaturesPayhipGumroad
Pricing StructureFlat monthly fee + transaction feePercentage-based transaction fee
What you payFree plan-5% transaction fees Plus plan- $29/month + 2% transaction fees Pro Plan-$99/month ( zero transaction fees)10% fee + processing fees (~2.9% + $0.30)
Customizable StorefrontLimited customization options for the storefrontExtensive customization options for the storefront
Video HostingFree (YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia)…or $9 per month for Payhip video hosting + video playerFree (but no video player)
Online Course DeliveryProper course player with online course deliveryVideos can be downloaded or streamed
Physical ProductsDoes not support physical productsSupports physical products
AnalyticsBasic analytics featuresRobust analytics features
Landing Pages for CoursesYesLimited
MarketplaceNoYes
Mobile AppDoes not offer a dedicated mobile appOffers a dedicated mobile app for managing sales
Customer ReviewsDoes not support customer reviewsSupport customer reviews
Community SupportSmaller community presenceThriving community with resources and support
Instant payoutYesNo
Payment ProcessingStripe and PayPalDirect Deposits Plus & PayPal

Payhip vs Gumroad – Features Comparison

When selling coaching programs, memberships, online courses, or digital downloads, there are features that an all in one platform should have. Let's see what features Payhip and Gumroad offer to their users, along with the potential pros and cons.

Payhip

Payhip Home - Payhip vs Gumroad

Payhip is an easy-to-use ecommerce platform that is designed to sell courses, digital downloads, subscriptions, coaching services and more without having to create a storefront or deal with payment processing. 

You can view detailed analytics relating to what's selling on your store and how you can improve conversions. In addition to this, you can make use of marketing features like upgrades and cross-sells, email updates, coupons, and more.

Payhip Main Features Overview

Payhip's store builder allows you to customize all areas of your store. You can browse through editable themes and customize them according to your needs.
Your customers can purchase via PayPal or from all major cards (Visa, American Express, Discover and more)
Payhip offers advanced marketing tools features like referral discounts, updating customers, embedded checkout & shopping carts, pay-what-you-want pricing, and offer coupons.
Harness the power of affiliate marketing by rewarding affiliates when they make a sale.
Payhip offers instant downloads, which means customers will have instant access to the files after purchase.
Payhip offers integration with many of your favorite tools like Wix, WordPress, Squarespace, Convertkit, and more.

Payhip Pros

Payhip's store builder allows you to customize all areas of your store. You can browse through editable themes and customize them according to your needs.
Your customers can purchase via PayPal or from all major cards (Visa, American Express, Discover and more)
Payhip offers advanced marketing tools features like referral discounts, updating customers, embedded checkout & shopping carts, pay-what-you-want pricing, and offer coupons.
Harness the power of affiliate marketing by rewarding affiliates when they make a sale.
Payhip offers instant downloads, which means customers will have instant access to the files after purchase.
Payhip offers integration with many of your favorite tools like Wix, WordPress, Squarespace, Convertkit, and more.
Payhip offers basic analytics features. You don't get access to heatmaps, A/B testing tools, or any other advanced features to help you better analyze your store performance.
Payhip transaction fees might not be a problem for its Plus and Pro users, but the free users have to pay a transaction fee of 5%.

Gumroad

Gumroad Home -Payhip vs Gumroad

Gumroad is one of the oldest ecommerce solutions that lets you quickly start selling your products online. It offers an incredibly easy way of turning any blog or website into an e-commerce store.

Gumroad was primarily launched to help content creators and artists make money online. All you have to do is put your work on Gumroad, and it will help potential customers to directly purchase your offer from the platform. 

From hosting your online store to handling product delivery and file sharing, Gumroad handles it all.

