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Gumroad and Shopify which is better to Sell Digital Products 2023? -

Mar 3, 2023

 The last update was 23 Feb 2023

Gumroad and Shopify are two e-commerce platforms that sell digital goods online. You can use both platforms to build an online shop that offers online classes, digital downloads, month-long subscriptions as well as physical goods. Whatever you choose to sell on the internet, you'll have the ability to build an appealing custom website with Gumroad, Shopify, or other ecommerce platforms which differ.

In this piece, we'll compare Gumroad with Shopify to help you find the ideal platform to sell digital items.

 Gumroad Overview

Gumroad is an online marketplace that lets you sell whatever you want to sell - including software and graphics to cookbooks. You can set up your own online shop using Gumroad or link your own domain to Gumroad in order to access the process of payment. It is possible to sell some products (or lots!) through your website shop by with Gumroad with a 10% per transaction purchase.

Gumroad Core features

  • Pay service: you could integrate Gumroad's payment system to your website. You can also add payment options to your current website, so you are able to sell your products on the internet. Additionally, you can to offer discounts and also collect VAT.
  • Create memberships, subscriptions, or subscriptions Some digital products are not one-time purchase. The good news is that Gumroad permits users to set up recurring payment plans in biannual, month-to-month and quarterly, biannually or even a yearly basis. Make sure to be aware it's not the usual membership you're acquainted with (more about this in the future). ).
  • Secure digital items: Gumroad offers piracy prevention solutions to safeguard your personal products from being stolen by pirates on the internet like the light DRM.
  • Make keys to licenses: When you're selling software, you could create custom license keys that allow all of your clients to use your product online.
  • Different file types The options do not have to be restricted to one specific kind of file on Gumroad. If you provide documents in PDF, ePub, or Mobi you can allow customers to pick which type of document they would like to download.

Gumroad Pricing

As opposed to e-commerce platforms like Shopify it is possible to manage your online shop on Gumroad with no monthly fees. Yup, that's right! It's a simple charge for each transaction. So, if your company isn't generating income it won't be required to pay a dime. At present, Gumroad charges a 10% transaction fee for every purchase. Furthermore, you'll need to cover the costs of Paypal/Stripe that amount to 2.9 percent and $0.30 for each transaction.

Advantages of Gumroad

1. Make use of your existing website

Comparing Gumroad and Shopify most people who utilize Gumroad already have a website that is connected to the platform in order to join the payment processor and amazing benefits to help simplify the sale of digital goods online. While it isn't an ideal platform for building your own site but it's an excellent choice for those who already have a functioning website that they use and want to add additional options to their current website.

2. An abundance of educational materials from Doers

Most e-commerce platforms offer an education hub where you can get advice from pros that sell digital goods. Gumroad includes people that are on the platform offering digital goods and offer their experience to aid others on their way. Learn from authors of other content via their blogs. If you compare Gumroad against Shopify they both provide educational sources. In contrast to Shopify many of the bloggers that write blogs for them are their customers, not employees, which makes their content have an additional spin. It's always a good idea to learn the most recent techniques by working with people who've been in areas such as selling digital products and marketing items.

Disadvantages of Gumroad

1. Transaction fees that are expensive

Being able to not need to shell out for a subscription fee every month is hugely beneficial, particularly for those just beginning their journey. The goal behind running an online company that offers digital goods is that you'll always grow, and eventually make lots of cash. A 10% fee per transaction (without any upper limit) could mean that Gumroad costs will grow in line with the expansion of your online store. If you're earning $100,000 per month, then you'll have to pay fees of up to $10,000!

Keep in mind that the 10% fee doesn't include the Stripe/PayPal fees of 2.9 percent plus $0.30 for each transaction which are in addition. Transaction fees can take away your earnings. A lot of platforms which have transaction fees do not charge anywhere near 10.

A fee for transactions that is 10% per transaction at Gumroad can make the difference between running a successful firm and one that's not. There are other platforms with only five percent for transaction fees and have no commitment to payments on a monthly basis (you could also opt to switch to 's monthly plans when it becomes apparent that your company expands, meaning you'll never have to have to pay more than $99 monthly in fees). Thus, economically speaking an alternative platform could work better for your requirements.

