Gumroad vs the Alternatives – Detailed List with Reviews, FAQs & More

Once you’ve perfected your online course, you will need a platform in order to sell it to the public. 

You can make your own website from scratch or you can utilize a web development and e-commerce platform to create your own online store. 

Gumroad is one of the many popular e-commerce platforms that creators use to sell digital products. 

In this post, we’ll go over what makes Gumroad so great as well as talk about its weaknesses. 

We’ll also look at some alternatives and how they might be more suitable for you as an online course creator.

Quick Summary of the Main Product

Gumroad was founded in 2011 and has become a very popular selling platform for many different types of individuals. 

While Gumroad allows you to sell physical goods as well, its wider use pertains to people selling digital products (including online courses). 

What makes Gumroad special?

The great thing about Gumroad is that while it definitely supports payments from Paypal, you (as well as your customers) can also make payments with your debit or credit cards. 

Gumroad has features to enable you to sell your online course(s) according to whatever type of payment plan you choose; Whether it’s a one-time payment or a subscription. 

Furthermore, if you’ve never created a landing page or a checkout page, Gumroad offers you attractive templates for both. 

You can use these templates as a starting point and customize them according to your needs. 

In addition to hosting your online course to help you sell it, Gumroad is also integrated with third-party email marketing and social media marketing tools. This allows you to really extend your reach and get word to wider audiences about your online course. 

Speaking of marketing, Gumroad also allows you to create discount codes and coupons that you can offer to customers in order to hype up your product and bring traffic to your brand.

Features and Benefits

Multiple Payment Methods

As we briefly mentioned above, not only does Gumroad allow you and your customers to pay via Paypal or Stripe but you can even utilize debit and credit cards. 

This is something that most of Gumroad’s competitors do not offer and it’s really something that makes it stand out in terms of convenience. 

Paypal and Stripe are not available worldwide so it’s a good idea to use a platform that supports credit and debit card payments so you can secure potential students that don’t have access to Paypal or Stripe. 

Support for Subscriptions, Payment Plans and One-Time Payments

When you sell online courses, you basically have three options: 

1. Sell it as a one-time payment for lifetime access. 
2. Sell it as a subscription. As long as you pay the subscription, you’ll have access to the online course. 
3. Sell it as a payment plan. Your online course is bought with a series of monthly payments from the customer. 

The great thing about Gumroad is that it has tools to enable you to sell your online course according to whichever payment method you choose. 

It can definitely get tricky to sell online courses as payments or subscriptions but Gumroad’s elegant interface keeps track of all your customers with neat and organized information.

Elegant and Fully Customizable Checkout Pages

As we mentioned above, Gumroad allows you to choose from many different templates for your checkout pages. 

This can be especially helpful if you’ve never created a checkout page before and don’t know how to go about it. 

These templates provide you with a great jumping-off point that you can use to make a checkout page that exactly suits your needs. 

Not only do you have access to many different attractive templates but Gumroad also gives you the tools to customize them in any way you want. 

As an online course creator, you will most likely have a personal brand and it’s important that your checkout page matches that personal brand’s aesthetic. 

Gurmaod’s customization features allow you to easily make changes to whatever template you use so that it seamlessly blends in with the rest of the pages on your website. 

Embeddable Checkout Button

While Gumroad does allow you to host your online course and build a landing page for it from scratch, it can also be utilized if you already have your own website. 

If you have your own website, you can use Gumroad’s embeddable checkout button on your checkout page. 

In this way, you will be able to utilize Gumroad’s sophisticated framework without your customers ever having to leave your website. 

It’s a great way to sell digital products to your customer without disorienting them because they’ll make the payment on your website. 

Discount Codes and Coupons 

In addition to native integrations with email marketing tools such as Zapier, Gumroad also has options for you to attract more customers towards your digital product (online course). 

For example, you can easily generate discount codes and coupons for your online courses with Gumroad. 

You can then advertise these discount codes and coupons on your social media, your blog, in your email campaigns, etc. in order to attract potential customers. 

It’s a great way to boost sales and extend your reach. It also helps you secure customers that were on the fence about your online course.

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Gumroad

Pricing

Gumroad’s pricing is quite affordable but there’s definitely something you have to keep in mind if you want to use it.

While Gumroad has a free plan, its features are not adequate enough for online course creators to effectively sell their courses. 

You will have to go for their Creator plan which costs $10 per month. 

Now, $10 per month is quite cheap but the thing you have to pay heed to is the fact that Gumroad charges a transaction fee of 3.5% plus 30 cents per charge.

This transaction fee is something that makes Gumroad profitable for low-volume selling but as a professional course seller, this transaction fee can really be harmful to your bottom line. 

The more sales you make, the more money you’ll have to pay Gumroad as transaction fees. 