Gumroad Main Features Overview

Sell anything- video lessons, blogs, pre-orders, monthly subscriptions, or physical products. You can experiment with all kinds of ideas and formats.
Gumroad has a dedicated reporting system that helps you track every sale, customer location, and conversion rate (CR).
The Gumroad Discover platform is one of the best marketing platforms for Gumroad users. It's a marketplace where you can check offers from other creators. Gumroad Discover recommends your products to potential customers, helping you grow faster and make more sales.
Gumroad offers multiple payment options, including one-time, recurring, or fixed-length payments in your currency of choice.
With Zapier, you can connect Gumroad to thousands of apps on your tech stack.

Gumroad Pros

You can sell digital products, memberships, and physical products on Gumroad.
Gumroad has a clean, intuitive interface, and it only takes a few minutes to create your account to start selling.
Convenient push notifications to keep you informed about sales.
Detailed analytics to identify your top-performing channels and countries.
No monthly fee or pricing tiers

Gumroad Cons

The customization on Gumroad is limited.
High transaction fee of 10% plus credit card processing fees on top.
No instant payout. Payments are issued weekly.

Payhip vs. Gumroad - Pricing Comparison

Gumroad has recently revised its pricing, and it's definitely a hot topic to discuss before making a decision.

Previously, Gumroad’s pricing was on a sliding scale. That meant the more you process transactions through Gumroad, the less its fees would be.

Payhip vs Gumroad - Gumroad Pricing

The new Gumroad pricing removes the sliding scale and replaces it with a flat 10% fee + processing fees (~2.9% + $0.30). This means if you are selling a $100 product, Gumroad will take $10 dollar from each sale.

Payhip vs Gumroad - Gumroad Float

This is not a huge deal for small creators ( < $10,000 lifetime earnings) but twice as expensive for those over $10,000 in earnings.

Without any added benefits for big creators, the changed pricing is unjustifiable to users.

On the other hand, Payhip continues with the sliding scale revenue method. It offers three plans-

  • Free plan with 5% transaction fees
  • Plus plan of $29/month with a 2% transaction fee
  • Pro plan of $99/month with zero transaction fees
Payhip Pricing -Payhip vs Gumroad

All of these plans have the same features. The only difference lies in the transaction fees.

You can either save money on the plan and settle for a free plus plan or ditch transaction fees entirely and go with the Pro plan.

Verdict:

Even though Gumroad doesn't have a paid plan, the transaction fees change how much money you make. 

If you are someone who makes good money (>$10,000) selling on Gumroad, then you will have to pay a hefty price as a traction fee compared to Payhip, which rewards high-volume customers with zero percent transaction charges

Payhip vs. Gumroad Pricing Comparison

Both Payhip and Gumroad are built with beginners in mind. Along with keeping simplicity as their primary focus, they also help users scale their business through its marketing, affiliate, and course-building features.

Now, you might think that if both platforms are similar, you can choose any of them.

Not so fast; let's discuss some of their major differences that will help you make a decision.

1. Difference in tools to promote your store

When it comes to promoting your online store, both Payhip and Gumroad offer some solid features.

Gumroad Discover is one of Gumroad's coolest features, and it recommends products to potential buyers. It helps its customers grow beyond their existing audience and find more people who will be interested in their work.

Payhip vs Gumroad - Gumroad Discover

You can consider this as another marketing tool for your product. But it's not free. Gumroad will take a 10% share of each transaction of products featured on Gumroad Discover.

Payhip doesn't have any such marketplaces where its customers can showcase their products. However, Payhip allows you to use the power of social media to promote your store. You can provide extra discounts to customers if you tweet or review your product. 

This can be an excellent feature for someone who has an existing follower base.

Verdict:

If you are new to selling digital products and want to reach a vast audience, then Gumroad Discover is an excellent option. 

It will give your store that initial engagement required to scale your business. However, if you don't want to pay a 10% fee to Gumroad, then Payhip's social boost feature is an affordable alternative.

2. Store customization

Gumroad offers very limited flexibility when it comes to store customization..
There are no store theme options, which means your page won't be different from any other checkout pages powered by Gumroad. 

You can only add some custom fields to the page, customize virtual receipts, create product categories, add a custom domain, and change some colors.

