Selling what you make online is more complex and frustrating than it should be.
Platforms like iTunes and Kindle take a huge cut of your profits, well-known payment processors freeze funds with no explanation, and most shopping cart software looks like it was built in the 90’s.
Not to mention that these solutions are hard to use, take your customers off your site, and make it nearly impossible to reach an actual human being for support.
And even some of the best payment processing companies (such as Stripe, who we use for Fizzle.co) can still be complicated to implement without a developer.
Enter Gumroad. They have created one of the simplest and best designed ways for individuals to get paid for what they make online.
The last time I was up in San Francisco I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with Ryan Delk, the business development lead at Gumroad, about what Gumroad can do, how it works, and how simple it is to use.
(If you can’t see the video above, click here to watch it.)
We Made A Free Guide to Gumroad
A short instructional video and handbook to give you everything you need to start selling something online with Gumroad. Get it here.
Including 5 interviews with folks who do this with Gumroad for a living. They share some excellent tips about selling things online.
The guide is completely free. And, so you can see what it’s like yourself, we use Gumroad’s “Pay What You Want” feature to deliver it to you.
If you have any other questions about Gumroad, feel free to ask them below. They’re great people and we love what they are doing for infopreneurs and solo brands online. We’re not affiliated with Gumroad, we just love the software, and the team behind it.
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I use gumroad for all my products and plug them every chance I get.
So easy to use. So simple to purchase from (great for consumers). Minimalist design.
And pay what you want is the absolute killer app.
My pay what you want page so ppl can see it in Action: http//tommorkes.com/cache
And Yes it converts.
Keeping things simple and easy goes a long way in today’s world.
Too many things are overly complicated, so it is nice to see things that are simple.
I haven’t tried Gumroad out yet, but from what I see it looks pretty darn good. I shall have to try it out to make a better judgement.
Can’t wait to try it out.
Can we Transfer Our Gumroad Balance to our bank account or our credit card ?
need help please :P
does Stripe or Gumroad offer a platform for affiliates? I would love to give affiliates a commission for promoting my stuff.
We’re thinking hard about the best way to do affiliates. It’s a tough feature to do in a simple and sustainable way, but we definitely want to offer a ‘Tastemakers’ product at some point in the future where sellers can reward people in their network for promoting their products.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
It does look like a paypal killer.
Looks pretty cool. Can you sell services or goods other than digital downloads?
Hi Jessica –
Thanks! We’re definitely oriented more towards product sales, but people sell all types of things (including services) through Gumroad.
Literally: this is EXACTLY what I was looking for on Tuesday. But I was getting wrapped up in designing PayPal buttons and worrying about shopping carts on WordPress.
This is brilliant.
J
Been hearing a lot about Gumroad lately. I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen – I like the comprehensive approach they’re taking. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve been using Stripe and have no issues…in fact, I can’t say enough good about them. Gumroad seems to have nice features beyond Stripe, just from what you show and say, though.
What I love is that there are companies building better mousetraps in terms of merchant services. When I sat down to figure out that end of things, Stripe was literally the only choice in my mind. Seems Gumroad is another good choice. Thanks for pointing this out.
I found Gumroad recently, month or two ago, as well. I do think it is a simple system. One thing that concerned me though is the price at the top corner and not near the bottom where the get it now/buy button is. Anyone who has used it or even taken a look at that have any concerns? I know in the sales process, you want to make things as simple as possible for the consumer or they may get frustrated and go away. That’s where my concern comes from. Thoughts?
I’ll amend my comment as where the price relates to the description which kind of buy button, overlay or not, seems to make a difference maybe. I’ve used the plain link version (guess I need to learn how to do overlays).
Thanks for the feedback! Happy to chat more about why we’ve designed the purchase flow the way we have, and the conversion rates we see from it (often double digit percentages for view-to-purchase conversion).
I was impressed by everything I saw and heard about gumroad. However, Webroot blocked access to their site. If their site is safe, they need to get whitelisted by Webroot because by-passing my Webroot makes me very nervous. :-)
Could you email me about where/when you saw this? Would love to hear more (and fix!): [email protected]
5% + 25 cents seems pretty steep to me, compared to other processors.
