Where to Sell Digital Products: Top Platforms and Fees Compared
Where to sell digital products: Etsy, Gumroad, Payhip, Sellfy, Stan Store and shopspace compared on a $100 sale and on $2,000 a month.
Sell digital products on a marketplace like Etsy or Gumroad's Discover if you have no audience yet, because the marketplace brings buyers in exchange for a bigger cut. Sell from your own store, such as Payhip, Sellfy, Stan Store or shopspace, if you already have followers or an email list, because you keep more of every sale.
If you already bring your own audience, you can start a 7-day free trial of shopspace, which takes 0% per sale for a flat $19 a month billed yearly.
Marketplace or your own store: the choice that decides your fees
A marketplace puts your product where buyers are already searching. Etsy and Gumroad's Discover section both work this way, and both charge for that traffic. Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee and 6.5% of each sale, plus 15% on any order that came from one of its Offsite Ads (12% for shops that made $10,000 or more in the past year, where the ads become mandatory). Gumroad takes a flat 30% on sales that come through Discover. You also sit next to similar products in the same search results.
Your own store is a page you send people to from Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or your email list. Nobody browses into it by accident, so the traffic is your job. In return you pay a monthly price, a percentage, or both, and usually a much smaller share of each sale. You also keep the buyer's email address, which is the thing that lets you sell to them again.
A common path is to start on a marketplace to learn what sells, then move to your own store once people buy from your link.
Fees on a $100 sale, platform by platform
These are the fees as of September 2026, taken from each platform's official pricing page. Card processing (Stripe or PayPal) applies on every platform, so it is left out to keep the comparison fair.
| Platform | Type | Cheapest plan | Platform fee on a $100 sale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Etsy | Marketplace | None needed | $6.70 ($0.20 listing + 6.5%), plus $15 if an Offsite Ad made the sale |
| Gumroad | Marketplace and profile | None | $10.50 direct (10% + $0.50); $30 through Discover |
| Lemon Squeezy | Own store, merchant of record | None | $5.50 (5% + $0.50, card processing included) |
| Linktree Free | Link-in-bio with store | $0 | $12 (12%) |
| Beacons Free or Creator | Link-in-bio with store | $0 or $10 a month | $9 (9%) |
| Payhip Free | Own store | $0 | $5 (5%) |
| Payhip Plus | Own store | $29 a month | $2 (2%) |
| Ko-fi Gold | Tips and shop | $12 a month | None (0%) |
| Sellfy Starter | Own store | $29 a month ($22 yearly) | None (0%), up to $10,000 in sales a year |
| Stan Store Creator | Own store | $29 a month ($25 yearly) | None (0%) |
| shopspace Creator | Own store | $29 a month ($19 yearly) | None (0%) |
Etsy also charges its own payment processing fee on each order, and Gumroad's 30% Discover rate already includes processing. Sources: Etsy fees, Gumroad pricing, Lemon Squeezy pricing, Linktree pricing, Beacons plans, Payhip pricing, Ko-fi pricing, Sellfy pricing, Stan Store pricing.
What you keep at $500 and $2,000 a month
A single sale hides the monthly subscription, so here is a whole month, assuming $25 orders (20 orders at $500, 80 orders at $2,000) and yearly-billed prices wherever a plan offers them.
| Platform | Takes at $500 | You keep | Takes at $2,000 | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gumroad (direct sales) | $60 | $440 | $240 | $1,760 |
| Linktree Free | $60 | $440 | $240 | $1,760 |
| Beacons Free | $45 | $455 | $180 | $1,820 |
| Etsy (no Offsite Ads) | $36.50 | $463.50 | $146 | $1,854 |
| Lemon Squeezy | $35 | $465 | $140 | $1,860 |
| Payhip Free | $25 | $475 | $100 | $1,900 |
| Payhip Plus | $39 | $461 | $69 | $1,931 |
| Sellfy | $22 | $478 | $59 | $1,941 |
| Stan Store Creator | $25 | $475 | $25 | $1,975 |
| Ko-fi Gold | $12 | $488 | $12 | $1,988 |
| shopspace Creator | $19 | $481 | $19 | $1,981 |
Three notes. At $2,000 a month you sell $24,000 a year, which is over the $10,000 yearly cap on Sellfy's Starter plan, so the Sellfy row uses its Business plan ($59 a month billed yearly). Lemon Squeezy's fee already includes card processing and tax handling, so its real gap to the others is smaller than the table shows. And Ko-fi Gold really is the cheapest line here.