On the other hand, the Payhip store builder offers far more control over the design and layout of your store. You can make your store match your brand style with new customization options like-

  • Beautifully designed themes that are fully customizable
  • Add videos on your store
  • Share photos with different layout
  • Add testimonials
  • Add a featured product section on any of the stores
  • Add a newsletter section to get emails
  • Add new custom pages
  • Customize colors and fonts
  • Build a community with blogs
  • Build a multilingual store

Verdict:

Payhip definitely has better customization options compared to Gumroad. If you want to sell digital products right from the second you enter a platform, then Gumroad is your option. However, if you want your store to look presentable and unique, then Payhip should be your option.

3. Weekly payouts

Gumroad has a payment threshold of $10. Unless your store sales revenue reaches that amount, you will not receive your payment. 

Not only that, Gumroad releases payment only on Friday, so even if your balance reaches the threshold on Monday, you will have to wait till Friday for payments.

If you live in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the USA, you will receive payments directly in your bank account. But, if you live elsewhere, you can only receive your payments via Gumroad. In simple terms, without PayPal, you cannot get your payment from Gumroad.

In comparison, Payhip has no threshold payment. So, with Payhip, you don't have to wait for a specific day of the month to receive your payments. You can use Paypal or Stripe to run your Payhip online store.

Verdict:

If you want quick payouts, then Payhip should be your option. The platform also offers more diverse payment options that are accessible worldwide.

4. Marketing tools

Unlike Payhip, Gumroad offers free marketing features that allow you to create or import an email list. However, the Gumroad email tool has limited functionality, but it can help you get more sales by:

  • Creating automated email sequences
  • Sending out newsletters
  • Offering freebies
  • Announcing product launches

On the other hand, Payhip offers advanced marketing tools like referrals, cross-selling and upselling, coupon codes, and affiliate marketing. Both Payhip and Gumroad integrate with tools like CampaignMonitor, MailChimp, etc.

Verdict:

Most of the marketing features in Payhip and Gumroad are similar. However, if you don't want to spend any money accessing these features, then Gumroad should be your choice. Otherwise, Payhip offers vast marketing options, but it's not free.

Payhip vs Gumroad - Which is better?

Both Payhip and Gumroad are excellent ecommerce platforms for selling your digital and physical products. 

However, they differentiate in features, pricing, and user experience. Choosing between Payhip and Gumroad depends on your specific needs and preferences.

Use Payhip because:

You want a great store builder
You want better pricing (less than Gumroad)
It offers the same features in all its three plans
It provides helpful marketing and customization features

Use Gumroad because:

You don't want to opt for pricing tiers (still, the money you pay to Gumroad depends on your sales)
Want access to Gumroad Discover
Want to sell pre-orders
Wants a dedicated reporting system to track your sales

Why not consider Kourses an alternative?

Payhip vs Gumroad - Kourses

Whether you want to start an online business, sell courses, memberships, or digital products-Kourses will help you do that. 

It offers beautiful online courses & learning portals that can be customized according to your brand style. Its drag-and-drop editor is easy to use, includes fast video hosting, and allows attachment of PDF files and other downloads.

Kourses Features:

With Kourses hub, you can set up communities that can incorporate one or more courses and provide additional content relevant to those courses. You can then add members who can access those hubs.
You can integrate your favorite third-party tools to work with your current tech stack smoothly.
You can create and customize your communities to get members to engage.
Kourses make managing members easy. You can create customizable membership access groups, control when the content is released, and connect with popular checkout tools like OptimizeCheckouts, ThriveCart, and SamCart.
Allow students to download, add comments, auto-play the next lessons, and star favorite chapters.

No matter what you want to do, teach an online course, talk to your community, or sell different digital products. You can do it all in Kourses.

Join the waiting list to get early access to Kourses.

Create. Engage. Profit

Start building a better membership site.

The power to create beautiful membership portals that make your content the star of the show. Engaging experiences. Powerful business tools.