So you finally managed to finish your first eBook? That’s great…congratulations!
After all those months of struggling to turn your first writing idea into an info-product reality, it’s done and you’re ready to start reaping the benefits of your hard work with some online sales.
Now you just have to find a way to accept money from your audience and you’ll literally be in business.
The problem is that online payment systems can be complex and tough to integrate smoothly with your website. You’re also handling people’s credit card digits so it’s important to get this sales step right.
Read on to learn about the 3 major online payment systems (Stripe, PayPal and GumRoad) so you can launch your eBook now with the payment gateway that’s right for you.
More…
Selling Your First eBook Copy
Here at ActiveGrowth, we always promote building and operating your business on platforms you own and control. For the most part, that means selling your products on your own website and building a mailing list to reach your audience instead of relying solely on social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram to do it.Assuming you’ve done that and are ready to sell your eBook through your website, how exactly do you handle the payment and delivery side of each sale?
Well first of all, you don’t need to build a full blown membership site costing you hefty monthly subscription feesto sell a simple PDF eBook.That means I won’t be discussing membership services or plugins like MemberMouse, ClickFunnels or Wishlist Member in this review.Instead, I’m going to walk you through 3 payment gateway services that meet a simple eBook payment and delivery set of criteria:
- You can set up payments on the sales page of your WordPress website.
- You can use the payment gateway to facilitate the delivery your eBook.
- You can set up the payment gateway for free because you pay based on transaction fees.
- Your buy button is customizable in some way (e.g. You can change the Buy Button design, add your logo to the payment form, modify the text, etc.).
- The payment gateway addresses some kind of tax collection, European VAT (Value-Added Tax) collection, or integrates with a service that does.
Read on to find out how Stripe, PayPal and Gumroad stack up when it comes to selling your new eBook.
Stripe
If you want to connect a basic payment system to sell your eBook (or any one time product purchase for that matter), Stripe is an attractive solution.
If you don’t mind dealing with some HTML code on your site, you can have your buy button, payment form and purchase confirmation page up and running in minutes.
And if working with code makes you queasy, there’s a freemium WordPress plugin you can install to make the setup process 100% non-techie. I’ll discuss this plugin integration shortly, but first let’s talk about the different aspects of using Stripe to sell your eBook.
Registration and Activation of Your Stripe Account
The good news is that registering for your Stripe account is free. However, once logged in to your dashboard, you’ll have to enter some extra personal details, info about your company as well as your bank digits to apply for a live account. Once submitted, you’ll be ready to start accepting payments immediately.Stripe also provides a test sandbox for their payment system so you can get your buttons, forms and digital delivery process working on your sales page before going live.
How Stripe Payments Work to Sell Your eBook
Stripe’s system to get your payment gateway working is pretty simple. You’ll get:
- A buy button with customizable text.
- A basic, but stylish looking payment form to collect your customer’s purchase details.
- A redirect to another page on your site.
Without any fancy API integration and some basic copy/pasting of Stripe’s HTML code, you can embed the Stripe button and payment form directly on your eBook’s sales page.
Digital Delivery with Stripe
The best way to deliver your eBook with Stripe is through their redirect link feature after purchase.The simple way to do this is to create a thank you page on your website that includes a download button for your eBook so customers will have instant access directly after purchase.Although this delivery method is simple, it’s not foolproof.
People can share your download link with others, but as long as you tell Google not to index it for searches (which you can do with a free SEO plugin like Yoast), it probably won’t be a big enough problem to warrant paying for an expensive shopping cart system…at least when you’re just starting out.When your eBook becomes a hot commodity however, you can then upgrade your digital delivery process using the cash you’re making from your growing eBook sales.
Stripe Integrations
Since it’s important to comply with applicable sales tax and/or EU VAT laws when selling your eBook, Stripe integrates with 5 different tax and VAT calculation/collection services to help you manage this: Avalara, Taxamo, TaxJar, Quaderno and Octobat. These services do add monthly subscription costs to the Stripe transaction fees which will impact your eBook profit margins.
