Lemon Squeezy vs Gumroad vs Etsy: Where to Sell Digital Products in 2026

If you already have people who will click a link you share (an email list, a YouTube channel, a blog), Lemon Squeezy or Payhip will usually leave you the most money per sale, and both deal with most of the tax admin. If nobody knows you yet, Etsy is the only one of the three main options that reliably puts buyers in front of a digital product. It takes a bigger and less predictable cut for that. Gumroad sits in between. It’s the easiest to start with, but on direct sales it keeps more of each sale than any of the others.

This guide compares the fees as of September 2026, with the maths for $10, $20 and $50 sales. It also covers the things fee tables leave out: who handles tax, who owns the customer, how you get paid, what each platform says about AI-made products, and what happens if you want to move later. There’s a calculator halfway down that lets you plug in your own price and sales.

A quick disclosure

Craftomorrow sells its own products through Lemon Squeezy. We chose it because it acts as merchant of record (more on that below) and its percentage fee is low. Nobody pays us to recommend any platform in this post, and we have no affiliate links in it. Where Lemon Squeezy is the weaker choice, we say so, and in 2026 there are real reasons to be careful with it.

All figures come from the platforms’ own pages, checked on September 26, 2026. Where those weren’t clear, we say where a number came from.

The quick verdict: if you want X, use Y

Start here if you just want a direction. The rest of the post explains why.

The full fee table (as of September 2026)

These are the standard fees for a US seller and a US buyer paying by card. “Processing” is the card payment fee, which some platforms include in their price and others add on top.

Here’s where each number comes from. Lemon Squeezy lists 5% + 50¢ with no monthly fee (Lemon Squeezy pricing). Its fees page adds 1.5% for buyers outside the US, 1.5% for PayPal payments, 0.5% on subscription payments, 5% on sales recovered by abandoned-cart emails and 3% on affiliate referrals (Lemon Squeezy fees).

Gumroad lists 10% + $0.50 on sales through your profile or direct links, and 30% on sales from its Discover marketplace (Gumroad pricing). Its help centre says the 10% + $0.50 does not include credit card processing or PayPal fees (Gumroad Help). Third-party fee calculators put that processing at about 2.9% + $0.30 for cards and about 3.49% + $0.49 for PayPal (Checkout Page).

Etsy’s fees policy (updated February 2026) lists the $0.20 listing fee, the 6.5% transaction fee on the item price plus shipping and gift wrap, and Offsite Ads at 15% or 12%, capped at $100 per order (Etsy Fees Policy). US payment processing is 3% + $0.25 (Etsy Payments Policy). For every Etsy fee in detail, see our Etsy fees guide for 2026.

Payhip’s plans are $0, $29 and $99 a month with 5%, 2% and 0% transaction fees. It says PayPal and Stripe “will still charge at their standard rates” on every plan (Payhip pricing).

What you actually keep from a $10, $20 and $50 sale

The maths, step by step, for a US seller, a US buyer paying by card, a direct sale and no tax added. Payhip means the free plan with Stripe’s usual 2.9% + $0.30.

Lemon Squeezy: 5% + $0.50.

• $10 sale: $0.50 + $0.50 = $1.00 in fees. You keep $9.00.
• $20 sale: $1.00 + $0.50 = $1.50. You keep $18.50.
• $50 sale: $2.50 + $0.50 = $3.00. You keep $47.00.

Gumroad (direct): 10% + $0.50, plus about 2.9% + $0.30 processing. That’s 12.9% + $0.80 in total.

• $10 sale: $1.29 + $0.80 = $2.09. You keep $7.91.
• $20 sale: $2.58 + $0.80 = $3.38. You keep $16.62.
• $50 sale: $6.45 + $0.80 = $7.25. You keep $42.75.

Etsy: 6.5% transaction fee + 3% + $0.25 processing + the $0.20 listing fee. When a listing with more than one in stock sells, Etsy renews it automatically and charges another $0.20, so it’s fair to count $0.20 on every sale. That’s 9.5% + $0.45 in total.

