4 ms·

So what are the alternatives to gumroad? I’d been thinking of using them to sell the PDF version of a book, but after reading about the doge thing, I feel like

by dhosek 2y ago

So what are the alternatives to gumroad? I’d been thinking of using them to sell the PDF version of a book, but after reading about the doge thing, I feel like I need to look elsewhere.

gkoberger 2y ago
Stripe can likely do it with link.com, assuming you don’t need help with distribution
- nikolas- 2y ago
  Lemon Squeezy (recently acquired by Stripe) has a native digital product solution (https://www.lemonsqueezy.com/ecommerce/digital-products https://www.lemonsqueezy.com/ecommerce/digital-products)
- oakesm9 2y ago
  The major benefit of a service like Gumroad is they are the merchant of record and handle worldwide taxes for you. Stripe does not do that (yet?)
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    >taxes for you. including EU VAT, last I checked.
  - rchaud 2y ago
    They announced the MOR feature in December 2024, so I wouldn't really say that's a big selling point for them just yet, they have been around for over a decade.
fuzztester 2y ago
what is the doge thing?
- teraflop 2y ago
  Open the article, press Ctrl-F, and type "DOGE" to get your answer. (TL;DR: DOGE is the name of a new US government agency devoted to gutting other government agencies, and the founder of Gumroad is giving it pro-bono help.)
  - walmartwagie 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    Ah yes. For the last two or three weeks, or maybe ditto months, in some of my free time, that I dedicate for reading world news, I've been doing practically nothing but reading about the shenanigans of the Frump and his sidekick the Tusk / the Fsck, so I guess it makes sense that I didn't know what the DOGE was. end of /s :) after the /s, thanks for your answer. the /s is dedicated to the HN people I mention below, not to you. actually by the "doge thing", I meant sahil's interaction with it, which I knew would be in the article, or in a linked one, but was a bit lazy to read. and I continue to marvel at the brilliance of the knee jerk, trigger happy HN downvoters who can't even imagine that there can be a different interpretation of a phrase like "the doge thing" from what they can think of or know. DOGE is the right place for those jokers.
    - andybak 2y ago
      Alternatively, you posted a 5 word question that was maddeningly vague and was almost destined to be misunderstood.
      - fuzztester 2y ago
        >you posted a 5 word question that was maddeningly vague "maddeningly vague", hell yes, but only for 'hotshot' HN dumbasses (of which there are many here) who don't look before they leap, aka, in this case, don't read (the comment context) before they yap. proof: here is the comment to which I was replying above, when I asked "what is the doge thing": >So what are the alternatives to gumroad? I’d been thinking of using them to sell the PDF version of a book, but after reading about the doge thing, I feel like I need to look elsewhere. See the overall comment, as well as the part I highlighted. from the context, as shown above, it is clear (to anyone with common sense) that I was asking what they meant by their reference to doge, in the context of gumroad, and was not asking about doge itself, which I could, obviously, have easily googled for. so, is it now clear to you, dear sir, andybak, that my question was not vague at all, and in fact, it was your comment that was maddeningly idiotic and unjustified? even more idiotic in view of the fact that Frump, Tusk, and their shenanigans like doge and tariffs have been making news headlines all around the world for the past few weeks? in view of that, isn't it likely that I would know what doge meant? jfc. in future, look before you leap, or you're likely to land up in a pile of dog(e) shit (of your own making).
