Top 6 Gumroad Alternatives for 2024 (With Pros and Cons)
Gumroad is a fantastic platform that enables creators to easily sell their work online. However, it’s not necessarily the right choice for everyone.
There are many other e-commerce platforms and checkout solutions for creators out there, many of which offer more flexibility than Gumroad and come with features that might be better suited to your needs.
In this post, we’ll take a look at the five best Gumroad alternatives on the market. We’ll provide an in-depth review of each of them, discuss their pros and cons, and tell you everything else you need to know to make an informed decision. Ready? Let’s get started!
Gumroad alternatives compared (at a glance)
In case you’re short on time, here’s a quick comparison table that sums up the main differences between the best Gumroad alternatives. Don’t worry, we’ll get into the nitty-gritty details next.
Gumroad alternative | Free trial available? | Starting price* | Transaction fees? | Flexibility | Ease of Use |
Sellfy | Yes | $19/month | No | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
SamCart | Yes | $49/month | No | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
ThriveCart | No | $95/month | No | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
CartFlows | Yes | $239/year (free version also available) | No | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ |
Podia | Yes | Yes | No (but your payment processer may charge a fee) | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Freemius | No | Free | No (based on the revenue share model) | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ |
*All prices are correct at the time of writing but may change. Please check prices on the official websites before making a purchase.
6 Best Gumroad alternatives reviewed
Here’s everything you need to know about each of the best Gumroad alternatives.
01. Sellfy
Our overall favorite alternative to Gumroad is Sellfy. Like Gumroad, Sellfy is a comprehensive eCommerce solution for creators. It’s designed to make it easy to sell your physical and digital products online without any of the usual headaches.
With Sellfy, you don’t need to already have a website to start selling. You can build a brand new storefront on Sellfy from scratch in as little as five minutes and sell your products there. Alternatively, you can embed Sellfy checkout on your existing website.
Sellfy takes care of everything for you, from payment processing to delivery. It’s also SEO friendly and integrates with marketing tools like Google Analytics. It even comes with its own integrated email marketing system to help you launch email campaigns.
It offers a similar level of flexibility to full-fledged e-commerce platforms like Shopify, with the ease of use of quick and easy tools like Gumroad. There are zero transaction fees and payments can be made by PayPal or Stripe.
👍 Pros:
- Super easy to use
- Supports 20 different currencies
- Email marketing tools included
- SEO-friendly and mobile-responsive
- Embeddable Buy Now buttons
- Supports membership/subscription sales
👎 Cons:
- Free trial only lasts two weeks
- Only supports two payment gateways (PayPal and Stripe)
- No bump offers
💵 Pricing:
Sellfy offers several pricing plans, starting from $19/month. You can also get 20% off by using our Sellfy coupon. A 14-day free trial is available.
02. SamCart
Next up, we have cloud-based, digital product e-commerce platform Samcart. This is one of the best platforms for selling digital downloads like ebooks, PDFs, online courses, and memberships. SamCart claims that users of their platform make twice as much as other platforms.
It’s super easy to use. All you have to do is pick a pre-built template out of their extensive, professionally designed template catalog. Next, you can customize it using their drag-and-drop editor and list your products for sale.
Once your store is ready, simply grab the link and share it with the world. You can also take advantage of their extensive suite of marketing, automation, and upselling tools to boost your revenue and sell more products.
For example, you can use their easy A/B testing tool to compare different versions of your page and optimize it for conversions. It also supports order bumps, add-ons, and multi-page checkouts.
Unlike Sellfy, SamCart accepts many different payment methods. You can set up your checkout experience to allow customers to pay by credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Microsoft Payments.
👍 Pros:
- Comes with advanced marketing and analytics tools
- Great integration with other tools
- Live chat support
- No transaction fees
- Free trial available
👎 Cons:
- More expensive than other options
- Doesn’t come with a digital sales tax calculation tool
💵 Pricing:
Samcart pricing plans start from $49 per month. A 14-day free trial is available.
03. ThriveCart
ThriveCart is one of the most advanced shopping cart platforms available. It offers an unmatched feature-set, with a fleet of advanced tools that aren’t included with many other Gumroad alternatives.
These advanced features include webhooks, funnel builder tools, one-click bump offers and upsells, built-in sales tax calculation, and more.
Intelligent behavior rules allow you to set up automations that save you time and boost profits, like automatic abandoned cart follow-ups. Meanwhile, intelligent business insights also give you access to real-time data on traffic, rates, and more.
Not only that, but ThriveCart offers total flexibility when it comes to pricing your products and services. You can create free trials, set up flexible subscriptions and recurring sales, create discount offers, and more.
However, the best thing about ThriveCart is how well it converts. In fact, they claim to be the ‘highest converting cart for marketers’.
The reason ThriveCart converts so well? It probably has something to do with their high-converting cart page templates, one-click upsell funnel creation tools, bump offers, and other ‘profit booster’ features.
The only drawback is that ThriveCart doesn’t support PDFs or video files like Gumroad does. Therefore, if you were hoping to sell these kinds of digital downloads, it might not be the right choice for you.