Hi Cynthia –
Thanks for the feedback! We’ve tried to build a fee structure that’s as aligned with creators’ interest as possible, so there’s no monthly / setup / hosting / etc. fees: we only make money when sellers make money.
For that 5% + 25¢, we process the credit cards, host the content (up to 4gb/product), serve the downloads securely, handle buyer-side (and seller-side) customer support, and do direct ACH (bank) or PayPal payouts.
Happy to answer any more questions, or hear more thoughts: [email protected]
Wow, I haven’t heard of this yet and I’m very grateful for the introduction. Thanks guys! Definitely looks like something I’ll be using in the very near future.
This sounds very interesting and is worth a look.
Merchants should also be aware of bitcoin as an additional revenue stream. If you want to offer something with absolutely zero chargeback risk and super low transaction fees (a couple of pennies, paid by the buyer), you should at least be aware of it.
The buyer doesn’t need to divulge one single piece of identy information or even need a credit card or bank account. Companies like Coinbase and Bitpay can convert the payments directly and instantly into your local currency for fees far lower than PayPal, and no one can freeze your receiving account (other than your own bank).
Possibly Gum Road could offer this as an option as well? I’d be surprised if they were not at least aware of its existence.
If a potential buyer has bitcoin to spend, your acceptance of it as payment method may be the thing that converts the sale. It’s just one more additional avenue for merchants to sell their products.
Absolutely! I’m a huge fan of Coinbase, and very interested in Bitcoin. It’s still really early in terms of any formal integrations, but it’s definitely a space we’re watching.
Thanks for having me, Caleb!
Thanks soooo much for sharing! I was thinking about other shopping platforms, but this seems the most reasonable for me because I’m starting out. Nice!! :)
Very, very awesome! I am just starting to get products ready. Will definitely be giving this a try!
Is it possible to use Gumroad with a membership site, like Fizzle for example?
I’m using 1shoppingcart. The checkout is nowhere near as nice as Gumroad so I’d prefer to use Gumroad.
The biggest thing I do like about 1shoppping cart is the 1-click upsell express. Does Gumroad have that option or thinking about it?
Absolutely! If you’re using Kajabi (www.kajabiapp.com) for your membership site, we even have an open source integration that you can use called Gumjabi (https://github.com/thelinuxkid/gumjabi).
If you’re using another site, it’s fairly easy to do with Gumroad Ping (www.gumroad.com/ping).
As far as the upsell process, we’re definitely thinking about the best way to do this. I’d love to hear more of what you’re ideal solution would look like [email protected].
have you figured out the upsell process yet?
OMG… I run weekly polls on my FB Fan page every Monday. I usually just store away the answer for something to add to my membership site or put on my blog.
This is game-changing. Next week I’m going to make a 5-minute video solution to the #1 problem from the poll results and sell it for Pay What You Want.
Great interview. Amazing technology and usability. Thank you to TT and GR.
Glad you enjoyed it Barry. Let us know how it goes!
For the pay what you want option, do you still have to pay $.25 for the transaction?
Let me re-phrase the question. If someone opts to pay you $0, do you still have to pay $.25 for the transaction?
Nope! The fee is only accessed for paid purchases. If someone pays $0, it’s free to the seller.
Gumroad looks really amazing! So would gumroad take the place of paypal and ejunkie which is what I’m using right now?
And any chance that it integrates with Premise?
I loved the fact that you are looking into doing subscription type things too in the future……
I’m definitely going to the gumroad website to learn more……thanks!
Exactly! We’d power the whole transaction + delivery process. And we actually just launched a beta of subscriptions this week, shoot me a note if you want in on it: [email protected]
I really like the idea of Gumroad and how you’ve implemented it. What stopped me in my tracks though, was how long it takes to get paid. With PayPal, the money is instantly in my account. With Gumroad, it could take up to 20 days to get access to the cash.
Any plans to shorten this time frame?
