Disclosure: We sell our own digital products on Gumroad, and a few of them are linked at the end of this page. We have no partnership with Payhip, Sellfy, SendOwl or Gumroad and aren’t paid for any link here.

If you sell ebooks, templates, presets, spreadsheets or other downloads, the platform you choose decides how much of each sale you keep. Gumroad is the easiest place to start, but its percentage fee grows with your sales. Payhip, Sellfy and SendOwl take a different approach: a lower percentage, a flat monthly price, or both.

We compared the published pricing of all four on October 20, 2026. Prices change, so check the linked pricing page before you decide.

The short version

  • Just starting, selling under about $1,000 a month: Payhip’s free plan costs the least of the four in our examples. You pay 5% plus card processing and no monthly fee.
  • Selling steadily and happy to pay a flat fee: Sellfy has no transaction fee at all and a flat price from $29 a month ($22 billed yearly), as long as you stay under its yearly sales limit.
  • Need file protection, license keys or a checkout you can embed anywhere: SendOwl includes every feature on every plan, including PDF stamping and license keys, but it has the highest starting price.
  • Want zero setup and no monthly bill, or want buyers to find you through a marketplace: Gumroad charges nothing until you sell, handles sales tax for you as merchant of record, and has the Discover marketplace (at a 30% fee).

Fees at a glance

  Gumroad Payhip Sellfy SendOwl
Monthly price $0 $0 Free, $29 Plus, $99 Pro $29 Starter, $79 Business, $159 Premium (yearly billing: $22, $59, $119 a month) $39 Launch, $87 Grow, $159 Scale (annual billing: $32.50, $72.50, $132.50 a month); Business from $299
Platform transaction fee 10% + $0.50 per sale (direct/profile sales); 30% on Discover marketplace sales 5% Free, 2% Plus, 0% Pro 0% on all plans None listed (“no revenue cuts”)
Card/PayPal processing Extra on direct sales: card 2.9% + $0.30, plus PayPal fees; included in the 30% Discover fee Extra: PayPal/Stripe standard rates Extra: PayPal or Stripe (Sellfy says typically 2.9% + 30¢) Extra: your Stripe or PayPal fees
Sales limits None None (“unlimited revenue” on every plan) $10k / $50k / $200k in sales per year; a 2% overage fee may apply above the cap if you don’t upgrade $10k sales + 5k orders / $36k + 25k orders / $100k + 50k orders a year (trailing 12 months); you’re upgraded automatically when you pass a limit
Free option Yes (no monthly fee at all) Yes (Free plan) 14-day free trial, no free plan No free plan listed on the pricing page
Features by plan Same for everyone Same on every plan Upsells, cart abandonment, affiliates and branding removal start on Business Every feature on every plan
Sales tax / VAT Gumroad is merchant of record and collects and remits sales tax Collects, reports and remits EU/UK VAT and US/Canadian sales tax “Advanced VAT & tax settings” on all plans “Automatic tax calculation and compliance” for sales tax and EU VAT
Volume discount Direct-sale fee drops to 5% + $0.50 for the rest of a month once that month’s paid sales reach $20,000 Move to a lower-fee plan Higher plans raise the cap Higher plans raise the caps

For Gumroad, the card processing figure (2.9% + $0.30) is the one Gumroad’s own help page lists. Payhip, Sellfy and SendOwl don’t process cards themselves: you connect Stripe and/or PayPal and pay their fees. Stripe’s standard US rate is 2.9% + 30¢ for domestic cards (international cards cost more), which is what we use in the math below.

Worked example: what selling $500 and $3,000 a month really costs

Assumptions, so you can redo the math with your own numbers:

  • Products priced between $10 and $30, averaging $20 per sale.
  • $500 a month = 25 sales ($6,000 a year). $3,000 a month = 150 sales ($36,000 a year).
  • Every buyer pays by domestic card at 2.9% + $0.30. That’s $22.00 a month at $500 (2.9% × $500 = $14.50, plus 25 × $0.30 = $7.50) and $132.00 a month at $3,000 ($87.00 + $45.00).
  • Monthly billing unless noted. Sales tax is left out.

