Gumroad vs Stan Store in 2026: Gumroad Costs Less Until $632 a Month

On a $20 product, Gumroad costs less than Stan Store’s Creator Pro plan until you sell about $632 a month. Gumroad suits small or uneven sales and handles sales tax for you. Above that, Creator Pro ($79 a month billed yearly) costs less and keeps your store, bookings and courses on 1 link-in-bio page.

The Gumroad vs Stan Store gap is Gumroad’s 10% + $0.50 a sale against Stan’s flat plan, since both pay 2.9% + $0.30 card fees. Figures come from each company’s pages. For no cut and your own Stripe account, there is CartMango, which I run: 0% per sale plus Stripe’s card fee, free right now, from $10 a year once paid plans start in November.

Gumroad and Stan Store both let you sell a file from a link in your bio, and they charge for it in opposite ways. Gumroad takes a slice of every sale. Stan bills you every month, sales or no sales.

Stan’s own comparison page runs its cost table on the $29 plan alone, while discount codes and order bumps sit on the $99 plan. It also leaves out when the money reaches your bank and who deals with sales tax.

This post starts with 6 setups and cuts them 1 rule at a time. You’ll see what each cut costs in dollars, which 3 setups survive, and why the tax question can change the answer.

Key Takeaways

• Gumroad wins on small sales. On a $20 product it costs less than Stan Creator Pro until about $632 a month, with no plan fee.
• Stan’s $29 plan has no discount codes or upsells. Stan keeps both on Creator Pro. Gumroad includes both, with no monthly fee.
• Gumroad’s marketplace costs 30%. Discover opens only after $100 in real sales plus a risk review of about 3 weeks.
• Gumroad handles your sales tax. It is the merchant of record. Stan only collects tax in your registered region, and filing stays with you.
• Payouts follow different rules. Gumroad’s standard payouts wait for $100, and instant ones cost 3%. Stan cashes out from $10, for a fee of at least $1 each.
• A third route takes no cut. CartMango, the checkout I run, charges 0% plus Stripe’s card fee, free right now, then $10 to $30 a year.

Start here: 6 setups across Gumroad, Stan Store and CartMango

Gumroad charges 2 rates depending on who found the buyer, Stan Store sells 3 plans, and CartMango is a third checkout with a flat yearly price. That makes 6 setups to price.

If you’re still setting up, fees are only part of what slips away from a new store. The Online Selling Mistakes Challenge walks through 5 common selling mistakes, 1 a day for 5 days, at no cost.

The 6 setups:

1. Gumroad, your own links. Buyers come from your bio, posts or email. Gumroad takes 10% + $0.50 a sale.
2. Gumroad Discover. The same Gumroad account, but the buyer found you on Gumroad’s marketplace. Gumroad takes a flat 30%.
3. Stan Creator. $29 a month, or $300 a year.
4. Stan Creator Pro. $99 a month, or $948 a year.
5. Stan Creator Max. $299 a month.
6. CartMango. Free right now, then $10, $20 or $30 a year once paid plans start in November. I built CartMango and run it, so weigh its row with that in mind.

On a $20 sale, Gumroad direct leaves you $16.62, Discover leaves $14.00, and every Stan plan and CartMango leave $19.12 before a plan fee of about $0.83 to $299 a month.

The $0.88 is Stripe’s standard US card rate of 2.9% + $0.30 on a $20 sale. Gumroad charges the same 2.9% + $0.30 on top of its own 10% + $0.50, and its fee help page says so plainly. International cards and PayPal cost more on every row except Discover, where the 30% already covers processing.

Stan’s plan prices come from its help center and pricing blog, and Gumroad’s from its pricing page and fee help article. On CartMango, every tier takes 0% and buyers pay straight into your own Stripe or PayPal account.

Cut 1: Creator Max, the Stan plan not open to every creator yet

Stan Creator Max comes off the list first, because Stan has not opened it to every creator. Its help center ties 2 features to the $299 a month: a custom domain and team seats. Stan’s page on admin seats says Creator Max “hasn’t yet been released to all Creators”, and that you may need to ask support for it. On Creator and Creator Pro, your store lives at stan.store/yourname.

Gumroad gives you a branded address with no plan fee. Its help center has a setup guide for a custom domain on your profile or on a single product. On Stan’s cheaper plans, you can still point a domain you own at your Stan page with a forwarding rule at your domain host.