Thanks.
We do payouts every 14 days rolling, which means that once you start actively selling you’ll be paid every other Friday, with a 7 day buffer. We do this to protect sellers from fraud (so your account is never frozen like PayPal). Happy to explain more over email if it’s helpful: [email protected]
Unfortunately, Gumroad still uses Paypal to send payments and receive sales. But a good e-commerce platform nonetheless. And here I am, still looking for one that works for my country, Brunei.
As far as I know, Gumroad doesn’t offer alternative payment gateway to Skrill (the new MoneyBookers) or Payza, which are acceptable for Brunei market. Stripe isn’t available in Asia but I do like the idea though.
For U.S. sellers, we offer direct bank deposit, but you are right that for international sellers PayPal is currently the only way to be paid out. We’re working hard to add bank deposit support for additional countries very soon!
Hello Ryan,
first of all thanks for gumroad :)
Like Abdul, I also live outside the US and PayPal does not seem to be the perfect solution for me. Are there any updates yet regarding other pay out alternatives like direct international bank transfers, or on credit cards?
Thanks in advance!
Jason.
Thanks for the heads-up! Definitely looking into this as a payment processing option. :)
+1 for Bitcoin. I want to offer it right now, but figuring out hot to verify purchases automatically has seemed more effort than it’s worth. There’s no way in Hell PayPal is EVER going to support it, which just makes me wat to ditch them even more (if that was at all possible…. I hate PayPal with a passion).
Awesome! Will this be available outside of the US?
Just like Stripe isn’t available in Norway, it seems like everyone except Paypal is only available in the US :(
We support sellers in 190+ countries, and do payouts via direct bank deposit for U.S. sellers, and PayPal for international sellers (with direct bank payouts coming soon internationally).
Very cool. I love the simplicity of the buying interface.
One question – if you had videos hosted at, say, Wistia, on a membership or role-based site, and wanted to sell access to the videos, perhaps even ala carte, through Gumroad – how would it work? Would the videos also need to be uploaded to Gumroad?
There are two ways you could do this, and I think it’s similar to Zack’s comment above. You could upload the videos to Gumroad and simply sell them a la carte off your site (super simple).
Or, you can use Gumroad to allow people to purchase access to your site. If you’re using Kajabi (www.kajabiapp.com) for your membership site, we even have an open source integration that you can use called Gumjabi (https://github.com/thelinuxkid/gumjabi).
If you’re using another site, it’s fairly easy to do with Gumroad Ping (www.gumroad.com/ping).
Happy to answer any other questions (or explain in more detail!): [email protected]
Thanks guys!
I have been looking for an E-Junkie alternative for weeks now and Gumroad looks really good!
Two questions: Can I automatically add buyers to an Aweber list? And when do I get my money? Right away, every week, once a month?
Thanks! We don’t have an automatic tie in to Aweber (yet!), but you can do it manually via a .CSV, or via Gumroad Ping (www.gumroad.com/ping) which allows you to hit any endpoint with buyer data (i.e. email addresses) when a transaction occurs. Happy to chat more if it’s helpful: [email protected]
@Knut I’m pretty sue Gumroad is available outside the US. They will send you your money via Paypal (instead of directly to your bank account like they do for their US customers).
Two very poor experience pain points I’ve felt while using gumroad:
1) The wait time to actually receive the funds are 2 to 3 weeks. Common. Really?
2) Being from Canada I was excited to see they offer Canadian cuurency. Awesome I thought. Then the transaction happened and I paid a double conversion fee. Totally not what I expected. My product was priced in CAD then was sent in USD to paypal and then again was converted to CAD when it reached my bank account.
So shiny buttons aside, if you don’t want to wait weeks before you get paid and don’t like being scraped with double conversion (only applies to ppl outside the US of course) then consider http://www.getdpd.com :)
Cheers,
Jakub
Hi Jakub –
I know we’ve spoken over email, but just wanted to note publicly that you aren’t actually paying a double conversion fee, and that international direct bank payouts are coming very soon.