If your eBook sales can afford a tax app integration, the good news is that these services use API integrations within the Stripe dashboard that apply the collection calculations directly to payment forms once enabled.When it comes to email marketing service integrations, Stripe is more limited. Stripe’s 2 most notable email marketing integrations include Drip and ONTRAPORT.
However, if you connect Stripe with the online automation tool Zapier (another paid service), you can make every Stripe purchase trigger an automated workflow to add your new customers to other email marketing services (like ActiveCampaign or ConvertKit). As of this writing, Zapier currently offers 100 “Zaps” (a.k.a. integrations) of Stripe with popular applications.And if you’re just looking to DIY your Stripe payment gateway on a WordPress website without having to code anything, the most helpful and cost effective tool to use is the WP Simple Pay plugin.
WP Simple Pay Plugin
The WP Simple Pay is a freemium plugin that allows you to easily connect your WordPress website to your Stripe account via API keys.
WP Simple Pay allows you to more easily modify Stripe features like your payment form text, payment confirmation page text, payment error page text, and pricing.
For the purposes of selling your eBook, the free (Lite) version of the plugin is very useful.
You simply create a Stripe payment form within the plugin on your WordPress dashboard and then add its corresponding short code where the “Buy Now” button needs to go on your sales page.
Upgrading to one of WP Simple Pay Pro’s yearly subscription options is only necessary when you need features like custom fields, user-entered amounts, coupon codes, limited tax rate calculation and collection and subscription payments.
Stripe’s Cut
Stripe’s pay-as-you-go pricing model is straightforward:Stripe charges you a 2.9% + 30¢ fee on each payment they process for you.For international card charges, there’s an additional 1% fee added.That means the value of using Stripe to sell your eBook will depend primarily on the price you’re able to charge for it. To give you an idea what Stripe’s fee structure looks like for each eBook sold at different price points, check out the following table:
|
Price: |
$7.00 |
$29.00 |
$47.00 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Stripe US fees: |
$0.50(7.1%) |
$1.14(3.9%) |
$1.66(3.5%) |
|
Stripe Internl. fees: |
$0.57(8.1%) |
$1.43(4.9%) |
$2.13(4.5%) |
As you can see from the table, Stripe becomes a much more attractive payment gateway for selling your eBook as the price of your product increases.
PayPal
If you’re considering using PayPal to handle payments for your new eBook, it definitely has the advantage of being an industry leader many customers trust.
However, there are 3 significant drawbacks to using PayPal when it comes to selling simple digital products. First, PayPal adds several unnecessary steps to the checkout process to push customers to open a PayPal account if they don’t have one. Each PayPal purchase forces customers to dance through a series of checkout pages that increase the complexity of each sale.
Second, the PayPal button setup doesn’t send people directly to your confirmation page after purchase. Depending on which checkout experience your customers get, they’ll have to click on a small and easy to miss link and/or wait for 10 seconds before seeing their download page.
That’s not a very reliable delivery method so you’ll need a backup system that can send the download to those customers who miss their download page.
And finally, PayPal doesn’t support EU VAT rules for digital sales so you won’t be allowed to sell the ebook to anyone in the EU unless you integrate it with a system that can handle the VAT issue for you.Practically speaking, PayPal requires additional VAT calculation and digital delivery services to make it a reliable payment gateway. Know that these integrations can increase its overall cost and complexity to sell your eBook.
Registration and Activating Your PayPal Business Account
To add a “Buy Now” button to your eBook sales page through PayPal, you must first upgrade to a Business Account. Don’t worry, this step is simple and approval is automatic once you enter your details.
How PayPal Payments Work to Sell Your eBook
The easiest way to add a PayPal “Buy Now” button to your sales page is by copy/pasting either the HTML code or an email link that PayPal generates for you after creating the product on your Business Account dashboard.
Find the “Create PayPal payment button” option and then work your way through the simple form to generate your first buy button.Some nice features built into PayPal’s button creation process include the ability to add drop down selection menus, shipping rates, a basic sales tax percentage, and inventory tracking.