• $10 sale: $0.95 + $0.45 = $1.40. You keep $8.60.
• $20 sale: $1.90 + $0.45 = $2.35. You keep $17.65.
• $50 sale: $4.75 + $0.45 = $5.20. You keep $44.80.

Payhip Free: 5% + about 2.9% + $0.30 processing. That’s 7.9% + $0.30 in total.

• $10 sale: $0.79 + $0.30 = $1.09. You keep $8.91.
• $20 sale: $1.58 + $0.30 = $1.88. You keep $18.12.
• $50 sale: $3.95 + $0.30 = $4.25. You keep $45.75.

Two things stand out. First, on a normal sale Etsy costs less than Gumroad. Most people assume Etsy is the expensive one, but its base fees are moderate. What makes Etsy expensive is Offsite Ads, not the standard fees. Second, a sale that comes through a marketplace promotion costs roughly twice as much in fees as a normal one. That’s the real price of borrowed traffic.

If the buyer is outside the US, Lemon Squeezy adds 1.5%, which is $0.30 on a $20 sale. Stripe also adds a surcharge for international cards, so Payhip sellers pay a similar extra. On Etsy, the US processing rate is the same wherever the buyer lives.

Why cheap products lose more to fees

Every platform here adds a fixed amount per sale. On a $50 product that barely matters. On a $5 product it matters a lot.

Take a $5 printable sold to a US buyer. Lemon Squeezy takes $0.25 + $0.50 = $0.75, which is 15% of the price. Payhip Free takes $0.40 + $0.30 = $0.70 (about 14%). Etsy takes $0.48 + $0.45 = $0.93 (about 19%). Gumroad takes $0.65 + $0.80 = $1.45, which is 29% of the sale.

The prices where the order changes are easy to work out. Lemon Squeezy (5% + $0.50) and Payhip Free (7.9% + $0.30) cost the same at about $6.90. Below that price Payhip keeps you more. Above it Lemon Squeezy does. The gap is small either way, so it shouldn’t decide things for you on its own.

Lemon Squeezy in 2026: the Stripe question

You can’t compare these platforms honestly in 2026 without covering this. Stripe, one of the world’s largest payment companies, bought Lemon Squeezy in 2024. In April 2025 Lemon Squeezy announced Stripe Managed Payments, a merchant of record service built into Stripe itself. It said existing users faced no immediate changes (Lemon Squeezy blog, April 2025).

In January 2026 Lemon Squeezy’s CEO posted an update. He said the team had been “heads-down” building Stripe Managed Payments and apologised for slower support and fewer product updates. The post promised an easy way to move to Stripe Managed Payments but gave no deadline (Lemon Squeezy 2026 update). As of late September 2026, that is still the most recent post on the Lemon Squeezy blog. The pricing page still shows 5% + 50¢.

Stripe Managed Payments charges 3.5% per sale on top of Stripe’s normal processing fees. Extra fees can apply for international cards, currency conversion and some local payment methods (Stripe Support). With Stripe’s standard US card rate of 2.9% + $0.30, that’s about 6.4% + $0.30 in total. It’s slightly cheaper than Lemon Squeezy under about $14 and slightly dearer above it.

Not everyone can use it. Stripe reviews each business before giving access. Your business must be based in one of the supported countries: the US, Canada, the UK, most of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan or Singapore. It only covers digital products, and you must sell directly, not through a marketplace (Stripe Docs: eligibility). If you live in India, for example, you can’t use it yet.

What this means for you: Lemon Squeezy still works and still has the lowest fee on most sales. But it’s in a holding pattern, and at some point you’ll probably be asked to move. If you choose it, keep your own copy of your customer list and product files, which is good practice on any platform anyway.

Marketplace traffic vs your own traffic

This is the most important difference between the platforms, and fee tables don’t show it. Some platforms bring you buyers. Others just take payments from buyers you bring yourself.