That leaves 5.

Cut 2: Gumroad Discover, if your buyers come from your own posts

Gumroad Discover drops out for anyone selling to their own followers. The 30% only applies when Gumroad’s marketplace finds the buyer, and you cannot plan around buyers you did not bring. On a $20 product, Discover takes $6.00, card fee included, while a sale through your own link costs $3.38 all in, about 17%. So Discover takes close to twice as much per sale, which only pays off on buyers you would never have reached.

None of the 6 comparison pages I read on Google’s first page explain how you get in. Gumroad’s Discover help page lists 3 account-level conditions:

• Your payout settings are filled in.
• You reach a balance of at least $100 from genuine sales, with self-purchases and friends buying your product excluded.
• Gumroad’s risk team verifies you, which it says takes about 3 weeks on average after you pass $100.

Products on Discover are also opted into Gumroad’s own affiliate program automatically. The Gumroad vs Etsy comparison goes deeper on that entry gate and the 30% fee.

If your buyers arrive from your own Instagram, TikTok or email, count any Discover sales as a bonus on top of the ones you bring.

That leaves 4.

Cut 3: Stan’s $29 Creator plan, if you will ever run a discount or an upsell

Stan’s $29 Creator plan drops out for any seller who wants discount codes and a second offer at checkout. Stan keeps discount codes, upsells and order bumps on Creator Pro, and Gumroad includes discount codes and upsells with no plan fee.

Stan’s own plan grid makes the split easy to see. The crossed-out rows at the bottom are the tools the $29 plan does not get.

Stan’s Creator plan still covers a lot: a mobile store, calendar bookings, an unlimited course builder, subscriptions, lead magnets, a community space and AutoDM for Instagram replies. What it lacks is the set of tools that turn 1 sale into a bigger one, or a past buyer into a repeat one.

Gumroad’s side, at 10% + $0.50 and no plan fee:

• Discount codes.
• Upsells shown after the buyer presses Pay, in 3 types: add a product, swap in a bundle, or upgrade to a better version.
• Email broadcasts and automated workflows, including abandoned cart emails, once you have earned $100 after fees and received a payout.
• An affiliate program for your own products.

CartMango clears this cut too, because its $10 Silver tier has coupons and order bumps. It would fail a cut for built-in email broadcasts, since it sends buyers to your email tool instead, and its affiliate program only comes on the $30 Platinum tier.

The same split shows up in analytics and tracking, since pixel tracking sits on Creator Pro. A seller who moved from Stan to Gumroad wrote in r/digitalproductselling that “you can do more on Gumroad whereas you have to pay for stanstore pro to get the same analysis.”

So the like-for-like fight is Gumroad against Creator Pro. Stan’s own comparison puts the switch “around $190-$200” in monthly sales, using a $10 order and the $29 monthly plan. That only holds for a seller who never runs a discount or an upsell. If that is you, Creator at $25 a month billed yearly breaks even with Gumroad at 10 sales of a $20 product, or $200 a month ($232 on monthly billing) before cash-out fees, and wins above that.

That leaves 3: Gumroad, Stan Creator Pro and CartMango.

What is left: Gumroad, Stan Creator Pro or CartMango

Gumroad suits sellers under about $632 a month on a $20 product. Stan Creator Pro suits sellers above that who want discount codes, upsells and email flows next to their bookings and courses. CartMango suits sellers who want no cut and their own Stripe account.

On a $20 product, Gumroad’s cut is $25 at 10 sales a month and $312.50 at 125 sales, while Creator Pro stays at $79 a month billed yearly and CartMango stays at about $2.50 or less.

Card fees of $0.88 per sale apply to all 3 columns, so they are left out. The break-even moves with your price and billing:

• About $527 a month on a $10 product.
• About $718 a month on a $50 product.
• $792 a month on a $20 product with Stan’s $99 monthly billing.
• About $667 a month on a $20 product once you count Stripe’s cash-out fee on a US Stan account, 0.25% + $0.25 with a $1 minimum, if you cash out weekly.

Gumroad has a discount for big sellers too. Once your paid sales in a calendar month reach $20,000, new direct sales that month drop to 5% + $0.50, then reset on the 1st. That sits far above the $632 switch point.