👍 Pros:
- Advanced feature set
- Incredibly powerful and customizable
- High-converting
- Built-in sales calculator
- Offers advanced business insights
👎 Cons:
- More expensive than other Gumroad alternatives
- No live support
- Doesn’t support PDFs or video
- No free trial available
💵 Pricing:
ThriveCart starts at $95/month. However, at the time of writing, they’re currently running a special offer that gives you lifetime access for a one-off payment of $495.
04. CartFlows
If you already have a WordPress website, CartFlows might be the Gumroad alternative you’re looking for. It’s a little different from the other platforms we’ve looked at so far in that it’s not a standalone e-commerce solution.
CartFlows is actually a dedicated sales funnel builder that integrates with your WordPress or WooCommerce website. It makes it easy for you to set up conversion-friendly funnels that’ll help you to create a smooth customer journey and ultimately, sell more products.
CartFlows provides lots of high-converting templates that work with common page-builder plugins, such as Elementor, Divi, and Beaver Builder. You can find out how to create funnels with CartFlows here.
CartFlows also features bump offers, unlimited upsells, global checkouts, cart abandonment emails, and more. It supports all the most popular ecommerce payment methods and is fully compatible with the WooCommerce subscription extension.
👍 Pros:
- Very flexible
- Effective, high-converting templates
- Intuitive interface
- Advanced upsell features
- Excellent integration
- Free version available
👎 Cons:
- Requires an existing WordPress website
- No monthly pricing option
- Higher learning curve
💵 Pricing:
The basic version of the CartFlows plugin is available for free. If you want to upgrade to CartFlows pro, an annual license will cost you *$239 (discounted from $299).
*This discounted rate is available at the time of writing but may be a limited-time offer.
05. Podia
Next, let’s talk about Podia.
One of the main limitations of Gumroad is that it doesn’t allow you to make your own complete online store from scratch. Podia, on the other hand, is a complete, all-in-one e-commerce platform.
It’s built for selling digital goods like digital downloads, webinars, courses, ebooks, and memberships and comes with everything you need to set up and optimize your digital store right out of the box.
You can use Podia to build your sales pages, create your product catalog, set up membership plans, put together bundles, and launch an affiliate program. You also get access to unlimited file hosting and bandwidth, email marketing tools, messaging tools, a live chat widget, and more.
Podia doesn’t charge any transaction fees for sales made through the platform. However, it only supports two payment gateways: PayPal and Stripe. Both of these processors may charge a small transaction fee per sale.
👍 Pros:
- Built-in marketing tools
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Complete solution
- Live chat widget
- Good value
- Easy to use
👎 Cons:
- No free plan available
- Limited payment gateways
- No PayPal support for memberships
💵 Pricing:
Podia pricing plans start at $39/month. You can also try it out with a 14-day free trial.
6. Freemius
Have you created freemium or premium WordPress products and wondering the best way to sell them? In that case, you should take a look at Freemius.
The main benefit of Freemius is that it puts all the moving parts in your WordPress business (plugins, themes …) in one compact package. This way, you don’t have to scrape resources from here and there to kick off your business.
For instance, software licensing, automatic updates, EU VAT management, or selling memberships to your products – it’s all there.
You have access to many features that are unavailable to Freemius’ competitors. But bear in mind that some of them (like MailChimp integration) are locked until you make successful sales.
You can integrate your products with Freemius through a Developer Dashboard.
The dashboard gives you all the critical metrics related to your sales and product usage. End users have their dashboard, too, where they can self-manage their purchases without contacting the product creator (you!).
Freemius supports payment methods such as PayPal and all major credit cards. In the background, the platform uses PayPal and Stripe as its gateways.
You can start using the platform for free. However, the pricing is based on the revenue share model and the share amount depends on your sales.
Getting started is easy, although you may first have to familiarize yourself with the platform.
👍 Pros:
- All-in-one solution for your WordPress products/SaaS business.
- Customers and users can manage their purchases through a dashboard without contacting the seller. Product creators have a dedicated admin dashboard.
- Flexible solution with plenty of features, including subscriptions or multi-currency support.
- Rich analytics for learning about the audience or understanding the state of your sales.
👎 Cons:
- No live support.
- Mainly focused on selling WordPress-related products.
💵 Pricing:
The pricing is based on the revenue share model, and Freemium takes a cut based on your sales. On the first $1K, the share is 27%, and between $1K to $5K, it’s 17%.
Once you reach the $5K level in your lifetime gross sales, the cut is 7%. On this level, you also have to deal with the gateway fees. They are 30¢ + ~3% per successful charge.
🤔 Which Gumroad Alternative should you choose?
There you have it – six great Gumroad alternatives. All of the above platforms are excellent options when it comes to selling your creative work online.
However, if you’re still not sure which one to go for, here are our top three recommendations:
- Sellfy: The best option overall and the most similar platform to Gumroad.
- CartFlows: The best choice for creators with an existing WordPress website.
- SamCart: The platform with the most advanced feature set and the best choice for larger operations with a higher turnover.
Do you have any questions or thoughts you’d like to share about the best Gumroad alternatives? If so, leave a reply in the comments section below!
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