The most important of these extra features for the sale of your eBook is the sales tax collection rate. Unfortunately, PayPal doesn’t help you much with this complex issue as it’s up to you to set the correct percentage. You’ll need to do your own due diligence to make sure you’re in compliance with the US laws that apply to you.
Once your PayPal button is complete, you can either embed the resulting button HTML code on your sales page or use the PayPal generated email link within your own “Buy Now” button to maintain your native site design (like in the example screenshot below).
Digital Delivery with PayPal
Like Stripe, you can use a redirect link after purchase to send your paying customers to a thank you and digital download page, but depending on which checkout experience your customers get, they’ll have to click on a small, easy to miss link and/or wait 10 seconds before seeing their download page.
Again, that’s not a reliable delivery method so you’ll need need a backup delivery system like SendOwl to make sure your customers get their eBook.
However, PayPal does give you the ability to add a purchase cancellation redirect link to your payment flow. If you end up using PayPal, consider leveraging this cancellation redirect as a way to send hesitant customers to a downsell page.
PayPal Integrations
If you want to use PayPal for sales in both the US and EU, PayPal can be integrated with sales tax or VAT calculation/collection services like Avalara, Taxamo, TaxJar and Octobat. However, unlike Stripe, these integrations happen outside the PayPal environment (on the tax service app dashboard).
Also, PayPal has over 85 automated workflow integrations with Zapier including ActiveCampaign, ConverKit and AWeber so these “Zaps” make it possible to add new customers to your list after each purchase.
PayPal’s Cut
Like Stripe, PayPal charges 2.9% + a fixed fee depending on the currency used (currently 30¢ for USD denominated transactions) for purchases made within the United States.Although that fee structure is the same as Stripe’s for domestic purchases, PayPal charges more for international transactions. In those cases, the PayPal transaction fee jumps up to 4.4% + the fixed fee.Check out the table below to see how the PayPal fee structure changes when selling your eBook internationally:
|
Price: |
$7.00 |
$29.00 |
$47.00 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
PayPal US Purchases: |
$0.50(7.1%) |
$1.14(3.9%) |
$1.66(3.5%) |
|
PayPal non-US: |
$0.61(8.7%) |
$1.58(5.4%) |
$2.37(5%) |
As you can see, PayPal is more expensive than Stripe when it comes to international purchases so take this into account if your target customers are outside the US.
GumRoad
Of the three payment gateways reviewed, Gumroad stands out as the most complete payment gateway and delivery system for your eBook.
That’s because Gumroad handles payments, sales tax and EU VAT collection, as well as the secure digital delivery of your eBook. It’s super easy to start an account, upload your eBook PDF file, embed a buy button on your sales page and then launch your product without needing to worry about any redirect links or potential lost revenue from URL sharing.
Registration and Activation of Your Gumroad Account
Signing up for your free Gumroad account is quick and easy. Once activated, you can instantly upload your eBook PDF file to create your first Gumroad product.
You then set your price, write some basic sales copy and voila! Gumroad generates HTML code (and an email link) to embed a buy button and payment form on your sales page.
How Gumroad Payments Work to Sell Your eBook
Let’s walk through the three different ways to embed a Gumroad buy button and payment form on your eBook sales page:
Linking​
The simplest way to use Gumroad on your sales page is through linking. After creating your product on the Gumroad dashboard, you’ll get access to a link you can paste into a native button (just like with the PayPal email link).Although product linking allows you to maintain design consistency on your sales page, it does take customers away from your site to complete the purchase. If you want to keep customers on your site throughout the entire purchase process, consider using the following 2 Gumroad payment form options…
Overlay
Another way to add the Gumroad payments to your site is through their overlay feature.
You just take the auto-generated overlay HTML code and embed it on your eBook sales page where you want the buy button to appear. When live, a Gumroad buy button is loaded and an overlay payment form pops up when clicked.
Note that the overlay function does not work the same for mobile devices. When customers click the buy button for your eBook on a mobile screen, a new window will appear in their mobile browser and bring them to a Gumroad hosted payment page.
Embed Widget
The last method for adding Gumroad payments to your sales page is through the embed widget feature. Again, you just copy the Gumroad HTML code and apply it into your sales page where you’d like the widget to appear.