We do all payouts in USD, and don’t charge any buyer side conversion fees from the native currency (CAD in your case) into USD before payout. After the payout, you can convert the funds into your currency of choice, and would be assessed any fees (we can’t control these).
We definitely agree this process is a pain point for some international sellers, and though we can’t control the conversion fees, we can offer direct bank payouts for you — which is exactly what we’re working on!
Hey Ryan,
My point is that in your product you allow customers to specify a CAD currency pricing which is misleading. When I choose a currency for my product, I expect it to be transferred in that currency. Your system however isn’t transparent and even though users choose a particular currency, like you’re saying, it’s rendered irrelevant and you still transfer in USD. Hence, the CAD -> USD -> to CAD scenario which throws money out the window.
In other words, you’re breaking the 1st and foremost fundamental rule of good user interface design: “visibility of system status”. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
(price is set in CAD, but transfers in USD) :)
Cheers,
Jakub
You guys seriously just saved my life. When I opened your email and began watching the video yesterday, I had spent lots of moonlit hours plodding my way through setting up a 1shoppingcart account (which required me to also set up with e-onlinedata or something like that so that I could process credit cards). When Ryan said it can take about 90 seconds to sign up, my brain literally exploded. After mopping up the mush, I immediately set up my account and am stoked for my first sale. I’m in the public education niche (http://teachingthecore.com), and I’m hoping that gumroad explodes within it. It is SO FREAKING SMART.
I can now honestly say that I love you guys.
Awesome Dave! Glad to hear it :) Congrats on getting your work out there.
Awesome! Let us know if we can help ([email protected]).
I’d honestly be all over this if you guys had an affiliate program that I could offer my supporters. Affiliate program with the ‘other guys’ just produces results that are far too compelling to ignore. I love what you guys are doing though so I will sign up for your news and eagerly await the addition of some sort of affiliate/rewards program…..
Hey Dan! We (finally) launched an Affiliates feature – http://blog.gumroad.com/post/124027155263/affiliates. Sorry we kept you eagerly awaiting this for so long!
Please update Gumroad for Retina displays! At least update the payment form so my customers don’t see all those jagged graphics.
Wow, looks sweet….BUT DAMN!
Those are some HIGH processing fees comparatively speaking.
I don’t know if I could call it a PayPal/Stripe killer with those rates, but it does look clean and easy to use, so that’s a plus, I suppose.
I’m so glad I stumbled across Gumroad. I had been looking for an eJunkie alternative for a while, and signed up for Gumroad yesterday. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get up and running.
A couple of improvements I’d like to see is the ability to change the wording on the purchase button. I’d also love to be able to upload more images from my ebook, and the ability to load a sample of the pdf ebook, much the same way that Amazon offers previews of it’s books, would be fantastic.
Thanks again for a great product!
Love it!! I just signed up today. Excellent user interface and perfect for small artists like myself. Your video interview was helpful too :)
I started selling products with Gumroad. But sellfy.com offers more features I like, like a affiliate program, and a discount for sharing the product links on social sites.
We’ve want sell BugClipper – a library for mobile apps.
We are also offering a limited time free trial for it, but gumroad doesn’t allow selling stuff for free.
Is it not possible to sell stuff for free ?
Think Traffic, you’ve done it again.
I’ve just joined Gumroad to start selling my music. Couldn’t be happier! I’ve used eJunkie in the past but Gumroad’s design, ease of use, ease of sharing and “no contract fees” got me hooked.
Endless thank you’s!!!
Love the simplicity. 5% seemed high, though using Paypal for years, the problems and lack of support will definitely try this.
Love the ability to name own price, thats awesome.
Great interview.
Gumroad looks promising. Although the 5% looks a bit high, I’ll be sure to take a look at this! Thanks for the headsup :)
I have heard a lot about Gumroad but haven’t tried it. Features look amazing. And thanks for sharing great information about it
I am using Gumroad on one of my websites and it works really fine! Much easier to use than eJunkie we had previously. Very easy to use, I also like the analytics!