candiddevmike 2y ago
Paddle works OK and supports a bunch of payment providers
kamranjon 2y ago
I use Shopify and it’s pretty dang nice, especially the shipping discounts you get as a smaller business. I’m not sure of many alternatives though, I just knew it by name so I chose it - there might be better ones out there.
chris_pie 2y ago
There's also Paddle (who's a Merchant of Record)
kacesensitive 2y ago
Lemon Squeezy is excellent
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lovegrenoble 2y ago
This one is top, using it for ages: https://getdpd.com https://getdpd.com
thedangler 2y ago
Plenty of options. I use sytescope.com with a funnel to sell subscriptions. You can sell digital content on there too and hook it up with lots of payment systems.
ninefoxgambit 2y ago
I sell templates for a living and have used several of these providers. The main options are Gumroad - high fees and ugly design, solid system never had issues does most what I need. Lemon Squeezy - it was very popular until being acquired by stripe. Full of serious bugs, bad support. Lovely design, slightly better fees than Gumroad, but many hidden. Would still use over Gumroad just cause the Gumroad checkout design is so bad it loses sales imo. Paddle - haven’t used it but I think it’s probably as good as Gumroad or Lemon. Polar.sh - the trendy new option, most creators abandoning Lemon Squeezy are moving there. Has lots of innovation in features beyond payments such as selling private GitHub access. All of these platforms are MOR as far as I know, all provide the checkout UI etc. all handle digital asset file delivery. They are perfect for creators selling digital products that want a turn key solution and don’t want to do any development work.
- pier25 2y ago
  Polar.sh looks great. Do they accept PayPal payments? Probably half of my sales on Gumroad come from PP.
  - bigbadfeline 2y ago
    https://docs.polar.sh/merchant-of-record/fees https://docs.polar.sh/merchant-of-record/fees >Polar is currently built on Stripe Stripe supports paypal only in Europe, Switzerland, United Kingdom
- jjani 2y ago
  > Lemon Squeezy - it was very popular until being acquired by stripe. Full of serious bugs, bad support. Lovely design, slightly better fees than Gumroad, but many hidden. Would still use over Gumroad just cause the Gumroad checkout design is so bad it loses sales imo. Curious to read the acquisition made it less popular. Is it due to the concern of Stripe buying it solely as an "extinguish" strategy? Or is it unrelated to the acquisition and just because of the bugs and poor support?
999900000999 2y ago
Honor System + a paypal donate link at the bottom of your page. Itch has no mandatory cut at all. Theirs an argument that taking any payment at all is more trouble than it’s worth. Say you sell 15 copies of the book per month for 10$ each. After taxes and merchant fees , and the occasional chargeback, you’ll be lucky to net half. Is 75$ a month really worth the stress ? This is a part of why I’m going FOSS for my side projects. Even trying to collect a single legit dollar gives people a right to complain. Of course you can complain on GitHub anyway when it doesn’t work right, but it’s MIT, fork , send a PR or leave me alone.