Unlike the overlay option, the embedded widget form allows both desktop and mobile customers to purchase your ebook directly from your site.
Digital Delivery and PDF Stamping with Gumroad
Gumroad is the only product reviewed here that takes care of your digital product delivery after purchase. Once a customer completes their payment, a receipt and download button for your eBook are instantly provided on the purchase page.With Stripe and PayPal, it’s up to you to make sure the customer receives their eBook through either redirect links or email delivery.Also, Gumroad offers an extra layer of theft protection to your eBook through PDF stamping. The PDF stamp option adds the buyer’s email address as a special graphic to the first page of their digital copy. Unique-to-customer stamps prevents the sharing of your eBook with others as the customer’s name gets tagged to every duplicate copy.
Gumroad Integrations
Although Gumroad has an official WordPress plugin available, it only has 1000+ active installs, 3 reviews and was last updated multiple years ago so I didn’t even bother testing it. It’s best to stick with the sales page integrations discussed above.
Gumroad does offer some additional integrations with services like ConvertKit, Drip and Zapier.
Available Zapier automations with Gumroad number fewer than Stripe or PayPal, but include zaps to email marketing services like ActiveCampaign, AWeber and MailChimp.
Gumroad Sales Tax and VAT
Gumroad’s sales tax and VAT collection services are worth special mention compared to Stripe and PayPal.
For US tax purposes, Gumroad calculates, collects and remits sales tax on sales to customers in states where you have nexus.
What Does Nexus Mean for US Sales Tax?
Nexus means that you have a business presence in a state that can include – but isn’t limited to – an office, an employee or a warehouse. Gumroad determines this based on the state(s) you declare to have nexus in within their settings menu.
For European VAT purposes, Gumroad handles the entire headache for you so no need to worry about it. Gumroad buys your product from you and then sells it to customers on your behalf so Gumroad becomes the responsible party for handling European VAT remittance.
Gumroad’s Cut
For all the simplicity Gumroad provides, they do charge a premium for it.There are 2 pricing tiers with the Gumroad payment gateway:
Gumroad with no monthly fee
If you choose this entry pricing tier, your payment forms will maintain Gumroad branding, you’ll only have access to Gumroad’s default style payment form, and your cost per transaction will be much higher than Stripe or PayPal:8.5% + 30¢ fixed fee per transaction.
Gumroad with a $10 monthly fee
For a $10 a month subscription fee, you’ll gain access to features like additional Gumroad payment form templates, customer messaging, and CSS design customization. Most importantly, your price per transaction becomes considerably cheaper:3.5% + 30¢ fixed fee per transaction.
Gumroad Discover
As a side note, Gumroad also offers an internal promotional service called Discover. Discover basically promotes your eBook to buyers of similar products. Participation in Discover is optional and adds an extra 10% to whatever your transaction fee structure is, but only to purchases made directly through the Discover service.
eBook Earnings Comparison
Take a look at the eBook earnings tables below to compare how the 3 different payment gateways stack up against each other at different quantities sold. It’s helpful to see how the price you set and the number of eBooks sold impacts which payment gateway will provide the best payout for you:
Your Stripe & PayPal (US Purchases) eBook Earnings
|
eBook Price: |
$7.00 |
$29.00 |
$47.00 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
x1 sold |
$6.50 |
$27.86 |
$45.34 |
|
x10 sold |
$64.97 |
$278.59 |
$453.37 |
|
x100 sold |
$649.70 |
$2,785.90 |
$4,533.70 |
|
x1000 sold |
$6,497.00 |
$27,859.00 |
$45,337.00 |
Your Gumroad Free Plan eBook Earnings
|
eBook Price: |
$7.00 |
$29.00 |
$47.00 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
x1 sold |
$6.11 |
$26.24 |
$42.71 |
|
x10 sold |
$61.05 |
$262.35 |
$427.05 |
|
x100 sold |
$610.50 |
$2,623.50 |
$4,270.50 |
|
x1000 sold |
$6,105.00 |
$26,235.00 |
$42,705.00 |
Your Gumroad $10/mo. Plan eBook Earnings (with 1 year of fees)
|
Price: |
$7.00 |
$29.00 |
$47.00 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
x1 sold |
– $113.55 |
– $92.32 |
– $74.95 |
|
x10 sold |
– $55.45 |
$156.85 |
$330.55 |
|
x100 sold |
$525.50 |
$2,648.50 |
$4,385.50 |
|
x1000 sold |
$6,335.00 |
$27,565.00 |
$44,935.00 |
When you compare the no monthly fee Gumroad plan vs the $10 per month plan (calculated for 1 year or $120), the entry plan actually works out better for lower eBook prices and lower sales.