Etsy brings buyers. People search Etsy for “budget planner printable” or “wedding seating chart template” and buy the same day. That demand is the whole reason sellers accept Etsy’s fees and rules. The trade-off is control. Etsy decides how your listing ranks, sets the rules, and runs Offsite Ads for you. Shops with under $10,000 in yearly sales can opt out of Offsite Ads. Once you pass that, they’re mandatory at the 12% rate. Before you build for Etsy, check whether your niche has room. Our 20-second Etsy niche check shows a quick way to do that.

Gumroad brings a little. Its Discover marketplace can show your product to buyers who’ve never heard of you. When that happens, Gumroad takes 30% instead of 10% + $0.50. Guides disagree on whether card processing is added on top of that 30%. One 2026 guide says the rate “includes all processing fees” (We Are Founders), while another counts processing on top (Roo). Our worked numbers assume 30% flat. Either way, don’t plan a business around Discover sales. Treat them as a bonus.

Lemon Squeezy and Payhip bring none. They’re checkout and delivery tools. Every buyer comes from your YouTube channel, newsletter, blog, social posts or ads. That’s why their fees are lower: you’re doing the marketing.

So the real question is where your buyers will come from. If you don’t know yet, a cheap checkout with no traffic sells nothing.

Merchant of record and tax, explained simply

A merchant of record is the business that legally sells the product to the buyer. It’s the name on the receipt, and it’s responsible for charging and paying the sales taxes on that sale. When a platform acts as merchant of record, it effectively buys from you and resells to the customer, and the tax paperwork is its problem, not yours.

Why does this matter for a $15 template? Because digital products are taxed where the buyer lives, not where you live.

• EU VAT: VAT is a sales tax added to the price. EU countries charge VAT on digital products at the buyer’s country rate, and the rates are different in each country. Sellers based outside the EU generally have no minimum sales level before this applies. Without a merchant of record, a single sale to a buyer in Germany can mean you have to deal with EU VAT.
• US sales tax: Each state sets its own rules on whether digital products are taxed and when an out-of-state seller has to register. Many small sellers never reach those limits, but you’d have to keep track.
• Income tax is separate. A merchant of record handles the sales tax charged to buyers. You still owe income tax on your profit where you live. No platform does that for you.

Here’s how the platforms compare:

• Lemon Squeezy is merchant of record and says it takes on “tax collection and calculation liability across all jurisdictions” (Lemon Squeezy pricing).
• Gumroad has been merchant of record since January 1, 2025, and says it handles all your tax obligations at no extra cost (Gumroad pricing).
• Stripe Managed Payments handles sales tax, VAT and GST in more than 80 countries (Stripe Docs).
• Etsy isn’t described as a merchant of record, but as a marketplace it collects and pays US state sales tax on orders, and VAT on digital items for buyers in places like the EU and UK. For most small sellers, the result is similar.
• Payhip collects and pays EU and UK VAT automatically. You can set up other taxes, but Payhip only reports them to you (Payhip pricing). So US sales tax, and tax anywhere else outside the EU and UK, is your job.

This is general information, not tax advice. Once you earn real money, a local accountant is cheap insurance.

Payouts: when and how you get your money

A low fee doesn’t help much if your money sits somewhere for weeks or loses a slice on the way to your bank.

• Lemon Squeezy: payouts through Stripe are free to US bank accounts. Payouts to banks outside the US cost 1% per payout. PayPal payouts cost $0.50 in the US, and 3% (capped at $30) for accounts outside the US (Lemon Squeezy fees). If you’re outside the US, a bank payout usually costs less than PayPal once payouts get bigger.
• Gumroad: Gumroad’s pricing page says payout methods (bank deposit or PayPal) depend on your country. Third-party guides from 2026 describe weekly payouts on Fridays, a $100 minimum for unverified accounts ($10 once verified) and a short holding period on new sales (We Are Founders). We couldn’t confirm those details in Gumroad’s own help centre, so check your dashboard.
• Etsy: you choose daily, weekly, every two weeks or monthly deposits. Weekly and slower deposits start on Mondays and usually reach your bank within five business days. Etsy can hold funds on riskier accounts or during disputes, for anywhere from 0 to 180 days (Etsy Payments Policy). If your listing currency isn’t the currency of your payment account, Etsy charges 2.5% to convert.
• Payhip: money goes to your connected Stripe or PayPal account straight after each sale. From there, Stripe or PayPal pay out on their own schedule and charge their own fees.

