We make Drry, one of the alternatives below, so read accordingly. The best Stan Store alternative depends on which part of Stan you are leaving: for a free start, Beacons, Linktree or Gumroad; for courses and downloads with email built in, Podia; for selling access to a group, Whop; and for a bio link that leads into a community you run, Drry. Stan itself is $29 or $99 a month with a 0% platform fee and no free plan, so the price is rarely the reason people move. The three reasons we hear are email being locked behind the $99 plan, no custom domain at any price, and wanting somewhere buyers stay after they buy.
Credit first, because Stan earns it. It is fast to set up, the storefront looks good on a phone, the fee is genuinely 0%, and the $29 Creator plan now includes bookings, a course builder, recurring subscriptions, lead magnets and a community. If your whole business is a handful of products sold from an Instagram or TikTok bio, you may not need to leave at all. Our full breakdown of Stan Store's pricing walks through exactly what the $70 gap between the plans buys, and Drry vs Stan Store is the direct head-to-head.
Beacons: the closest like-for-like
Beacons is the alternative most people mean when they search this. It is the same shape as Stan, a link in bio with a store attached, and it packs more in: email, a small website builder, Instagram DM automation and AI tools. The difference is how it charges.
- Best for: creators who want Stan's storefront plus email and their own domain without paying for a top tier, and who are happy to start free while sales are small.
- Pricing structure: a free-forever plan, then paid plans at a low monthly price. A seller fee applies to each sale on the free and entry plans and drops to zero on the two upper plans, with Stripe or PayPal processing on top either way.
- What you give up: Stan's flat "nothing comes off the top" model on the cheaper plans, and a community space: a members' feed inside Beacons is not part of the offer we could find. See Beacons alternatives if you are weighing it.
Gumroad: the no-subscription one
Gumroad is the opposite bargain to Stan. There is no plan to pay for; it takes a cut of each sale instead, and a much bigger one when the buyer finds you through its own Discover marketplace. For somebody who sells occasionally, that is cheaper than a monthly bill.
- Best for: occasional sellers, first products, and anybody whose sales are too lumpy to justify a subscription.
- Pricing structure: nothing up front, a percentage plus a flat amount on every sale for as long as you sell, and processing on top of the direct rate.
- What you give up: predictability, once sales are steady the cut costs more than Stan's plan would. Buyers of a product can be given a group chat, but what they get is a purchase in their Gumroad library rather than a community of yours they log into. See Gumroad alternatives and Drry vs Gumroad.
Podia: the courses-and-downloads one
Podia sits one step further from the bio link and one step closer to a course business: digital downloads, courses, coaching and email in a friendly package. People outgrowing Stan's course builder often land here.
- Best for: creators whose main product is a course or a library of downloads, who want email in the same tool and a proper storefront website.
- Pricing structure: paid plans only after a trial, with a transaction fee on the entry plan and 0% on the pricier tiers. Email subscriber limits rise with the plan.
- What you give up: the bio-link-first feel, a free plan, and a lower starting price than Stan's. Its community is light rather than the centre of the product. See Podia's pricing.
Linktree: the links-first one
Linktree is the name everybody recognises, and it now sells digital products, one course per profile and bookings from the page. It is a link page first and a store second, which suits a creator whose bio mostly points at other places.
- Best for: creators whose bio link is mainly links, with a product or a booking on the side.
- Pricing structure: a free plan and low monthly paid plans, with a fee on each sale on every plan except the top one, and card processing on top.
- What you give up: fee-free selling below the top tier, and a custom domain, which Linktree says it does not offer. We could not find a way to send your own email broadcast from Linktree either: sign-ups sync out to an email tool on its upper plans. See Linktree alternatives.
Whop: the selling-access one
Whop is a checkout and marketplace for digital access: memberships, courses, Discord and Telegram roles, software. If what you sell on Stan is really access to a group, Whop is built around exactly that.
