Why I Chose Gumroad Over Payhip

my honest review

I use Gumroad for my blog. I have a Payhip store that I promote on my Faceless/Voiceless channel

I have been on Gumroad for almost 2 years now.

I have three Gumroad stores.

And one Payhip store as well.

I have recently crossed the $1500 mark on one of my Gumroad stores. I have written in detail here.

I am a full-time writer and started my career on Amazon KDP releasing my first ebook (in romance category). Now my backlist is of 100+ books (That’s 8 years of hard work).

Although I had success on the self-publishing platform still something was lacking and that was control over my business. When you are selling on marketplaces, it often comes with its own pros and cons.

Pros of marketplaces — Good keywords can drive organic traffic.

Cons of using marketplaces — You can be thrown out anytime.

This made me to expand my writing ebook business to some other platforms. But the question arises how to open a store to sell ebooks to my audience? DIRECTLY?

I had two options back then. Gumroad and Payhip.

I went with Gumroad because of its popularity. I’ll be honest here.

More creators. More trust.

But before we come to any conclusion I want you to go through the comparison which I have found in these two awesome platforms. I’ll call them awesome because they ACTUALLY ARE really good. But of course, I have to choose any one.

What type of digital products I sell?

I was going to stick to the ebook. Because I already had a backlist and was looking to just republish my content once the 90-day KDP Select program gets over.

In case you don’t know what KDP Select is then — It’s a program where your books (only ebooks) get locked for 90 days and are available to only Kindle subscribers. It means your book will be promoted to millions of Kindle readers and you’ll be paid according to the page read.

Looks pretty good? Yes, it is. My romance books worked a lot better in this program as compared to my non-fiction books.

But here is a catch.

Your book cannot be republished anywhere else unless these 90 days get over.

I always loved going wide. I love making money from multiple platforms. I mean who doesn’t? we all like to get those small tiny sales from all sides. I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket.

There are so many self-publishing platforms that I use to sell my ebooks— Apple iBooks, Nooks, Kobo, Hoopla, Scribd, etc. You’ll find this in detail in this article — I Sell Ebooks on More Than 9 Platforms

But still, something was lacking with these platforms.

Control.

Why I Prefer Wide Over Exclusivity for My Ebooks

Why did I choose to sell directly?

1. Directly means finally becoming an entrepreneur rather than just a writer.
2. Email address of my readers in case I want to let them know about future launches.
3. I get to reach more readers who aren’t on the specific platform
4. One more income stream
5. will get to know where my audience is coming from. This is important as it will help to focus on that particular traffic source

Make More Money Selling Ebooks Directly to Your Readers

Gumroad Vs Payhip

Now time for the actual answer to the question. Before we can choose one we need to look into their features.

1. Pricing — Payhip takes 5% per transaction and Gumroad takes 10% per transaction.
2. Digital products to sell — You can sell almost anything on both platforms — Courses, eBooks, templates, videos, audio, etc.
3. Storefront — Gumroad has a pretty decent one but no customizable option like Payhip. But you can have your own custom domain set up on these platforms.
4. Payout — Payhip releases payout within 24 hours. Gumroad takes 7 days to process.
5. Marketing tools (Upsell, cross-sell, discount code, email marketing, affiliate marketing) — Now these features are available on both platforms. But the newsletter is a little different. I’ll explain in the next section.

Special features of Gumroad

Now you have seen the comparison. It pretty much looks the same except for the pricing. I like Payhip better than Gumroad. I wish Gumroad was that cheap.

But still, I decided to stick with Gumroad for this blog. And these are the reasons —

1. Discover Option — I didn’t know this before until I got a sale from Gumroad itself. Yes, people go directly to Gumroad to buy products. I do this myself.
2. Newsletter — Newsletter is expensive. Admit it. You need to pay around a minimum of $700 per year. Gumroad gave it for free. No paying upfront. I can set ANY no. of newsletters I want. I love this one!
3. No upfront cost — I really like the businesses that I can start with zero investment.

Conclusion

One thing every creator needs to understand is that there is no platform better than another. There always will be a better platform than your current one. But you need to see which one suits your needs.

I mentioned that I have a Payhip store too where I sell my software-related products. I promote the store only my on Faceless-Voiceless YouTube Channel. And so far, I have made 7 sales. Currently, I have only 68 subscribers on this channel. It’s in a very specific niche. This is important in case you wanna start this as a side hustle.

I chose Payhip for YouTube because I needed a side hustle that could scale to $500 — $1000 without losing my interest. I wanted a side hustle, not a full-time income. So Payhip served the purpose better than Gumroad as I make more $ per sale as Pyahip takes only 5% per sale.

Remember that only you and your business know which platform is better for you. So choose accordingly.

See you soon!

If you are interested in Gumroad Business then you can check out my ebook — Build Once, Sell Forever — How I Create & Sell Digital Products With Gumroad

Further Reading

Gumroad Review (2024): How I Make Money Selling Ebooks

Make More Money Selling Ebooks Directly to Your Readers

Gumroad Is for Independent Writers

Where I Promote My Gumroad Store?