2. Store themes are not available and only limited customizations to store themes are available.

A majority of those that sign up on Gumroad have already created their own web pages. What if you don't already have a website? You'll have to join a different platform, build your own website, use an online builder, choose the design, sign up for hosting, and then other services offered by Gumroad after the site is finished. It's a lot of work upfront, but you're ready to get started today.

It's rare for an online retailer to have sophisticated functions that take payments and permit sellers to begin selling items online  however, they do not have themes to develop an online store within their platform. There are several Gumroad themes online, but they're sold through third party vendors. If you purchase themes through an outside vendor, it's possible that you won't find the developer who is able to update their theme as Gumroad changes its offerings, which could cause difficulties for years or months in the future.

3. Extensively lacking in terms of features in online courses

While Gumroad boasts of having an option to sell online courses, it's not exactly what you'd want to get from an online platform that offers courses.

Gumroad's online course feature allows users to upload videos as well as other documents that students download or click on them to view the video. However, it does not provide the essential features needed for online courses, including different types of lessons (video or text, test survey or quizzes, etc.) along with drip content calendars as well as certificates of achievement, study progress, etc. Without these features they won't allow you to create a fun learning environment for your students.

This is an example of an experience of learning for a student.

Gumroad Online Course

For comparison, consider this: an engaging learning experience should be like (the photo below is an image taken from ):

4. Incompletely deficient in the characteristics of membership

Although Gumroad boasts of having the ability to offer subscriptions and memberships, it isn't what you'd think of from a platform for memberships either.

Once a user has signed up to Gumroad, once they've signed up to Gumroad users will gain access to an assortment of documents in digital format that they are able to download or browse. See the example below:

But, it's not an usual membership system where you are able to easily provide exclusive content to your members, in exchange for a monthly subscription. It also does not encourage the participation of your customers because they'll be downloading information from you without any meaningful interaction. If you're familiar with different subscription-based platforms like Patreon or PayPal, your user experience will be different.

This is an example of how the ideal membership experience to members ought to look like (the picture below is directly from ):

view of Shopify

Shopify is an online shop that allows you to sell digital and physical items online. Shopify caters to the needs of small, medium-sized, and companies. Shopify provides a wide range of third-party software, and offers unending products in addition to an assortment of options for customization so you can build a beautiful online shop for the products you sell online.

Shopify Core is a Shopify Core feature

  • Shopify Point of Sale for those who sell goods on the street, Shopify provides a cutting-edge point of sale which can manage transactions on the internet.
  • Unlimited product range Unlimited product range: With Shopify it is possible to add anything you like to your shop with no package . It's an ideal choice for small company that wants to test new items in the early stages of.
  • Unlimitable bandwidth, storage and bandwidth You'll have access to storage and hosting as well as bandwidth, through Shopify with dependable uptime and without caps.
  • Fraud analysis: You can determine whether or not you'd like to finish purchases for your own small company by using a fraud analysis tool that's built into the Shopify platform.
  • Abandoned cart recovery makes it easy to develop an abandoned cart emails funnel that will recover sales lost through Shopify without the need to install any third-party software.

Shopify Pricing


    Shopify provides five price levels to merchant accounts on its platform. The lowest tier is $5/month but it is only able to sell through messages and social media platforms. The most expensive price can be found on Shopify Plus which starts at $2000 per month. Three pricing levels are available that are in middle, and they tend to be among the top well-liked plans people choose from. The basic plan starts at $39 per month, and permits users to use two employees accounts. Its Shopify Plan costs $105/month, and lets you set up five accounts from employees. The Advanced plan costs 399 per month. But it is possible to create fifteen accounts for employees. The majority of users start with the basic plan and evolve to Shopify Advanced or Advanced. Enterprise businesses typically choose Shopify Plus.

The benefits of Shopify

1. User-friendly

Its Shopify customer interface for users is friendly and draws young entrepreneurs that want to establish an online store so they can sell digital as well as physical items. Your Shopify store can be quickly customized using a straightforward path with a theme that you can use for your site. It doesn't require any knowledge of technology or programming to build your own web site that is why it's a popular choice for selling products on the internet.