This is actutally not my for small countries though. Because I live in SE ASIA, I can’t take payment through PayPal. I’ve use 2CO as they are having Wire Transfer as well as Payoneer to receive my fund.
For those with a self-hosted WordPress site, I just released a simple free plugin to reference the Gumroad JavaScript snippet without changing code.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/gumroad/
Awesome, Phil! Thanks.
I want to look at gumroad, but the website doesn´t allow to see anything without signing up. I don´t like to commit to anything without seeing it first, and I believe that is keeping me from enrolling into something.
How could you solv this ? How can I browse the site without being a seller ??
They are big time scammers closed down our account without informing or any intimation…when we email and send message from FB fro all most one week then just email back that due to security we are not working with you…So what do you mean by secure shopping …you started this to fight against fraud transaction… but they take sellers money…We are going to report to BB about this…
https://www.facebook.com/gumro…
I have posted this message in this thread also….and as you can see the thread they are lot many people who have been scammed the same way..DO NOT DEAL WITH THEM…
they pay you after 14 days of the transaction plus they dont inform you about why the account is terminated. if the reason is explained we can work on it like Paypal does and give us chance to communicate.
Fraud people hide.. and they are so.. as they dont email us back no phone no#.. this is a fraud company.. DONT DEAL WITH THEM.REST YOU ALL ARE SMART…
I went to the trouble of opening an account because I need to change for some ebooks–Opened the account based on what they said they can do–but then they can’t. Very dissapointed and wasted several hours. for instance, they claim you can be paid by direct deposte or pay pal. but in reality only direct deposite works in the US–Then they claim customers can pay by pay pal, but their payment options in the test run don’t offer it–maybe once you really set up it does offer it…many of the instrucitons for setting up are using outdated screenshots and it takes a psychic to figure out what they want you to do. They sent me a confimation email and when I went to “confirm” my email, I landed on error pages. Good idea, not enough quality control.
Hello
Gumroad is so fantastic site , so simple and understandable
i would love to see Gumroad working with Payoneer because it will be easy to get paid using their US payment service, because i am not US Resident after all
Greetings from Egypt
Yes. I second Khaled. Gumroad should work with Payoneer. I have a Payoneer card for 2co. But unfortunately, I dont have any sales through 2co as they don’t accept digital files easily. Also I heard that the money can be freeze at 2co. Gumroad will be much much better with Payoneer..Please consider.
are you sure San ? because i cant find Gumroad on Payoneer white list !!
Great post! Going to join gumroad now and start selling! Adding you guys to my favorites!
Thanks
Jose
This vid is surprisingly exciting! It got a little dull at 10 minutes but then the exciting stuff comes up. I can’t believe how exciting this is. Gumroad rocks.
Is it possible for customers to order your product for free, consume the product, and then pay you what they think it’s worth – after the fact?
You’d have to specifically mention that to them. You could offer it at $0+ and then mention that they should come back and pay what they think it is worth afterwards.
Thanks Caleb. Not the most elegant solution, but a decent work-around. Cheers.
They are big time scammers closed down our account without informing or any intimation…when we email and send message from FB fro all most one week then just email back that due to security we are not working with you…So what do you mean by secure shopping …you started this to fight against fraud transaction… but they take sellers money…We are going to report to BB about this…
I have posted this message in this thread also….and as you can see the thread they are lot many people who have been scammed the same way..DO NOT DEAL WITH THEM…
they pay you after 14 days of the transaction plus they dont inform you about why the account is terminated. if the reason is explained we can work on it like Paypal does and give us chance to communicate.
Fraud people hide.. and they are so.. as they dont email us back no phone no#.. this is a fraud company.. DONT DEAL WITH THEM.REST YOU ALL ARE SMART…
Gumroad is fantastic!!
I published one of my ebooks with them as an experiment and will definitely be using them again (for ebooks and broader product offers).
So easy to use (even for a non-techy like myself!) but it also has a super-slick, minimalist, professional looking design. The metrics and analytics you get back from sales, clicks etc blow anything else I’ve used away.
Great platform!