The pattern is simple. Percentage-only platforms cost nothing when you sell nothing and cost the most once you sell. A flat $19 a month beats Gumroad's direct fee at around $160 a month in sales, and beats Payhip's free plan at $380 a month.
At $2,000 a month, Gumroad's direct fee and Linktree Free each take $240, more than a full year of shopspace at $228. Start a 7-day free trial of shopspace and keep it: 0% per sale, flat $19 a month billed yearly.
Who each platform fits
Etsy fits if you have no audience and sell something people already search for, like planners, printables or templates. Etsy collects and remits VAT on digital downloads where required. The cost is the Offsite Ads fee on ad-driven orders and the competition in search. The full breakdown is in Etsy seller fees for digital products.
Gumroad is the simplest place to start: no monthly fee, and since January 1, 2025 it acts as merchant of record, handling sales tax and VAT for you. Discover can bring buyers, at 30%. Direct sales drop to 5% + $0.50 after $20,000 in a calendar month. See Gumroad fees explained for the math at different prices.
Lemon Squeezy fits software and digital products sold worldwide. It is the merchant of record, and one fee covers processing, tax and platform. Payouts arrive twice a month.
Payhip has a free plan with every feature, handles EU and UK VAT for you, and pays out immediately after each sale. It gets cheaper per sale as you move up to Plus and Pro. The plans are compared in Payhip pricing and fees.
Sellfy charges a flat price with 0% per sale and sells physical products and print-on-demand as well as downloads. Watch the yearly sales caps ($10,000, $50,000 and $200,000); above them Sellfy may start charging a 2% overage fee.
Stan Store charges 0% per sale on a $25 a month yearly plan. There is no free plan, email broadcasts are only on the $99 Creator Pro plan, and no plan offers a custom domain.
Beacons and Linktree are link-in-bio tools with a store added: fine for a first sale, but the percentage stays until their upper plans.
Ko-fi is built around tips; Gold at $12 a month is the cheapest option for a few downloads next to a tip jar.
Course platforms such as Kajabi, Teachable and Podia are a separate category, priced for course businesses. They are compared in the best platforms for selling online courses.
shopspace is built for creators who bring their own audience and sell more than one kind of thing. One store holds digital downloads, physical products, courses with progress tracking, bookings for calls and coaching, memberships with community access, webinars, bundles, lead magnets, a tip jar and external links. The Creator plan includes email campaigns and sequences, automations on store events and Instagram automations such as auto-DM on comment. Money goes straight to your own Stripe account and shopspace takes 0% of it. The Pro plan ($39 a month billed yearly or $49 month to month) adds a custom domain, the Meta pixel with Conversions API, and 10,000 AI actions a month. shopspace has no marketplace and no VAT handling, only the first 7 days are free, and it will not bring you buyers.
How to choose: five questions
- Do you have an audience? If nobody follows you yet, a marketplace gives you a chance of being found. If you have followers, you do not need to pay for traffic you already have.
- What will you sell in the next six months? Downloads only, or also courses, calls, memberships or physical products? Pick a platform that can hold all of it, so you do not end up paying for three tools.
- What will you realistically sell each month? Find your row in the table above. At low sales a percentage plan costs less; the line sits around $160 a month against Gumroad and $380 against Payhip Free.
- Do you need tax handled for you? Merchants of record (Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy) and platforms that remit VAT (Payhip, and Etsy for digital downloads) take that work off your plate. Own-store platforms without it, shopspace included, leave tax with you.
- Can you leave later? Check that you can export your customers' emails. Your email list is the one asset that moves with you from platform to platform.
Mistakes that cost more than fees
- Expecting the platform to bring buyers. Outside the marketplaces, no store sends you traffic. Plan where your visitors come from before you pick where they pay.
- Long paths to checkout. A bio link that goes to a link page, then to another site, then to checkout loses buyers at every step. Fewer clicks between the post and the payment means more sales.
- Not collecting emails. A lead magnet, a free download in exchange for an email, turns followers into a list you can sell to again.
The verdict
If you have no audience yet, start on Etsy or Gumroad and let the marketplace do the finding while you learn what sells. If you want every tax question handled for you, Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy or Payhip are built for that.
If you already have followers or a list, sell regularly, and want downloads, courses, bookings and memberships in one store with nothing taken from each sale, shopspace is the better home. At $2,000 a month it keeps $221 more than Gumroad's direct fees ($1,981 against $1,760) for a flat $19 a month billed yearly.
Set up your store on shopspace with a 7-day free trial. A card is required at signup, nothing is charged during the 7 days, and cancelling inside the trial costs nothing.