We make Drry, which sells digital downloads too, so read this with that in mind. How much does Gumroad take? 10% + $0.50 of every sale made through your own profile or link, with card processing of 2.9% + $0.30 on top, and 30% of any sale where the buyer found you through Gumroad's Discover marketplace. Is Gumroad free? Free to start: there is no monthly fee and no plan to pick, so it costs nothing until you sell, and then it takes its cut of every sale for as long as you keep selling.
Every Gumroad figure on this page was read from gumroad.com/pricing and from Gumroad's own help centre (the fee, payout and sales tax articles), as checked September 2026. If you find an article quoting a different Gumroad rate, look at its date before trusting either one, this page included: pricing pages move, and a fee article is only true for the month somebody read it.
Is Gumroad free?
Gumroad is the clearest example there is of a platform that is free to start and never free to run. You sign up, upload a file, set a price and share the link, and nothing is charged at any point before a buyer pays. A dead month costs exactly $0, which no subscription platform can match, and for somebody testing whether an ebook sells at all that is worth real money.
The other side of the same design: because there is no subscription, there is also no plan to buy that makes the rate lower. The one reduction is automatic, and it only arrives at a size most sellers never reach (below). Everybody else pays the same percentage on their thousandth sale as on their first.
What comes off one sale, layer by layer
- Gumroad's fee: 10% + $0.50. On every sale through your profile or a direct link. The $0.50 is fixed, so it weighs heavily on cheap products: on a $5 template it is 10% of the price on its own, before the percentage.
- Card processing: 2.9% + $0.30, on top. Gumroad's fee article says its 10% + $0.50 does not include credit card processing or PayPal fees. So the printed 10% is really about 13% plus $0.80 a sale once processing lands.
- Discover sales: 30%, all-in. When a new customer finds and buys from you through Gumroad's marketplace, the fee is a flat 30%, and that one does include processing. So the gap between a direct sale and a Discover sale is narrower than the 20 points the two headline numbers suggest.
- The volume discount: 5% + $0.50 above $20,000. Once your paid sales in a calendar month reach $20,000, new direct sales that month are charged 5% + $0.50 instead. It applies automatically, resets on the 1st, and does not touch Discover sales or the $0.50.
- Sales tax: collected for you. Gumroad has been the merchant of record for every sale since January 1, 2025, so it adds the tax at checkout and remits it. That is not a cost to you, but it is a real service, and it is part of what the percentage pays for.
Worked example: one $20 ebook
Worked example: $2,000.00 a month
Discover: when 30% is worth paying
Discover is Gumroad's marketplace, and it is the one thing on this page a standalone store cannot give you: people browsing for a product like yours. It is not automatic. Gumroad's help centre says an account first needs its payout settings filled in, a balance of at least $100 from genuine sales, and a pass through a risk review that averages about three weeks; then a product appears once it has made a sale, has a category and has ratings switched on. Products listed on Discover are also opted into Gumroad's affiliate program by default.
The way to think about the 30% is as a finder's fee on a customer you did not bring. Charged on a customer you would have got anyway it is expensive; charged on one you would not, it is cheap. If you send your own audience to your own link, you pay the direct rate, and that is where most sellers' volume sits.
Payouts and refunds
Money in your Gumroad balance is not yet in your bank, and the payout article is worth reading before your first sale:
- A $100 minimum. A scheduled payout needs a balance of at least $100, higher in some local currencies, and on the weekly, monthly and quarterly schedules each sale is held for at least seven days first.
- Bank payouts. Paid in your local currency in the countries Gumroad supports; the article lists no fee on a standard bank payout.
- PayPal payouts: 2%. Used where bank payouts are not available in your country.
- Instant payouts: 3%. US sellers who qualify can be paid within minutes, for up to $10,000 at a time.
Refunds are fairer than on many platforms. When you refund a sale, Gumroad returns its own fee on the refunded amount, and keeps only the payment-processing part, because payment processors do not return it on a refund.
Is Gumroad worth it?