Sellers outside the US often lose 1% to 3% to conversion and payout fees. Read your first payout statement line by line.

Who owns the customer: emails and data

This matters more than a percentage point or two of fees. A buyer’s email address is how you sell to them a second time without paying for their attention again.

On Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad and Payhip, buyers are your customers. You can see who bought and export your list, and each has tools for emailing buyers. Lemon Squeezy’s email marketing is free up to 500 subscribers, with paid plans above that. You still need to follow email law, so only send marketing to people who agreed to get it.

On Etsy, buyers are Etsy’s customers first. You get what you need to deliver the order and answer questions, but Etsy’s rules don’t let you add buyers to a marketing list unless they agree. Etsy also controls messaging. If Etsy closes your shop, you lose your reviews and your buyer relationships along with it.

That’s why many sellers treat Etsy as the place where people find them and their own site as the place they build a relationship. Put a clear, allowed next step inside your product. A thank-you page pointing to your site or a free companion resource are both fine.

Checkout experience and selling from your own website

• Etsy uses its own checkout. Buyers who already have an Etsy account and saved payment details trust it and check out quickly. You can’t put an Etsy checkout on your own website. You can only link to the listing.
• Lemon Squeezy gives you hosted checkout pages and product links you can put on any site. Its checkout was translated into more languages in 2025. It works in 95+ currencies and supports 16+ payment methods.
• Gumroad gives you a profile page and direct product links. The checkout is simple and many buyers already know it, especially for creator products.
• Payhip gives you a store page and buy buttons for your site. Buyers can pay with PayPal or major cards.
• Stripe Managed Payments works with Stripe Checkout and Payment Links, but not with more advanced custom payment forms.

Whichever you pick, buy your own product on a phone before you share the link. Most “broken checkout” complaints are really files too big to download on mobile.

Which product types suit each platform

Product types suit places mainly because of how buyers search there.

AI-made products: what the platforms allow

This is where Etsy is clearest and strictest. Its Creativity Standards (updated June 2025) put items made with AI tools from your own original prompts under “Designed by a seller”. You must say in the listing description that AI was used. Etsy also says AI prompt bundles don’t count as items designed by the seller (Etsy Creativity Standards). So AI art prints with a clear disclosure are allowed. A pack of prompts is not.

The Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad and Payhip pricing pages we read say nothing specific about AI. Stripe Managed Payments requires that you “hold all necessary rights and licenses to distribute the product” (Stripe Docs: eligibility), and the other platforms’ terms say much the same. In practice, the risk with AI products isn’t a ban. It’s the rights: breaking an AI tool’s licence terms, using trademarked characters, or selling something so generic that buyers ask for refunds and complain.

Our rule is simple. Say that AI was used, add real value of your own on top of the AI output (editing, structure, testing, design), and never copy a brand, character or artist’s style by name.

Account risk, reserves and holds

Every platform can hold your money or close your account under its terms. This happens most to new sellers, sellers whose sales suddenly jump, and sellers with lots of refunds or chargebacks. A chargeback is when a buyer asks their bank to reverse a payment.

• Etsy says it can hold a percentage of funds on riskier accounts and delay deposits for 0 to 180 days.
• Stripe Managed Payments requires a low dispute rate to stay eligible, and Stripe can refund buyers within 60 days of purchase in some cases to avoid chargebacks.
• Gumroad holds new sales for a short time before they can be paid out, according to third-party guides. One 2026 guide also says Gumroad keeps its fees when you refund a sale (Roo).
• Payhip pays into your own Stripe or PayPal account, so their risk rules apply to you directly.