The $10 monthly subscription fee only becomes advantageous at higher prices and higher numbers of sales.
Stripe Recommendation
Stripe is the winner when it comes to transaction fees. Their domestic and international purchase fees outcompete PayPal and Gumroad in most of the pricing scenarios shown above.
However, due to the complexities of digital delivery and tax collection, you may find it necessary to integrate Stripe with additional subscription services ​​that make Stripe much more expensive than it first appears.
If you’re a developer, Stripe is the payment gateway for you as the API integration possibilities are vast.And if you’re not a developer, Stripe still offers a simple, non-techie payment solution for accepting your eBook payments. With a little HTML code copy/pasting or integration with the WP Simple Pay plugin, you can have a payment form up and running on your eBook sales page in minutes.
PayPal Recommendation
Because PayPal has become the industry leader for online payments, you can’t overlook the fact that customers are familiar and comfortable buying online through it. Whether you use the email link or HTML code copy/pasting methods, setting up PayPal buy buttons on your eBook sales page will be fast and easy.However, because PayPal adds additional checkout steps,charges higher international transaction fees, provides an unreliable digital delivery method and doesn’t cover EU VAT collection rules, a solution like Gumroad is probably going to be much simpler and safer for you to use when selling your first eBook.
Gumroad Recommendation
Gumroad definitely offers the smoothest tax collection and cart to customer experience for both you and your customers. However, such convenience comes with some design inflexibility and higher transaction fees.Gumroad charges the most in transaction fees out of the 3 payment gateways reviewed, but those extra fees include important features like automated eBook delivery, sales tax + EU VAT calculation, collection and remittance, as well as some eBook theft protection.
When you factor in the cost of hiring apps like TaxJar and SendOwl to take care of these jobs for you, those extra Gumroad fees become a bargain.If you start out using Gumroad for the convenience it offers, only consider switching to Stripe or PayPal once you scale your sales to justify the cost of hiring more advanced services like SendOwl for product delivery and TaxJar for VAT and tax management.
You’ll have to do the math to know which setup translates into better profit margins once subscription fees, transaction fees, your eBook pricing and number of sales are all accounted for.
Now It’s Your Turn
The bottom line is that payment gateways aren’t free, but you must have a way to collect money if you want to sell something online. Pick whichever gateway fits your current needs best so you canfocus on making your first sale!
I know setting up payment solutions can be intimidating, but I hope this post provides you with enough insight to make the right choice for your particular situation.
Once you’ve managed to sell several eBook copies or have another product to offer on your website, check back in with the ActiveGrowth blog. I’ll have a new review about shopping cart and digital delivery tools ​waiting for you.Do you have any thoughts, questions or comments about payment gateways? Join the discussion in the comments section below!
Do US companies need to collect VAT?
Yes. No matter where you company is based, you have to pay VAT on any digital products you sell to EU citizens.
hmmm…good to know.
Also, do you have any posts regarding shopping cart programs?
-Mike
For shopping cart try the WP plugin WooCommerce. There are many payment gateways integrations for WooCommerce.
Hi Mike, I’m actually working on a Digital Delivery and Cart tool review right now to be released in the next week or two. It will cover the pros and cons of SendOwl, WooCommerce, and Easy Digital Deliveries with a special focus on their digital product delivery and tax compliance capabilities.
UPDATE: I just published my Digital Product Delivery and Cart tool review post if you want to check it out.