2. More than 6,000 application forms from Third parties

It's important to note that the Shopify App Store has over 6000 apps to make use of to take payments as well as include important features that will draw new customers, analyze and monitor sales, enhance customer managementand more. Your website can be customized to meet your specific needs using these applications. However, be aware that each month's subscriptions to these applications will quickly mount up.

The negatives of Shopify

1. The cost is high for people who are only beginning their journey.

Shopify isn't a budget-friendly option for the majority of entrepreneurs. It's likely that you'll have to purchase premium themes, paid applications with a monthly cost and charges for transactions with payment processors, and more. To ensure that costs are minimal for Shopify isn't easy. Contrary to Gumroad, the Shopify service isn't able to provide a no-cost plan with Shopify. Additionally, as you increase the price of each month's membership, it will increase. Shopify Plus starts at $2,000 However, it can be steep for enterprise businesses.

2. The focus is more on physical items than digital

Comparing both platforms, Shopify excels at physical items, but is not the ideal alternative for digital items. It is possible to download and use third-party Shopify apps to meet your specific requirements as a product that is digital for an entrepreneur, but this could cause the expenses operating your business rocket. Shopify is an application Shopify platform that was created for the purpose of selling physical items. Many people who run dropshipping firms use Shopify but sellers who sell digital products would likely think about competitors like Gumroad or .

Is there anyone who knows of an alternative?

In the event of considering Gumroad or Shopify as platforms that can be used to begin selling online products, you might think there's another option that is better over the Gumroad and Shopify store.

There is, however.

is an e-commerce platform that specializes in digital products. It is able to use its platform to market ebooks, software, online courses graphics, and almost all kinds of digital goods. Additionally, if you wish to offer physical items in conjunction with your digital goods, it's easy to design products pages too.

There are many more advantages to using Shopify in place of Gumroad. Shopify.

  • Low cost option: Offers a free forever plan with unlimitted access to Shopify's complete platform. In comparing Gumroad with Shopify both end up the sellers paying a significant amount. Gumroad's fee of 10% per transaction isn't subject to a limitation. There's no way to get any discount or reduced charge, regardless of selling thousands of products in your online shop. Shopify charges a monthly cost as well as a transaction fee. Only is charged an amount of 5% for transactions on the Free Forever plan, but you can switch to  Shopify's monthly subscriptions that means that you'll pay at least $99 each month regardless of how large your business grows!
  • Flexible and customizable It's different than Gumroad and Shopify and permits you to market anything however with an added twist. It has features specially for specific categories of merchandise. In the case of creating an online site for your courses for instance, you'll have the ability to use an amazing native course player to accompany the lessons you offer instead of having to develop a unique course player. In the event that you're selling downloads you'll be able access security features to protect against theft, as well as marketing tools like affiliate systems and also offer instant downloads. Anyone who chooses to provide coaching services will benefit from calendar integrations as well as other. No matter what you sell there are specific functions for those types of digital products.
  • effective marketing tools for platforms like Shopify. You'll likely have access to Shopify's Shopify App store to access the majority of marketing tools. It means you'll have to spend more money on the platform in order to give the best experience and more options for customers of your online store. In reality, the majority of these marketing tools already are accessible to the site. With the many features , you'll be able offer discounts for your customers, develop your own affiliate program as well as a referral system that will help you better sell items, as well as offer the option of up-sells or cross-sells during the shopping experience. You can also permit your customers to review their experience , and then accept the feedback you receive. also offers a comprehensive software for sending emails to customers to allow you to send emails to customers that are GDPR-compliant.
  • The top customer service The customer support team is unlike any other platform. Both Gumroad as well as Shopify have a comprehensive customer support. You are able to get in touch with's help service at any moment, and will be provided with the highest level of service for your business. You can also access their support email via their website , unlike other retailers online (in case you're wondering which one you should use [email protected([email protected]). In addition, they offer an abundance of education resources on their blog as well as a Help Center so you can receive the help as well as the training you require promptly.

Gumroad Shopify vs HTML0 What should you select for 2023?

If you compare Gumroad with Shopify, it's clear that both are superior at different levels. Gumroad is a fantastic eCommerce platform to sell digital goods even if you already own a website. Shopify is an awesome online store that allows dropshipping of printing-on-demand and print-on-demand as and other physical products.

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