At $500 a month (25 sales)

Platform and plan Platform fee Processing Total cost Share of sales
Gumroad, direct sales 10% × $500 = $50.00, + 25 × $0.50 = $12.50 → $62.50 $22.00 $84.50 16.9%
Gumroad, all via Discover 30% × $500 = $150.00 (processing included) included $150.00 30.0%
Payhip Free 5% × $500 = $25.00 $22.00 $47.00 9.4%
Payhip Plus $29 + 2% × $500 = $10.00 → $39.00 $22.00 $61.00 12.2%
Sellfy Starter (fits under $10k a year) $29 ($22 if paid yearly) $22.00 $51.00 ($44.00 yearly) 10.2% (8.8%)
SendOwl Launch (fits under $10k a year) $39 ($32.50 if paid annually) $22.00 $61.00 ($54.50 annually) 12.2% (10.9%)

At this size Payhip’s free plan is cheapest month to month, and Sellfy Starter on yearly billing edges it out if you’re ready to commit for a year. Gumroad costs about $30–40 a month more than the others on direct sales.

At $3,000 a month (150 sales)

Platform and plan Platform fee Processing Total cost Share of sales
Gumroad, direct sales 10% × $3,000 = $300.00, + 150 × $0.50 = $75.00 → $375.00 $132.00 $507.00 16.9%
Gumroad, all via Discover 30% × $3,000 = $900.00 included $900.00 30.0%
Payhip Free 5% × $3,000 = $150.00 $132.00 $282.00 9.4%
Payhip Plus $29 + 2% × $3,000 = $60.00 → $89.00 $132.00 $221.00 7.4%
Payhip Pro $99 $132.00 $231.00 7.7%
Sellfy Business ($36k a year is over Starter’s $10k cap) $79 ($59 if paid yearly) $132.00 $211.00 ($191.00 yearly) 7.0% (6.4%)
SendOwl Grow ($36k a year is exactly Grow’s cap) $87 ($72.50 if paid annually) $132.00 $219.00 ($204.50 annually) 7.3% (6.8%)
SendOwl Scale (if you go even slightly over $36k a year) $159 $132.00 $291.00 9.7%

At $3,000 a month the three alternatives land within about $10–20 of each other, and all of them cost less than half of Gumroad’s direct-sale fees. Over a year the gap is roughly $3,500: $507 × 12 = $6,084 on Gumroad versus $211 × 12 = $2,532 on Sellfy Business (monthly billing) or $221 × 12 = $2,652 on Payhip Plus.

Two things that move the numbers:

  • Cheaper products cost more per dollar. The per-sale charges ($0.50 on Gumroad, $0.30 for card processing) bite harder on a $10 item. Sell $500 a month as fifty $10 products and Gumroad direct costs $50.00 + $25.00 + $14.50 + $15.00 = $104.50, while Payhip Free costs $25.00 + $14.50 + $15.00 = $54.50.
  • Check your own numbers. Our free Gumroad fee calculator shows Gumroad’s fee and payout for any price and Discover share, so you can compare it with the plans above.
  • Where the plans cross over. Payhip Plus beats Payhip Free once you sell more than about $967 a month (the extra 3% you save covers the $29). Payhip Pro beats Plus above $3,500 a month (2% of sales covers the $70 difference).

Who each one is best for

Payhip is best for new and small sellers who want a free start and a lower fee than Gumroad, and for anyone selling into the EU, UK, US or Canada who wants tax handled: Payhip says it collects, reports and remits digital EU/UK VAT and US/Canadian sales tax. Every plan has the same features, so you only upgrade to cut the transaction fee. Payhip pays out to your PayPal or Stripe account right after each sale.

Sellfy is best for steady sellers who’d rather pay a predictable flat fee than a percentage, and who also sell (or want to sell) subscriptions, physical items or print-on-demand merch alongside downloads. Built-in email marketing is included (2,000 / 10,000 / 50,000 free email credits a month by plan).

SendOwl is best for sellers who already have a website or another platform and want a checkout and delivery engine to plug into it: embeddable cart, payment links, license keys for software, PDF stamping and document locking, drip content, an affiliate program and API access, all on every plan.