Hi Matt
Is there an advantage to use a shopping cart system like woocommerce?
Hi Dennis, this is a complicated question to answer here because…it really depends.
I just published a new post reviewing digital delivery and cart systems like WooCommerce, SendOwl, Easy Digital Delivery and Gumroad answering your exact question in great detail.
Hopefully it helps answer your question better than I can here in the comments.
Sendowl is awesome. I use it. I haven’t tried Gumroad.
Hi Shanti, I’m actually reviewing SendOwl as we speak as part of my upcoming review of Digital Delivery and Cart tools (almost like a Part 2 to this payment gateway review). It is super slick and very useful when it comes to managing EU VAT. Stay tuned!
UPDATE: I just published my Digital Product and Cart review post if you want to check it out.
Thanks, Matt! That was fantastically helpful:)
Thanks very much Chad…I’m glad to hear it helped!
Gumroad seems so worth it just to avoid the headaches
I was already thinking about them. Thanks for this round up!!!
You’re super welcome John!
Excellent post. Just wondering if you have any suggestions for collecting Registration fee’s for a seminar style event?
Thanks Geoff! I can’t recommend a payment gateway solution yet specifically for events, but that’s a great content idea I now want to look into based on your question!
That would be great Matt. I’m sure there would be a huge interest in that theme. :)
I think so too Geoff. It would be neat to see if the event and ticketing services make sense to use when hosting in-person events like workshops, seminars or courses.
EventBrite
Webinarjam
Hi Geoff,
We host lots of live events here in North West UK. On our WordPress site we use Event Espresso for ticket bookings and sales. They have lots of payment gateways including Stripe (which we have been using for a few years now). For gift voucher sales we use Woocommerce, again using their Stripe gateway.
Although we use the paid version of Event Espresso I believe they have a free basic plugin to try.
Using the above plugins and their gateways requires little technical ability.
Hope this helps
Thanks for sharing your insights about Event Espresso with us David!
Thanks so much for the info David. Really appreciate that. :)
Very insightful article. Live how you included all the tax handeling stuff. Worth looking into Gumroad if I start selling ebooks in and outside the EU
Thanks Bart! Stay tuned as I’ll be diving deeper into the tax issues soon for my upcoming Digital Delivery Service and Cart review looking at SendOwl, WooCommerce and Easy Digital Deliveries paired with payment gateways.
UPDATE: I just published my Digital Product Delivery and Cart tool review if you want to check it out.
Awesome Matt. Looking forward for that post. It’s a lot of work figuring out international tax. I very happy that you make this posts and already learned new things.
No problem Bart…I’m working hard to publish my digital delivery and international tax solution post early in January.
Great to know about the hidden fees Paypal charges for international purchases, but wouldn’t Stripe + Specialized plugins offer better value instead of Gumroad?
Also, with Gumroad you’re also giving away your control of digital content since they are technically the one hosting your files. They also to a certain extent take the branding and list away from you. In any case, it sounds like an unwarrant shortcut which could be hard to correct afterwards to me.
Thanks for your comments Thomas! As I eluded to in the post, a Stripe + Specialized Plugin/Service setup could be more beneficial to you depending on the price of your eBook (or any digital product) and how many you sell.
I think Gumroad is a great way to get started just because it handles so many of the technical details for you (like tax and digital delivery) without having to spend any monthly fees (if you use their entry level plan). For someone at the beginning of their info-product journey, this could be super useful to get over the initial hurdle of making their first sales.
I don’t really think the pivot to a more sophisticated setup later (when sales can pay for the upgrade) is much of a barrier.
If branding is a big concern, it can be removed and the styles customized with their $10 a month plan (but probably not a big deal when just starting out).
Finally, Gumroad doesn’t take your email list away from you. You always have access to your customer emails and can export them as a CSV file at any time. Alternatively, you can pay for a Zapier subscription to automate adding new customer emails to most any email marketing service.
Matt, I loved this article. It was one of the most useful ones for me. I’m switching to Gumroad today based on your recommendation (did not know them). I can’t wait to see what you recommend for delivering a course.