User-Friendliness

In terms of user-friendliness, Gumroad is one of the best e-commerce platforms that we’ve had the pleasure of testing. 

In fact, we would go so far as to say that Gumroad is a great option for you if you’ve never sold anything online before. 

This is because it gives you everything you need to sell stuff online and handles all of the technical aspects (such as payment processing) on its own. 

The dashboard for Gumroad is clean and easy to understand. It’s definitely a great starting point if you’ve never been on an e-Commerce platform before. 

Customization Capabilities

Gumroad provides you with as much customization as you need so that your checkout and landing pages match the aesthetics of your e-Commerce business. 

Selling digital products is a creative process and in order to facilitate that creativity, you need to be able to edit your pages in any way you want. 

Gumroad allows you to do that and even gives you the option to add custom CSS as part of its Creator plan. 

Payout Methods and Processes

As we mentioned earlier, Gumroad supports Paypal and Stripe. 

When it comes to credit and debit card payments, Gumroad acts as the payment processor. Your payments are securely transferred so that you can sell digital products through your online store with ease. 

Now, while it’s a huge plus that Gumroad supports debit and credit card payments, you also have to take into account that it does not support other popular payment processors such as Authorize.net, Skrill or even, Apple Pay. 

Customer Support

Gumroad’s customer support is an aspect where the e-commerce platform falls short. 

Their knowledge base is limited and poorly documented so there’s a high chance that if you run into an issue, you will not be able to find resources to solve it yourself. 

In this case, you’ll need hands-on support and when it comes to that, Gumroad often fails to deliver. 

They don’t have live chat customer support for quick problem-solving. Instead, you have to email them which is a fairly slow and arduous process. 

If you run into an issue that costs your customers, you will want it solved as quickly as possible. There’s a chance that Gumroad’s support team may not be able to provide you with a solution within a quick enough time to prevent losses in revenue. 

Pros and Cons of Gumroad

What we liked	What we didn’t like
• Paypal, Stripe, credit and debit card payments accepted • Great customization features • Free plan available for trying it out • Easy to use and understand • Easy options for creating discount codes, coupons, and affiliate programs	• Poorly document knowledge base • Relatively expensive (due to transaction fees)  • No A/B testing features  • No live chat customer support

Social Proof

Gumroad is extremely popular among artists and individuals that have only a few digital products to sell (such as online course creators). 

The reviews we came across sing praises of Gumroad’s intuitive interface with the detailed metrics that it provides. 

People love how these analytics can help them make specific changes to their website to attract more customers. 

It’s the best platform for new creators who want to break into the world of selling digital products online. 

Here are some of the reviews we found: 

Gumroad vs its Alternatives (Recommendations)

#1: Best Platform to Sell Digital Products in Bundles – Podia Review 

Podia is a wonderful online platform that is used widely by online course creators as well as other individuals who sell other types of digital products. 

Similar to Gumroad, you can embed a checkout button (or a checkout page) on your existing website with Podia. This allows customers to make their payments without ever leaving your website. 

Furthermore, Podia also gives you options for different types of payment plans such as:

• One-time payment
• Subscription/membership
• A series of payments

If you have more than one online course, perhaps pertaining to similar topics, you can bundle them together for a discounted price. 

This can be a great approach to increase your sales and win over new customers. 

If you have video lectures, Podia gives you unlimited bandwidth and hosting to upload them. You won’t have to buy any video hosting from websites like Vimeo or Wistia. 

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy Podia

Pricing:

Podia offers three payment plans, namely, Mover, Shaker, and Earthquaker. 

The Mover membership does not include memberships, so if you want to have a membership-based plan for your online courses, then you will have to go with the Shaker plan. 

Otherwise, the Mover plan is more than adequate for your needs as an online course creator and seller. 

While the monthly fee for the Mover plan is much more expensive than Gumroad ($39 per month), the important thing to note is that Podia does not charge a transaction fee on every sale you make. 

This means that no matter how popular your online courses get or how many sales you make, you’ll still only have to pay a flat fee of $39 every month. 

User-Friendliness: 

Podia’s interface is neatly designed with all of the features you need in one place. 

Everything is well-organized and you will be able to get the hang of it within your first session. 

As mentioned earlier, Podia provides you with different ways to market and sell your online courses and all of the tools pertaining to those different methods are easy to use and readily accessible.

Customization Capabilities:

The customization capabilities of Podia are almost limitless. 

They have specifically added features to accommodate online course creators so they can provide the best value to their students. 

This includes certificates, bundles, coupons, easy embedding onto your own website, integration with email marketing tools, upsells, and much more.

Payout Methods and Processes:

The weird thing about Podia is that it does not support Paypal and works primarily through Stripe.

This can be inconvenient for you as well as your customers as Paypal is much more popular than Stripe. 

One thing that Podia is better at is the fact that you get instantly paid for every sale you make. 

