The best platform to sell digital products, compared on what a sale costs

The best platform to sell digital products is the one that costs you the least on the sales you will actually make, pays you in a way you can live with, and sits where your buyers already are. This comparison reads six platforms from their own pricing pages, each dated below, and puts the numbers side by side: Onlink, Gumroad, Payhip, Sellfy, Stan Store and Etsy. Every fee, minimum and limit below is quoted from the page it came from, with the date.

The short version: Onlink, Gumroad and Payhip charge nothing before a sale and a percentage after it (10% on Onlink Free, 10% plus $0.50 on Gumroad, 5% on Payhip Free); Sellfy and Stan Store charge a subscription of $29 a month after a 14-day trial and 0% on a sale; Etsy charges $0.20 to list and 6.5% plus payment processing to sell, and brings its own shoppers. Which of those is cheapest depends on how much you sell in a month, and the tables below work it out.

What kinds of platform sell digital products?

Three kinds, and the six here cover all of them. A link in bio page with selling built in, where the page you already put in your Instagram or TikTok profile is also the shop: Onlink, and Stan Store, whose pricing article says you "sell right from your link in bio". A storefront platform (Gumroad, Payhip, Sellfy), where you get a store address and send your own audience to it. And a marketplace (Etsy), where shoppers arrive on their own and you pay for the traffic in fees.

The distinction matters more than any single fee. A storefront and a link in bio page both need an audience you bring. The marketplace sells to strangers and charges for it: Etsy's seller page says "millions of shoppers spend billions each year" there, and you pay in the listing fee, the 6.5% transaction fee and, on sales from its ads, 15%, while Gumroad's Discover marketplace takes 30%.

For a creator whose buyers come from Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, the audience already exists, and the question is how short the path is from the profile to the checkout. On Onlink the path is one link, because the page in the profile is the shop and also holds the photos, video and links; a storefront adds a link from the bio page to the store, or replaces the bio page with the store. Our guide to selling digital products from a link in bio walks through the first kind, and the best link in bio tools compared covers the tools that do the first half of the path.

What does each platform cost before you sell anything?

Onlink, Gumroad and Payhip cost $0 before a sale, with no time limit printed on any of the three pages. Sellfy prints a 14-day free trial and then $29, $79 or $159 a month; Stan Store prints a 14-day free trial on its pricing article and then $29 or $99 a month, and its plan page answers "Does Stan offer a free plan?" with "Not at the moment!"; Etsy prints "No additional monthly fees" and a $0.20 fee per listing.

Sources, each read on 5 September 2026 unless stated: Onlink pricing, Gumroad pricing, Gumroad's fees article and features page, Payhip pricing, Sellfy pricing and home page, Stan's plan page and pricing article (both 4 September 2026), and Etsy's seller page.

Payhip's pricing page is the only one of the six that prints "no feature-gating here": the free plan and the $99 plan hold the same features, and the subscription buys a lower fee. Onlink works the same way, per the Onlink pricing page: the paid plans lower the fee on a sale and add tools, and selling itself is on Free.

What does each platform take on a sale?

Onlink takes 10% on Free, 7% on Pro and 0% on Premium; Gumroad takes 10% plus $0.50 on direct sales and 30% on marketplace sales; Payhip takes 5% on Free, 2% on Plus and 0% on Pro; Sellfy and Stan Store take 0%; Etsy takes 6.5% of the sale price on top of the listing fee.

Payment processing is separate on all six, except Gumroad's 30% Discover rate, which includes it: Gumroad's fees article prints "Credit card processing (2.9% + $0.30)" as not included, Payhip's and Sellfy's FAQs say PayPal and Stripe charge their standard rates, Stan's pricing article says the same, and on Onlink Stripe charges its fee inside your own Stripe account.

Per the pages linked under the first table. Two lines deserve a second look. Gumroad's 30% is for buyers who find you through its Discover marketplace, not for buyers you send yourself, and its own article says the rate includes processing. Etsy's 15% Offsite Ads fee is charged only on a sale that came from one of its ads, and its page says the programme "may be required based on how much you make in sales on Etsy in a 12 month period".

What does a $20 sale leave you with on each platform?

On a $20 sale, before payment processing, Onlink Free leaves you $18.00, Gumroad leaves you $17.50 on a direct sale, Payhip Free leaves you $19.00, Sellfy and Stan Store leave you $20.00 but charged $29 that month, and Etsy leaves you $18.50 after the listing fee. The table applies each page's printed fee to the same sale; the subscription column is what the month cost whether or not the sale happened.

Per the pages linked under the second table; Onlink's line is computed from the same fee table its checkout uses. The break-even is the useful number. A 0% platform at $29 a month beats Onlink Free once your month's sales pass $290, because 10% of $290 is $29; below that, the free plan costs less. Onlink Premium at $30 a month billed annually beats Onlink Free once monthly sales pass $300, and it is the plan the Onlink pricing page marks as Recommended.

