Gumroad vs Polar
Pricing
Gumroad: 10% flat fee per sale
Polar: Free plan at 5% + 50c per transaction; Pro $20/mo at 3.8% + 40c
Description
Gumroad: The simplest way to sell digital products: set up a product page and start selling in minutes
Polar: Open-source merchant of record for selling software, subscriptions and usage-based billing, handling sales tax for you
Pros
- Literally takes 5 minutes to set up and start selling
- Built-in audience through Gumroad Discover (free marketing)
- No monthly fees: pay only when you sell
- Acts as merchant of record: it collects and remits sales tax and VAT on your sales
- Usage billing, subscriptions and credits can be combined on one product, which suits AI products billed by tokens
- Open source under the Apache 2.0 licence
Cons
- 10% fee per sale, against 5% + 50c on Paddle and LemonSqueezy and 2.9% + 30c on Stripe
- Very limited customization of your storefront and checkout
- Analytics and reporting are basic
- Fees are higher than a plain payment processor: 5% + 50c per transaction on the free plan, plus 1.5% for non-US cards
- Disputes cost $15 each whatever the outcome, and transaction fees are not returned when you refund
- Payouts carry Stripe's charges: $2 a month while payouts are active, plus 0.25% + 25c per payout
Details
Gumroad is where you sell something when you do not want to think about selling. Create a product, set a price, get a link. Share the link, people pay, you get money. The entire setup takes 5 minutes, which is why thousands of creators start here.
The 10% fee is painful: on a $50 ebook, you lose $5 per sale. At scale, that adds up to thousands of dollars a year you could keep by switching to Stripe or LemonSqueezy. But Gumroad’s simplicity has value: you skip all the setup of payment processors, tax compliance, and checkout flows. Start on Gumroad to validate that people will pay for your thing, then migrate when the fees start hurting.
Polar is a billing platform and merchant of record. It meters usage, runs subscriptions and invoicing, and sells to your customers as the merchant of record, so sales tax is collected and remitted for you and the rest settles to your bank account. A hosted checkout and a single link are enough to start selling.
It is built for developers selling software, and especially for AI products that charge by tokens or agent runs: you send one event per model call, and Polar meters it, prices it and puts it on the invoice.
The free Starter plan charges 5% + 50c per transaction. Paid plans swap part of that for a monthly fee: Pro is $20/month at 3.8% + 40c and, by Polar’s own numbers, pays off above about $1,379 a month in sales. Organisations created before 27 May 2026 keep an Early Member rate of 4% + 40c, plus 0.5% on subscription payments.
Gumroad verified
Polar verified