by dhosek 2y ago

So what are the alternatives to gumroad? I’d been thinking of using them to sell the PDF version of a book, but after reading about the doge thing, I feel like I need to look elsewhere.

gkoberger 2y ago

Stripe can likely do it with link.com, assuming you don’t need help with distribution

nikolas- 2y ago
Lemon Squeezy (recently acquired by Stripe) has a native digital product solution (https://www.lemonsqueezy.com/ecommerce/digital-products https://www.lemonsqueezy.com/ecommerce/digital-products)
oakesm9 2y ago
The major benefit of a service like Gumroad is they are the merchant of record and handle worldwide taxes for you. Stripe does not do that (yet?)
- fuzztester 2y ago
  >taxes for you. including EU VAT, last I checked.
- rchaud 2y ago
  They announced the MOR feature in December 2024, so I wouldn't really say that's a big selling point for them just yet, they have been around for over a decade.

fuzztester 2y ago

what is the doge thing?

teraflop 2y ago
Open the article, press Ctrl-F, and type "DOGE" to get your answer. (TL;DR: DOGE is the name of a new US government agency devoted to gutting other government agencies, and the founder of Gumroad is giving it pro-bono help.)
- walmartwagie 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service
- fuzztester 2y ago
  Ah yes. For the last two or three weeks, or maybe ditto months, in some of my free time, that I dedicate for reading world news, I've been doing practically nothing but reading about the shenanigans of the Frump and his sidekick the Tusk / the Fsck, so I guess it makes sense that I didn't know what the DOGE was. end of /s :) after the /s, thanks for your answer. the /s is dedicated to the HN people I mention below, not to you. actually by the "doge thing", I meant sahil's interaction with it, which I knew would be in the article, or in a linked one, but was a bit lazy to read. and I continue to marvel at the brilliance of the knee jerk, trigger happy HN downvoters who can't even imagine that there can be a different interpretation of a phrase like "the doge thing" from what they can think of or know. DOGE is the right place for those jokers.
  - andybak 2y ago
    Alternatively, you posted a 5 word question that was maddeningly vague and was almost destined to be misunderstood.
    - fuzztester 2y ago
      >you posted a 5 word question that was maddeningly vague "maddeningly vague", hell yes, but only for 'hotshot' HN dumbasses (of which there are many here) who don't look before they leap, aka, in this case, don't read (the comment context) before they yap. proof: here is the comment to which I was replying above, when I asked "what is the doge thing": >So what are the alternatives to gumroad? I’d been thinking of using them to sell the PDF version of a book, but after reading about the doge thing, I feel like I need to look elsewhere. See the overall comment, as well as the part I highlighted. from the context, as shown above, it is clear (to anyone with common sense) that I was asking what they meant by their reference to doge, in the context of gumroad, and was not asking about doge itself, which I could, obviously, have easily googled for. so, is it now clear to you, dear sir, andybak, that my question was not vague at all, and in fact, it was your comment that was maddeningly idiotic and unjustified? even more idiotic in view of the fact that Frump, Tusk, and their shenanigans like doge and tariffs have been making news headlines all around the world for the past few weeks? in view of that, isn't it likely that I would know what doge meant? jfc. in future, look before you leap, or you're likely to land up in a pile of dog(e) shit (of your own making).

candiddevmike 2y ago

Paddle works OK and supports a bunch of payment providers

kamranjon 2y ago

I use Shopify and it’s pretty dang nice, especially the shipping discounts you get as a smaller business. I’m not sure of many alternatives though, I just knew it by name so I chose it - there might be better ones out there.

chris_pie 2y ago

There's also Paddle (who's a Merchant of Record)

kacesensitive 2y ago

Lemon Squeezy is excellent

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lovegrenoble 2y ago

This one is top, using it for ages: https://getdpd.com https://getdpd.com

thedangler 2y ago

Plenty of options. I use sytescope.com with a funnel to sell subscriptions. You can sell digital content on there too and hook it up with lots of payment systems.

ninefoxgambit 2y ago

I sell templates for a living and have used several of these providers. The main options are Gumroad - high fees and ugly design, solid system never had issues does most what I need. Lemon Squeezy - it was very popular until being acquired by stripe. Full of serious bugs, bad support. Lovely design, slightly better fees than Gumroad, but many hidden. Would still use over Gumroad just cause the Gumroad checkout design is so bad it loses sales imo. Paddle - haven’t used it but I think it’s probably as good as Gumroad or Lemon. Polar.sh - the trendy new option, most creators abandoning Lemon Squeezy are moving there. Has lots of innovation in features beyond payments such as selling private GitHub access. All of these platforms are MOR as far as I know, all provide the checkout UI etc. all handle digital asset file delivery. They are perfect for creators selling digital products that want a turn key solution and don’t want to do any development work.

pier25 2y ago
Polar.sh looks great. Do they accept PayPal payments? Probably half of my sales on Gumroad come from PP.
- bigbadfeline 2y ago
  https://docs.polar.sh/merchant-of-record/fees https://docs.polar.sh/merchant-of-record/fees >Polar is currently built on Stripe Stripe supports paypal only in Europe, Switzerland, United Kingdom
jjani 2y ago
> Lemon Squeezy - it was very popular until being acquired by stripe. Full of serious bugs, bad support. Lovely design, slightly better fees than Gumroad, but many hidden. Would still use over Gumroad just cause the Gumroad checkout design is so bad it loses sales imo. Curious to read the acquisition made it less popular. Is it due to the concern of Stripe buying it solely as an "extinguish" strategy? Or is it unrelated to the acquisition and just because of the bugs and poor support?

999900000999 2y ago

Honor System + a paypal donate link at the bottom of your page. Itch has no mandatory cut at all. Theirs an argument that taking any payment at all is more trouble than it’s worth. Say you sell 15 copies of the book per month for 10$ each. After taxes and merchant fees , and the occasional chargeback, you’ll be lucky to net half. Is 75$ a month really worth the stress ? This is a part of why I’m going FOSS for my side projects. Even trying to collect a single legit dollar gives people a right to complain. Of course you can complain on GitHub anyway when it doesn’t work right, but it’s MIT, fork , send a PR or leave me alone.