Cheers Martin! Stay tuned as I’ll be expanding on this payment gateway review with digital delivery services very soon and hopefully some online course focused content not long after that.
UPDATE: I just published my digital delivery and cart systems if you want to check it out.
Matt, one small detail worth noting. I signed up for Gumroad yesterday and discovered this: if you live outside the US, the only way to get paid is through PayPal. In that case, it’s necessary to add PayPal feeds to Gumroad fees to get a true picture.
Good point Martin, I am glad you brought it up. I would have reacted in the same way. Nice to know the charges are not increased by Paypal.
Right after I posted the last comment, I found this bit of text in the Gumroad help center:
A: The fees you pay to Gumroad cover ALL fees to PayPal. That means you do not pay PayPal for anything, ever. When we transfer money to your account, WE pay the fees PayPal deducts from every transaction and you will receive 100% of what is in your Gumroad balance.
Thanks for your added comments Martin.
Just to add further clarification about the Gumroad payout system straight from their support pages:
“After we [Gumroad] have taken our fee from your sales, your net sales will be sent in their entirety to your PayPal or bank account. We pay all the necessary fees to get your money there. If you have $45 in your Gumroad balance, you’ll see $45 in your PayPal or bank account.
Gumroad pays its sellers every Friday via Direct Deposit (for creators in the USA, Canada, the UK, and Australia) or PayPal (everyone else).”
I was using Paypal but I had heard about Gumroad before. It was great to read about the comparison of both products as it saved me considerable time researching the different features for those services. I am working on a new website so the timing was right. Thank you Matt for sharing your findings.
You’re super welcome Sonia…glad to hear this review was just in time for you!
Would love to know exactly what it each of these look like from the customer perspective AFTER they get to any of the respective payment pages…
For example, I use Paypal, but I am unable to test my own button (as they won’t let you buy from yourself), so I can’t see what the redirect process looks like…
Otherwise i could screen shot / explain on the download process to customers to make sure they did not ‘miss’ the link as you say they can easily do.
Hi Kylie, I’ll take some screenshots of the PayPal purchase process and add them to the article soon. There is a PayPal sandbox that allows you to test mock transactions, but its a developer account tool so I haven’t really had the chance to investigate it yet.
For Stripe and Gumroad, there are some screenshots in the article already showing the customer perspective of your product and/or payment form.
Thanks for your comments!
Great Post …
I would like to ask if gumroad is good only for digital products like books or software etc.. or recommended for multi products payment getway like physical items whatever but more then 10 items for example !!
I hope my concern is clear ,thanks again
Thanks Saer!
Gumroad is an all-in-one payment gateway and online store solution for both physical and digital products.
I live outside the US, and PayPal does not support my country. we can only buy goods with PayPal but we can’t receive money with Paypal. what do you suggest? don’t they have other means of payment apart from PayPal?.
Thanks for your comment Bryan. If you can’t receive money through PayPal, both PayPal and GumRoad won’t work for you. That probably also means Stripe won’t work for you either as Stripe currently only supports payouts to bank accounts in 26 countries.
Check this link to see if your country is on Stripe’s list: https://stripe.com/docs/payouts
Not knowing what country you’re struggling to accept payments in, I can’t really suggest a good alternative.
Am I imagining it or did I see that you wrote about a free plugin from strip called simple pay lite? It doesnt come up at all when I search for it in wordpress and I was sure that you recommended it
Hi Faige,
You can download the WP Simple Pay plugin here.
This is an awesome article and I will be putting this great advice to use with my e-books! However, I can’t seem to find any good info on a way to sell tickets to my live events. Any recommendations, and would Gumroad be an option? How would I design the ticket or proof of purchase to give to the client after purchase on line? Thank you!
Hello!
Brilliant articles; very helpful to me.
Is everything you said valid for selling and downloading of audio (MP3 or AAC) files?
Yes, you can make basically any file type available for download, for your customers.
Thanks so much for the wonderful article. I already have a stripe account and I tried getting the HTML code for the buy button but I get a key and don’t know how to integrate it my WordPress website.