- Best for: creators selling access to a community that already lives in Discord or Telegram, who want marketplace discovery on top.
- Pricing structure: no subscription; the cost is per transaction, with extra fees on some payment methods and on faster payouts.
- What you give up: a flat bill and a home of your own: the storefront sits inside Whop's marketplace, and the community lives in whichever app you bolt on. See Whop's pricing.
Drry: the bio link in front of a community (ours)
Our product, so treat this as a pitch with numbers you can check. Drry is a community platform for coaches and creators, and it has a bio link and store at the front of it: links, downloads, bookings, forms and players on one page at your own address, with checkout that opens on the page. Behind it sit your community feed, courses, events and email, so a buyer can become a member instead of a one-off sale.
- Best for: creators and coaches whose real product is ongoing, a membership, a course, a group, and who want the bio link to be the front door to it rather than the whole business.
- Pricing structure: a free plan with no card and no trial clock (100 members, the bio link with up to 30 items, up to 10 products and $500 of store sales a month), then flat plans at $29 (Creator) and $99 (Growth) a month, with store items and sales unlimited from Creator. 0% of your sales on every plan, through your own Stripe account. Email is on every plan, and your own domain from Creator.
- What you give up: Stan's single-minded focus. If all you sell is three PDFs from an Instagram bio, Stan is simpler and purpose-built for it. Stan's $29 plan also includes Instagram AutoDM. And on our free plan the store pauses once a month's sales reach $500, so a seller past that needs Creator. See how the bio link works and selling digital products.
How do you choose a Stan Store alternative?
For the full side-by-side on any of these against Drry, the comparison hub lays out every dimension, same disclosure, same rules: a verification date on the figures that carry one, and verify current terms either way.
Questions coaches ask
What is the best alternative to Stan Store?
It depends on what made you look. If the monthly bill is the problem, Gumroad costs nothing until you sell and Beacons starts free. If you want email without paying for Stan's top plan, Beacons and Drry include it lower down. If your own domain matters, Beacons offers one from its first paid plan and Drry from Creator, where Stan offers none at any price. If what you really sell is a membership or a course people come back to, a community platform with a bio link in front of it fits better than a storefront. We make Drry, so weigh that.
Is there a free alternative to Stan Store?
Yes, several. Stan Store has no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and then $29 a month. Beacons and Linktree both have free plans that let you sell, and both take a percentage of each sale on those free plans. Gumroad has no plan at all and takes a cut per sale. Drry's free plan includes the bio link, up to 10 products and $500 of store sales a month at 0%, with no card and no trial clock.
Which Stan Store alternative lets me use my own domain?
Stan Store's own help centre says you cannot create or embed a custom domain into your store; every store lives at stan.store/username, and forwarding a domain only redirects to it. Linktree says the same of its own pages. Beacons offers a custom domain from its first paid plan, and Drry from its Creator plan.
Does Stan Store take a cut of my sales?
No. Stan Store's platform fee is 0% on both plans. What comes off a sale is payment processing (standard Stripe is 2.9% plus $0.30 in the US, plus 0.5% on recurring payments) and a payout fee of 0.25% plus $0.25 with a $1 minimum. So the real cost of Stan is the subscription, $29 or $99 a month, whether you sell anything or not.
Which Stan Store alternative includes email marketing on a cheaper plan?
On Stan, email broadcasts and flows are Creator Pro only, at $99 a month. Beacons includes email on its free plan with a small monthly send limit that grows on its upper plans. Drry includes email on every plan, 700 sends a month on free and 60,000 on Creator at $29 a month.
Does Drry really take 0% of sales?
Yes, on every plan including free. Sales run through your own Stripe account, so only Stripe's standard processing applies and the buyer relationship is yours. We charge a flat subscription ($0, $29 or $99 a month) instead of a percentage, which is the same bargain Stan makes, so the difference between us is what sits around the store, not the fee.