Gumroad: the pick under about $632 a month

Below the switch point, Gumroad costs less on a $20 product, and it includes discount codes, upsells, email (after your first $100) and tax handling at no extra charge. The Gumroad vs Stripe comparison breaks the same $3.38 on a $20 sale into its parts.

A single seller’s experience points at phones as Gumroad’s weak spot. The same seller who started that r/digitalproductselling thread kept the same audience and links after the move, and wrote that “conversions have fallen off a cliff since moving to Gumroad”. A reply put it down to checkout style: “Stan is built for social traffic – fast, mobile-first, minimal friction. Gumroad feels more like a traditional checkout, which adds steps that hurt impulse buys, especially on mobile.” That is 1 seller’s story from 1 thread.

If most buyers tap through from Instagram or TikTok, test a Gumroad checkout on your own phone before moving a working store.

Stan Creator Pro: the pick above about $632 a month

Above the switch point, Creator Pro’s flat $79 a month billed yearly costs less than Gumroad’s cut on a $20 product, and the gap widens with every sale. On top of the bookings, courses and AutoDM both main Stan plans have, it adds discount codes, upsells and order bumps, affiliate tools, pixel tracking, and email flows that Stan says come with unlimited sends.

What you take on with it:

• No free plan, only a 14-day trial.
• Your address stays stan.store/yourname unless you reach Creator Max.
• Payouts and tax work the Stan way, both covered below.

CartMango: the pick if you want neither a cut nor a monthly plan

CartMango takes 0% a sale on every tier, plus Stripe’s card fee, and costs $10, $20 or $30 a year once paid plans start in November. It is free right now. Buyers pay straight into your own Stripe or PayPal account, and Mini Pages hosts a simple sales page if you have no website.

Each tier adds to the one below:

• $10 Silver: coupons and order bumps, up to 10 products.
• $20 Gold: adds upsells, downsells and cart abandonment emails.
• $30 Platinum: adds an affiliate program for up to 250 affiliates.

What CartMango will not do:

• Email broadcasts. It syncs buyers to the email tool you connect, such as Kit, ActiveCampaign, Beehiiv or BirdSend.
• Video hosting. Video files need outside hosting, such as YouTube or Vimeo.
• Community. Its community feature is still being built for the $30 plan and is not live yet.

Want bookings, courses, a community space and Instagram AutoDM on your link-in-bio page? Either Stan plan does that. Want a shot at marketplace buyers as well? Gumroad Discover offers it, at 30% a sale.

The 3 survivors side by side

All 3 survivors clear every cut, and each still leaves something to you: Gumroad’s standard payouts wait for a $100 balance, Stan Creator Pro leaves sales tax filing to you, and CartMango leaves email broadcasts and sales tax to you.

Getting paid: Gumroad’s $100 standard floor, Stan’s cash-out fee of at least $1

Gumroad’s standard payouts wait for a $100 balance, while Stan Store lets you cash out from $10 and pays a fee on each cash-out.

Gumroad, per its getting-paid help page:

• A balance of at least $100 for weekly, monthly or quarterly payouts, with each sale held at least 7 days.
• Instant payouts with no $100 minimum, for US sellers only, at a 3% fee, once you have 1 completed payout and 60 days of processing.
• Daily payouts for eligible US bank accounts after 4 prior payouts.
• Sales through a connected PayPal account land in that account at the time of sale. PayPal payouts from your balance carry a 2% fee and usually arrive in 1 to 3 business days.
• A first account review that takes 1 to 3 weeks, typically after 3 to 4 sales and a balance over $100.

In our Gumroad review, 8 of the 68 recent seller reviews were about the $100 minimum, behind suspended accounts and held payouts.

Stan Store, per its cash-out guide and fee page:

• A $10 minimum, cashed out as the whole available balance at once.
• For US creators, Stripe takes 2 to 7 business days to process a sale, then the cash-out reaches your bank in 24 to 48 hours.
• On a Stripe Custom account, you cash out from inside Stan.
• Each cash-out on a US Stripe account costs 0.25% + $0.25, with a $1 minimum.

Slow or held payouts are the most common complaint in Stan’s 1- and 2-star reviews, 42 of the 125 sorted in our Stan Store reviews breakdown, so plan your cash flow around those processing days.

CartMango. Payments land in your own Stripe or PayPal account, and those companies pay you out on their usual schedule. CartMango never holds the balance.