Lower the risk with clear descriptions, real previews and quick refunds (a refund beats a chargeback). Keep copies of your files, listings and customer list somewhere you control.

Calculator: what you keep per sale

Put in your own numbers. The fee data inside the tool is the same as the tables above, as of September 2026, for a US seller and US card rates.

With the default settings (a $20 product, 30 sales a month, 20% of buyers outside the US and no marketplace promotion), Lemon Squeezy comes out on top at about $18.44 per sale and $553 a month. Stripe Managed Payments ($551) and Payhip Free ($542) are close behind. Etsy and Payhip Plus keep about $530, and Gumroad keeps about $499. The gap between best and worst is about $655 a year. Now set marketplace promotion to 100%. Etsy drops to about $14.65 a sale and Gumroad to $14.00. That shows how much borrowed traffic costs. But those sales might never happen on the platforms without a marketplace, so compare on buyers you'll actually get, not on fees alone.

Payhip's paid plans: when a monthly fee pays off

Payhip is the only platform here where paying a monthly fee lowers your per-sale cost. The maths is simple. Moving from Free (5%) to Plus (2%) saves 3% of your revenue and costs $29 a month. So Plus pays off once you sell more than about $967 a month on Payhip ($29 divided by 0.03).

Moving from Plus to Pro ($99, 0%) saves another 2% and costs another $70 a month. That pays off above $3,500 a month. Going straight from Free to Pro pays off above about $1,980 a month.

At $4,000 a month on Pro, you'd pay $99 plus Stripe's processing of about $116, which is about 5.4% before the $0.30 fixed part on each sale. That's cheaper than any other option in this post. Remember, though, that Payhip leaves US sales tax to you. If your buyers are mainly in the US and your sales are growing, factor that in.

Don't upgrade too early. Paying a monthly fee before you have steady sales is one of the most common ways new sellers lose money. The subscription audit checklist is a good habit for every monthly tool you pay for.

Switching platforms later

You aren't locked in, but switching has costs.

• Reviews don't move. Etsy reviews stay on Etsy. Moving to your own store means starting again on social proof, so collect written testimonials (with permission) as you go.
• Links break. Every link in old YouTube descriptions, emails and posts points to the old checkout. Use one link on your own domain (for example yoursite.com/planner) that redirects to wherever the product is sold. Then you only need to update one place.
• Subscriptions are the hard part. One-off products are easy to move. Recurring subscriptions often have to be cancelled and restarted by the customer, and some won't bother. That's one reason Lemon Squeezy's move to Stripe matters most for subscription sellers.
• Customer lists come with you if you own them. Export your buyer list regularly from Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad or Payhip. You can't do this with Etsy buyers for marketing purposes.

Make your own domain your "home" from day one, even if it only links to your Etsy shop at first.

The two-platform strategy

You don't have to pick just one. Many sellers use a marketplace to find buyers and their own checkout to keep them.

1. Use Etsy to be found. List your best products where buyers already search. Accept Etsy's fees as your cost of finding new customers. Improve your listing images, and our Etsy thumbnail A/B test guide shows one way to do that.
2. Add a next step inside the product. A page at the end of the file that points to your site, a free extra, or a list of your other products. Keep it within Etsy's rules. Don't mention discounts for buying off Etsy.
3. Sell everything on your own site through a merchant of record. Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad, Payhip or Stripe Managed Payments. This is where your email subscribers and returning buyers buy, and where you keep 90% or more of the price.
4. Build an email list from your content. YouTube, a blog or social media drive people to a free resource, then to paid products on your own checkout.

Over time, more sales should come through your own site. If Etsy still brings almost everything after a year, that's fine. It's doing work you'd otherwise pay for in ads.

What about Stan Store, Ko-fi and Shopify?

These come up often, so here's a short note. Stan Store is aimed at creators who sell from a link-in-bio page and charges a monthly subscription. Stan's own blog and several 2026 guides list $29 and $99 plans in their headlines. Ko-fi's pricing page advertises fees of 0% to 5%, with a paid Gold plan for lower fees. Shopify is a full online store builder with a monthly fee, and you add a digital downloads app for files.

