Stripe and Gumroad are two of the world’s most widely used payment processing solutions—but when it comes to the question of Stripe vs. Gumroad, which one comes out on top?
Stripe claims to offer “online payment processing for Internet businesses,” while Gumroad’s mission can be summed up with its tagline: “Creators deserve to get paid for their work. Gumroad makes it easy.”
In other words, where Stripe is intended for general e-commerce, Gumroad is a payment processing solution designed specifically for digital creators who want a simple way to share their products (e.g. ebooks, videos, music, software, or artwork) with their fans.
But how do these differences between Stripe and Gumroad play out in practice? In this article, we’ll offer a full Stripe vs. Gumroad comparison, including features, pricing, reviews, and more.
Baremetrics amplifies products like Stripe and Gumroad to give you more business metrics, on top of what you can get through your payment processor. Check out the ways you can amplify Stripe with Baremetrics here.
To get started today, sign up for a free trial with Baremetrics!
Both Stripe and Gumroad have a wide variety of features to offer, with their own pros and cons.
The Stripe features you should know about are:
To find out how Stripe compares to other products: see Stripe vs. Zuora, Stripe vs. Chargify, and Stripe vs. 2Checkout.
Some of the most noteworthy Gumroad features include:
So far, we’ve talked about the different features of Stripe and Gumroad—but is this functionality worth the cost? In this section, we’ll discuss all the details about Stripe and Gumroad pricing.
Stripe pricing depends on whether you’re using the “integrated” or “customized” pricing model. The integrated model, which is likely appropriate for most businesses, offers a “pay-as-you-go” option that charges 2.9 percent plus $0.30 for each transaction. For example, if you sell a product for $10, Stripe will charge you $0.59 ($0.29 + $0.30).
There are a few things to note about integrated Stripe pricing:
Meanwhile, Stripe’s custom pricing model is available on-demand for businesses with special requirements: e.g. volume discounts, multi-product discounts, and country-specific rates.
Gumroad pricing has multiple tiers based on the number of customers you have per year. Your plan will automatically adjust as your customer count rises or falls over time.
For example, you’ll pay $10 per month in Gumroad for fewer than 1,000 annual customers, $100 per month for between 10,000 and 15,000 annual customers, and $250 per month for more than 50,000 annual customers. You can also save 10 percent on these prices by purchasing a yearly plan in advance.
In addition to the monthly subscription fee, Gumroad customers pay a per-charge fee of 3.5 percent plus $0.30. For example, if you sell a product for $10, Gumroad will charge you $0.65 ($0.35 + $0.30).
As mentioned above, Gumroad also offers a “free” tier for new users with no monthly fee, but with a higher cost per transaction: 5 percent, plus the per-charge fee. For example, if you sell a product for $10 while in the free tier, Gumroad will charge you $1.15 ($0.50 + $0.35 + $0.30).
Use Baremetrics to measure churn, LTV and other critical business metrics that help them retain more customers. Want to try it for yourself?
Stripe has an average rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars on the business software review website G2, based on 88 Stripe user reviews. Small business owner Mary Catherine L. says that “Stripe has helped our online store go completely live so that we can sell online merchandise!”, adding:
“Stripe’s setup took a matter of minutes, which was incredibly helpful. I like how user-friendly the interface is and how efficiently it weaves into our Squarespace site. All of the customer interactions, even refunds, are simple to execute … For us (a smaller music store that does not do a ton of online business), it’s the perfect fit.”
Gumroad has an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars on G2, based on 5 Gumroad user reviews. One customer, an ebook author, praises Gumroad for how simple it is for creators to start selling on the platform:
“The thing that I most appreciate about Gumroad is how easy the platform makes it to get a product out into the world without the hurdles of first having to have a website, set up an online store, or pay costly software fees. I also appreciate that using Gumroad lets me keep most of my profits for myself… Gumroad is best for creators who already have an audience to sell to. I wouldn’t recommend it as a way for someone with no audience to reach an audience… If you have a website and you have the capability of easily setting up an e-commerce store on your website, I would probably recommend just doing that instead.”
Gumroad user reviews generally praise features of the platform such as:
However, Gumroad reviews also cite a few negatives, such as:
Stripe is likely the better payment processing solution for the following types of customers:
Gumroad is likely the better payment processing solution for the following types of customers:
Whether you go with Stripe or Gumroad, you need to actively manage and monitor your choice of payment processing solution to make sure that your business has a healthy cash flow.
Baremetrics has created a powerful, user-friendly analytics tool for Stripe users that helps capture hidden insights and trends, empowering you to make smarter, data-driven predictions and decisions.
Want to learn how Baremetrics can make your business more productive and profitable? Sign up today to get started with a free trial of the Baremetrics platform.