Hello, I am interested in selling my magazine online, and I am considering Gumroad but I am afraid of people misusing the fact that they can download a pdf and send it to their friends. Is there some way of protecting the pdf’s, does Gumroad have any solution for this? I am asking you, since you’ve already sell online.
Thank you!
I want to know the same thing as Marija asked! How does Gumroad protect the PDF’s from being sent to others?
Hey Nancy (and Marija),
While there really isn’t anything you can do to completely lock down a PDF that someone downloads, here are a few things Gumroad can do.
1. PDF Stamping: http://blog.gumroad.com/post/40614820182/introducing-pdf-stamping
2. Secure download links: “Your customers’ download links are also secure. The download links expire after one use, and require verification before another download happens. We tag the computer to make sure that they only have to verify their identity if they are on a different computer than the one they bought the product with.”
Hope that helps!
There’s another option that could be beneficial if you have more than one product available for sale – mention your other products in your pdf. That way if someone shares it for free, the people who read it for free will learn of those products, click on the link you place in your pdf and possibly make a purchase.
I’ve done this with three separate pdf info-products. In #1 they learn of #2 and #3. In #2 they learn of #1 and #3. In #3 they learn of #1 and #2. Each product works as a stand alone product, but when combined they all work even better.
The original pdf provides the space for you to talk about the other products, rather than just throwing a link in there. Just work it into ‘the conversation’ so it doesn’t come across as a sales pitch, and include a link to click on to learn more about that other product.
Rather than fear your hard work being shared for free use it to your advantage and make even more money. ;)
Indeed an easy and elegant solution. Specifying the currency would be very useful for international buyers. I bought the BP with a Mexican credit card for $1. I don’t know if I’ll end up paying 1 dollar or 1 peso (less than a dime).
Hey everybody; check out/support my book on gumroad.com/stfnandre :) thanks for your time
Gotta love Gumroad! Great article + vid too//.
Hi Shae! I don’t have any personal experience with it to sell services but I know it’s possible. (Though if your business is growing you may want to go with something like Freshbooks to make+send invoices, accept payment online, etc).
I have someone interest in directly selling my upcoming eBook. Can I set up affiliate links on Gumroad?
I’m fairly certain Gumroad does not have an affiliate program built-in to the platform yet, but you might want to check with them on the feature roadmap.
They do now. See http://blog.gumroad.com/post/124027155263/affiliates.
I think Sellfy offers affiliate links for their sellers. If nothing has changed, that is.
Hi Donald! We just launched an Affiliates feature – http://blog.gumroad.com/post/124027155263/affiliates. Time to assemble a sales force for your ebook :)
They are big time scammers closed down our account without informing or any intimation…when we email and send message from FB fro all most one week then just email back that due to security we are not working with you…So what do you mean by secure shopping …you started this to fight against fraud transaction… but they take sellers money…We are going to report to BB about this…
https://www.facebook.com/gumroad/posts/605289249489654?stream_ref=5
I have posted this message in this thread also….and as you can see the thread they are lot many people who have been scammed the same way..DO NOT DEAL WITH THEM…
they pay you after 14 days of the transaction plus they dont inform you about why the account is terminated. if the reason is explained we can work on it like Paypal does and give us chance to communicate.
Fraud people hide.. and they are so.. as they dont email us back no phone no#.. this is a fraud company.. DONT DEAL WITH THEM.REST YOU ALL ARE SMART…
I’d love to know when an affiliate program is up and running too.
Gumroad gets a 9.5 out of 10 in my book. I’ve used them to setup PDF sales on my books and itineraries… That last 1/2 point will come just as soon as there’s a reasonably easy way to get an affiliate system set up…
I am curious if anyone has used GumRoad to sell their online coaching program.
I just found this in their Help Center: “Are you a coach of some kind? A professional/relationship/psychic/sports/spiritual guru? Great! You can definitely use Gumroad, but not to charge for coaching services”. https://help.gumroad.com/customer/portal/articles/1888029-what-can-t-i-sell-on-gumroad-
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