We couldn't open and check the current official pricing pages for these three in time for this post, so we've left them out of the tables and the calculator rather than guess. If you're considering one, work out the monthly fee plus payment processing, and check who handles sales tax. A store builder like Shopify isn't a merchant of record by default, so tax is usually your job.

Common mistakes

• Choosing on fees alone. A 5% platform with no buyers loses to a 15% platform with buyers every time. Decide where your traffic comes from first.
• Forgetting the fixed fee. At $3 to $5, the fixed part of the fee can be 10% to 15% of your price on its own. Bundle or raise prices.
• Ignoring Offsite Ads. New Etsy sellers are opted in by default. Decide on purpose whether to stay in, and check your fee statements.
• Handling tax on your own without meaning to. Selling through your own Stripe or PayPal account without a merchant of record makes you responsible for VAT and sales tax on every sale.
• Paying monthly fees too early. Payhip Plus, Etsy Plus or a store builder before you have steady sales usually costs more than it saves.
• Never testing the checkout. Buy your own product on a phone before launch, and again after any change.
• Overlooking payout costs. Sellers outside the US can lose 1% to 3% to conversion and payout fees. Compare bank and PayPal payouts.
• Building on one platform only. Keep copies of files, listings and buyer data in case an account is paused.

FAQ

Which platform has the lowest fees for digital products?

For a normal sale of $15 or more on your own traffic, Lemon Squeezy (5% + $0.50, processing included) usually keeps you the most among platforms that handle tax. Under about $7, Payhip's free plan keeps a little more. At higher monthly revenue, Payhip Pro at $99 a month with no transaction fee becomes the cheapest.

Is Lemon Squeezy still safe to use in 2026?

It still works, and it still acts as merchant of record at 5% + 50¢. But since Stripe bought it, the team has focused on Stripe Managed Payments, and support and updates have slowed, as the company itself said in January 2026. It's reasonable to use, but expect to move eventually and keep your own backups.

Is Etsy worth it for digital products if the fees are higher?

Often, yes, especially at the start. On a normal sale Etsy's fees are actually lower than Gumroad's. The expensive part is Offsite Ads orders. What you're paying for is buyers you couldn't reach on your own.

Do I need to register for VAT to sell digital products?

If you sell through a merchant of record like Lemon Squeezy or Gumroad, the platform deals with VAT and sales tax on your sales. Etsy collects them as a marketplace. If you sell through your own Stripe or PayPal account, you may have to register yourself, so check with an accountant.

Can I sell the same product on Etsy and my own site?

Yes, many sellers do. Just don't use Etsy messages or listings to send buyers somewhere cheaper.

Does Gumroad Discover make up for the 30% fee?

Only if it brings sales you wouldn't have got anyway. Treat Discover sales as a bonus. Don't count on them when you plan your prices or income.

Can I sell AI-generated products on these platforms?

Yes, with care. Etsy allows AI-made designs from your own prompts if you say so in the listing, but it doesn't treat prompt bundles as seller-designed items. On every platform you need the rights to what you sell, so check your AI tool's licence and avoid brand names, characters and named artists' styles.

What about Stripe Managed Payments instead of Lemon Squeezy?

If you're eligible, it's a solid option at 3.5% plus Stripe's processing fees. It's cheaper than Lemon Squeezy on low prices and slightly dearer on higher ones. It's only open to businesses in certain countries, and Stripe reviews each business before allowing access.

Last checked September 26, 2026. Platform fees, payout rules and Lemon Squeezy's move to Stripe change often, so check each pricing page before you choose. Sources: Lemon Squeezy (pricing, fees documentation, 2025 and 2026 blog updates); Stripe (Managed Payments pricing, documentation and eligibility); Gumroad (pricing page, fees help article); Etsy (Fees Policy, Payments Policy, Creativity Standards); Payhip (pricing); Checkout Page (Gumroad processing rates); We Are Founders and Roo (Gumroad Discover and payout details).