Often, and it is worth being clear about when. Gumroad is genuinely good at the thing it is for:
- A first product, or an occasional one. Zero fixed cost is the right price for something you are not sure will sell.
- Selling to buyers in many countries. Being the merchant of record means VAT and sales tax are Gumroad's problem rather than yours, and that is work you would otherwise do or pay somebody for.
- Sellers who want marketplace traffic. Discover sends buyers; a store of your own sends none by definition.
Where it stops being worth it is steady volume. The cut never ends, so the better a product does, the more it costs, and at a few hundred dollars a month the percentage is already larger than a flat plan would be. A second thing that changes the answer: a buyer on Gumroad gets a file and a receipt. Gumroad does offer a per-product chat and email workflows, but if what you really want is for buyers to join a community and keep learning from you, a checkout is only the first step. We cover the options in the best Gumroad alternatives.
How Drry compares (the disclosed pitch)
Our side, stated plainly so you can discount it. Drry sells digital downloads from your own bio link and takes 0% of every sale on every plan, the free one included. The charge runs on your own Stripe account, so Stripe's processing is the only thing that comes off, and the buyer, the payout schedule and the customer list are yours.
- Free: 10 products and $500 of sales a month, at 0%. Past that, the store pauses until you upgrade, so a free plan is for proving a product, not for running a big one.
- Creator, $29 a month: unlimited products and sales, still 0%, and your own domain.
- What sits behind the sale: the buyer's email joins your list, and they can become a member of your community and work through your courses. See how the store works.
The trade-offs are real. We send you no marketplace traffic, and because the sale runs on your own Stripe account you are the seller, so sales tax and VAT are yours to handle, where Gumroad handles them for you. If that is the part you value most, Gumroad may simply be the better tool. For the step-by-step on either platform, see how to sell an ebook and how to sell digital downloads; for the full side-by-side, see Drry vs Gumroad, and for why we charge a flat price at all, see our 0% commitment.
Questions coaches ask
How much does Gumroad take?
Gumroad takes 10% + $0.50 of every sale made through your own profile or link, and card processing of 2.9% + $0.30 comes off on top of that, so a direct sale costs you about 13% plus $0.80. When a buyer finds you through Gumroad's Discover marketplace it takes 30% instead, and that 30% already includes processing. Once a calendar month's paid sales pass $20,000, new direct sales that month drop to 5% + $0.50. As checked September 2026 against gumroad.com/pricing and Gumroad's fee article.
Is Gumroad free?
Free to start, yes. There is no plan to choose, no monthly fee and no setup cost, so a month in which you sell nothing costs you nothing. It stops being free at your first sale, because Gumroad is paid out of each sale instead of by subscription, and it keeps taking that cut for as long as you sell.
Does Gumroad charge a monthly fee?
No. Gumroad's pricing page says it does not charge a monthly fee and that its fees are deducted from every sale instead. The cost of Gumroad is therefore entirely proportional: it rises with every sale and there is no plan you can buy to lower the rate, apart from the automatic discount on direct sales above $20,000 in a calendar month.
How much does Gumroad take on Discover sales?
30% of the sale, and that figure already includes payment processing. On a $20 product that is $6.00, leaving you $14.00, against $16.62 on the same sale through your own link. Discover only applies when a new customer finds and buys from you through Gumroad's marketplace, and a product is only listed there once your account and the product meet Gumroad's eligibility rules.
Does Gumroad handle sales tax?
Yes. Since January 1, 2025 Gumroad has been the merchant of record for all sales, which means it collects and remits sales tax and VAT for you, worldwide, with nothing to configure. That is a genuine part of what the fee buys, and it is the thing most flat-price alternatives, us included, leave to you.
Is Gumroad worth it?
For a first product or an occasional sale, usually yes: nothing to pay until something sells, tax handled, and a checkout that works. It gets expensive as you grow, because the cut never stops. At $2,000.00 a month in $20 sales through your own link, Gumroad's own fee is $250.00 a month, $3,000.00 a year, before card processing. Work out that number on your own last month before deciding.