The 10% that also handles your sales tax

Gumroad’s 10% + $0.50 pays for a job Stan’s flat fee leaves with you: sales tax. Since January 1, 2025, Gumroad has been the merchant of record, collecting and paying sales tax and VAT wherever it has a tax obligation. Its pricing page puts it bluntly: “Gumroad handles ALL your tax obligations.” Its features page adds that it collects VAT and sends it to the EU, and that “You don’t need to do a thing.”

Stan works the other way. Its sales tax guide says Stan can calculate tax at checkout through Stripe, if you have Stripe connected and you are based in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway or the EU. Stripe then collects tax only from buyers in your registered region, and Stan suggests a tax professional for anyone else. Registering, filing and paying stay with you.

CartMango sits on the same side as Stan here. You stay the seller of record, so tax is yours to handle.

Pocketsflow’s Gumroad vs Stan Store comparison says neither one is a full merchant of record. For Gumroad, that has been wrong since January 2025.

Here the 10% cut buys something no Stan plan includes. Sell a $20 template to buyers in a dozen countries, and Gumroad’s $2.50 per sale means Gumroad deals with the tax on those sales. On Stan, the $79 covers the software, and the tax is still your job. Price that job in hours before you call Stan the cheaper option.

Gumroad vs Stan Store FAQ

Do people actually make money on Gumroad?

Yes, though the seller quoted below says the sales came from their own marketing. The seller, who has used Gumroad for a few years, wrote in r/passive_income that they had made “About $30K” from it, through content marketing and then social media, adding: “You need marketing.” Gumroad’s homepage shows what its creators earned in the past week, which read just over $2 million when I checked.

What is better than Stan Store?

For a seller under about $632 a month on a $20 product, Gumroad costs less and includes discount codes and upsells. The Payhip vs Stan Store comparison covers a checkout with a free plan and a smaller cut. CartMango takes 0% a sale plus Stripe’s card fee, free right now, then $10 to $30 a year.

What’s better than Gumroad?

Above about $632 a month on a $20 product, Stan Creator Pro costs less than Gumroad’s cut. If the 10% is the problem and you mainly sell files, CartMango takes 0% a sale plus Stripe’s card fee, free right now, then $10 to $30 a year. The Gumroad alternative guide walks through 7 options.

Is Gumroad worth it?

Gumroad is worth it for a seller under about $632 a month on a $20 product who wants sales tax handled and no monthly bill. It is less worth it as sales grow: the 10% + $0.50 stays until $20,000 in a single month, and standard payouts wait for a $100 balance.

Can you use Gumroad and Stan Store together?

Yes. Stan Store lets you add external links to your page, so your Stan page can point to a Gumroad product. You then pay both: Stan’s monthly plan, plus Gumroad’s 10% + $0.50 on every sale made through that link.

Does Stan Store have a free plan?

No. Stan’s help center says it has no free plan, and the affiliate-only accounts some people take for a free plan do not include a store. Stan offers a 14-day free trial, then $29 or $99 a month, or $300 or $948 a year.

If neither a 10% cut nor a $79 plan fits

Gumroad vs Stan Store sets a per-sale price against a per-month price, and on a $20 product the line between them sits near $632 a month once the plans do the same jobs. Below it, Gumroad’s cut costs less. Above it, Stan’s plan does.

CartMango takes a third route, with no cut and no monthly plan. It is free right now, then from $10 a year once paid plans start in November, with order bumps and coupons on every tier and payments landing in your own Stripe or PayPal account.

About the Author

👋 I’m Welly, founder of CartMango (the site you’re on), a checkout platform for digital product sellers. We’ve previously processed $179M+. I also run BirdSend (email marketing tool, 3.1B+ emails sent). On the side I show other non-techie digital sellers how I use AI workflows to automate 50%+ of my operations. Find me on LinkedIn.

Related Reading

• Payhip vs Stan Store: the Stan plan split from this Gumroad vs Stan Store comparison, set against a checkout with a free plan
• Gumroad Review: 118 recent Trustpilot reviews sorted, and why payouts lead the seller complaints
• Stan Store Reviews: 125 low ratings sorted, with slow or held payouts at the top
• Gumroad vs Stripe: $3.38 or $0.88 on a $20 sale, and what Gumroad’s extra fee pays for