We built the fee that way on purpose. A creator who sells nothing this month should owe nothing this month, so on Onlink the subscription is optional and the fee only exists when a sale does; a creator who sells a lot moves to Premium and pays 0%, which is the point at which a flat subscription is the better deal on any platform.

Where does the money go, and when do you get it?

On Onlink, Payhip and Sellfy the sale is paid into your own Stripe or PayPal account at the time of sale; on Gumroad and Stan Store the sale lands, by default, in a balance inside the platform and is paid out later; on Etsy the funds go to your bank through Etsy Payments. The pages differ most on minimums and waiting: Gumroad prints a $100 minimum and a 7-day hold on its weekly schedule, Stan prints a $10 minimum and a cash-out you press yourself.

Gumroad's payout page was read on 5 September 2026 at Getting paid by Gumroad; Stan's lines are from its help centre read on 4 September 2026, quoted in full in Onlink vs Stan Store; Payhip's from Payhip's digital downloads page and its pricing FAQ. On Onlink there is no balance to wait on because the sale never passes through us: the buyer pays your Stripe account, Onlink's fee is taken at the moment of payment, and refunds and disputes are handled in your own Stripe dashboard.

Which platform handles sales tax for you?

Gumroad does, as merchant of record: its pricing page says that since 1 January 2025 "Gumroad handles ALL your tax obligations", collecting and remitting sales tax worldwide. Payhip's pages say it collects and pays EU and UK VAT and US and Canadian sales tax on your behalf; Onlink does not collect or remit tax for you, because the sale is yours in your own Stripe account. The list is what each page prints.

• Onlink: the sale settles in your own Stripe account, and any tax on it is handled the way you handle tax on any sale you take through Stripe; Onlink is not the merchant of record.
• Gumroad: merchant of record since 1 January 2025, per its pricing page: "You don't need to worry about VAT, GST, or any other international tax requirements."
• Payhip: "We collect and pay digital EU/UK VAT and US/Canadian sales tax on your behalf so you don't have to", per its digital downloads page; other taxes can be set up and are reported to you, per its pricing FAQ.
• Sellfy: "Advanced VAT & tax settings" on every plan, per its pricing table.
• Stan Store and Etsy: not stated on the pages we read, so we make no claim.

Per the pages linked under the first table. If tax handling is the deciding factor, Gumroad's and Payhip's pages are the two that promise to collect and remit for you, and Gumroad's 10% plus $0.50 and Payhip's 5% on Free are the price of that promise on every sale.

Where can you sell digital products for free?

On Onlink, Gumroad and Payhip, all three with no subscription and no end date, and on Etsy for $0.20 a listing. Free here means no cost before a sale: each of the three still takes its fee when a sale happens, and the second table has the three rates.

What you get at $0 differs. Onlink's free plan is a page that holds photos, videos, links, notes, a map, Spotify and YouTube cards next to the digital products, courses, paid calls, donations and tips, with 10 GB of media; Gumroad's is a storefront with a page editor, memberships and subscriptions; Payhip's is a store with "All features" and "Unlimited products", including a custom domain, which Onlink does not offer on any plan. Sellfy and Stan Store have no free plan; both print a 14-day trial.

What files and limits does each platform print?

Onlink holds up to 3 files of 50 MB each per product inside 10 GB of media on Free (20 GB on Pro, 50 GB on Premium); Payhip prints "no storage or bandwidth limits" and "a 5GB per file limit"; Sellfy prints 10 GB, 15 GB and 20 GB per file by plan and "up to 50 files" per product. Gumroad's, Stan's and Etsy's pages that we read print no file limit, so we list none.

Onlink's limits are read from the product code, the others from Payhip's digital downloads page, Sellfy pricing and Sellfy's home page, all on 5 September 2026. If your product is a large video course rather than a PDF, the per-file ceilings above decide the platform before the fees do; on Onlink a course is its own card type with lessons, separate from the digital product card, and our guide to selling digital products explains the difference.

Which platform should you pick?

Start on Onlink's free plan if your buyers come from your own profiles and you sell under $300 a month: it is the one of the six where the page in the profile holds photos, video and links as well as the shop, it costs $0 before a sale and 10% after, and the money goes to your own Stripe account. Past $300 a month, move to Onlink Premium at $30 billed annually and pay 0%. The cases that send you elsewhere are specific, and each is in the list.

• You want someone else to collect and remit sales tax worldwide: Gumroad, as merchant of record, at 10% plus $0.50 a sale.
• You want a free store with a custom domain and files up to 5 GB: Payhip Free, at 5% a sale.
• You sell large files, 10 GB each on Sellfy's $29 plan and up to 20 GB on its $159 plan, and already sell more than $290 a month: Sellfy, at 0%.
• You want a storefront with funnels, upsells and email flows in one subscription: Stan Store Creator Pro, at $99 a month and 0%, which lists all three on Stan's plan page.
• You have no audience yet and want the platform to bring shoppers: Etsy, at $0.20 a listing and 6.5% a sale, with a 15% ad fee on the sales its ads bring.

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