On the other hand, with Gumroad, you have to wait till the Friday of every week in order to get the money from the sales you made that week. 

Customer Support:

Podia’s customer support is extremely responsive and empathetic. 

They provide detailed solutions to whatever issue you face and we got a reply from them within a few hours and were able to have our issues resolved fairly quickly. 

What we liked	What we didn’t like
• Extensive SEO and e-commerce tools • Huge template library  • Helpful widgets to choose from • Easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor • Helpful customer support	• Templates are not interchangeable

Best Platform to Sell Digital Products in Bundles

The best platform to sell digital products in bundles is Podia thanks to its extensive marketing features that allow you to increase your revenue. You can sell online courses in bundles and use different payment plans that suit your customers the most. 

#2: Best Cloud-Based Solution to Create an Online Store – SamCart Review 

You can use SamCart not only to sell your online courses but also to market them in an effective way. 

It’s the perfect e-Commerce solution with features that many of its competitors lack (for example, A/B testing). 

SamCart excels when it comes to marketing automation as it is easily integrated with popular marketing tools such as Active Campaign, Infusionsoft, Ontraport, and even Hubspot. 

The fact that SamCart provides A/B testing is what sets it apart from the competition. 

You can test out different approaches and then opt for the one that brings in the best results. 

Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy SamCart

Pricing:

SamCart’s cheapest plan is the Launch plan which costs $39 per month and has features that are adequate for you to sell as an online course creator.

Also, SamCart does not charge transaction fees so, you can rest easy with the fact that you just have to pay the flat, monthly price no matter how popular your courses become. 

User-Friendliness:

While SamCart does provide great functionality, it can be a little daunting to use if you don’t have experience with something similar before. 

Veterans will love its extensive features but novices may find that they’ll need to spend a little time with the platform before they get used to it. 

Customization Capabilities:

SamCart’s customization features are extensive and allow you to create a checkout page that suits your needs. 

Along with its integration and A/B split testing functionalities, you can test out different approaches and customize your pages according to whatever works best. 

Payout Methods and Processes:

Similar to most other e-Commerce platforms that help you sell directly, the main two payment processors for SamCart are Paypal and Stripe. 

While this is not ideal, Paypal and Stripe are still good enough for you to cover most of your customer base. 

Customer Support:

SamCart’s customer service is fairly prompt and does provide helpful solutions to any issues you face. 

They also have an extensive knowledge base for you to figure out solutions to common problems on your own. 

What we liked	What we didn’t like
• 14-day free trial available • No transaction fees • Integrations with many popular marketing tools • Extensive A/B testing capabilities • Live chat customer support	• Only utilizes Stripe and Paypal  • Relatively expensive monthly plan

Best Cloud-Based Solution to Create an Online Store

The best cloud-based solution to create an online store is SamCart as it provides you with everything you need to get started to sell online courses. In addition to useful integrations with third-party marketing tools, you also have great A/B testing to try out different approaches.

Gumroad vs its Alternatives – Guide to Buy

Pricing 

As far as pricing goes, the main thing you have to look out for are additional fees during transactions. 

Runaway from platforms that charge Transaction fees!

Do your best to avoid platforms that charge a transaction fee with every sale you make. This is because you will pay a lot of money to the platform once your online courses start to gain traction. 

User-Friendliness 

You want the platform to be as simple to use as possible so you don’t have to spend time and effort learning it and also, so you can create your website exactly the way you want. 

Customization Capabilities 

When you opt for a third-party e-Commerce platform, sometimes they like to pepper in their own branding or don’t provide adequate customization features to make the page exactly the way you want. 

Always opt for a platform that gives you extensive customization options (including the ability to add custom CSS) so that you can make checkout and landing pages that fit with the aesthetic of your personal brand. 

Payout Methods and Processes 

The payment processors used for payments by you and customers are important to note in an e-commerce platform. 

Always go for a platform that supports Paypal and at least one other payment method. 

Customer Support

Responsive and helpful customer support is paramount no matter what platform you’re on. 

This is true for pretty much all services that will be used to sell and market your online courses. 

This is because if you run into an issue, the sales of your online courses will be affected. 

Thus, you want a helpful hands-on support team that can help you get your issue resolved as quickly as possible. 

Gumroad vs its Alternatives – Wrapping Things Up…

This brings us to the end of our post for Gumroad vs its alternatives. 

While Gumroad offers great functionality, the fact that it charges a transaction fee on every sale makes it a little off-putting for online course creators. 

Out of the alternatives we saw vs Gumroad, we feel that Podia definitely is a great option for online course creators since it’s specifically tailored towards them. 

Due to this, it has extensive options for creators to facilitate their students and secure them as loyal customers. 

Which platform do you think is the best for online course creators? Let us know in the comments below.