Gumroad is best for people testing an idea with no budget, sellers whose sales are irregular (no monthly bill in slow months), and anyone who wants Gumroad to act as merchant of record and deal with sales tax worldwide. It also has a built-in marketplace (Discover) where buyers can find you, though sales from it carry a 30% fee.

The honest downsides

Gumroad (where our own products are sold)

  • The most expensive of the four once you’re selling regularly: about 16.9% of sales in both of our examples once card processing is added.
  • Discover marketplace sales cost 30%.
  • The $0.50 per-sale charge hurts most on low-priced items.
  • The lower 5% + $0.50 rate only kicks in after $20,000 of paid sales in a calendar month, and resets on the 1st.

Payhip

  • The free plan’s 5% becomes expensive as you grow; check the crossover points above and upgrade when you pass them.
  • Payment processing is extra on every plan, and you need your own PayPal and/or Stripe account.
  • Pro ($99 a month) only pays off above about $3,500 a month in sales.

Sellfy

  • No free plan, only a 14-day trial, so you pay from the first month even with no sales.
  • Hard yearly sales caps ($10k, $50k, $200k). Go over and you’re expected to upgrade; if you don’t, Sellfy says it may charge a 2% overage fee on the revenue above the cap.
  • Starter keeps Sellfy branding and leaves out upsells, cart abandonment emails and an affiliate program.
  • Processing fees are extra.

SendOwl

  • The highest entry price ($39 a month, or $32.50 billed annually) and no free plan listed.
  • Two caps per plan, sales and orders, measured over a trailing 12 months, and you’re upgraded automatically when you pass one. Launch’s $10,000 sales cap is low.
  • Monthly download bandwidth is limited and overages are charged. The pricing page isn’t consistent about the amounts (the plan cards say 10 GB / 20 GB / 50 GB; the FAQ says 20 GB / 30 GB / 50 GB), so confirm with SendOwl if you sell large files.
  • Processing fees are extra.

How to choose in two minutes

  1. Estimate your yearly sales honestly.
  2. Under about $1,000 a month: compare Payhip Free with Sellfy Starter (yearly) using the $500 table.
  3. Between $1,000 and $3,500 a month: Payhip Plus, Sellfy Business or SendOwl Grow, depending on whether you value Payhip’s tax handling, Sellfy’s email tools and merch, or SendOwl’s file protection and embeddable checkout.
  4. Selling irregularly, or not yet selling: Gumroad or Payhip Free, since neither charges a monthly fee.
  5. Before you commit, read the platform’s current pricing page. The numbers above were correct on October 20, 2026.

Sources

All checked 2026-10-20 on each company’s official page.

  • Gumroad pricing (10% + $0.50 direct, 30% Discover, merchant of record, no monthly fee): https://gumroad.com/pricing (checked 2026-10-20)
  • Gumroad help, “Gumroad’s fees” (fee excludes card processing 2.9% + $0.30 and PayPal fees; Discover 30% includes processing; 5% + $0.50 after $20,000 paid sales in a calendar month): https://gumroad.com/help/article/66-gumroads-fees (checked 2026-10-20)
  • Payhip pricing (Free $0 + 5%, Plus $29 + 2%, Pro $99 + 0%; same features, unlimited revenue; PayPal/Stripe fees extra; VAT and US/Canada sales tax handling; immediate payouts): https://payhip.com/pricing (checked 2026-10-20)
  • Sellfy pricing (Starter $29/$22, Business $79/$59, Premium $159/$119; 0% transaction fees; $10k/$50k/$200k caps; 2% overage; 14-day trial; feature table): https://sellfy.com/pricing/ (checked 2026-10-20)
  • SendOwl pricing (Launch $39/$32.50, Grow $87/$72.50, Scale $159/$132.50, Business from $299; sales/order caps; bandwidth; all features on all plans): https://www.sendowl.com/pricing (checked 2026-10-20)
  • Stripe pricing (2.9% + 30¢ per successful domestic card transaction; extra fees for cross-border cards): https://stripe.com/pricing (checked 2026-10-20)

Tools and kits for Gumroad sellers