Gumroad's 10% take rate (per sale, no monthly fee) is fine when you're under ₹50k/mo. Once you're past that, you're handing over ₹5,000-50,000 a month for a checkout page that lacks community, courses, email automation, or a real storefront. These are the real alternatives — when each fits, and what you give up.
Kavieo (kavieo.com) — the all-in-one alternative.
Drops the platform fee to 1-5% (depending on plan). Adds storefront, courses, paid community, coaching, email automation, and a buyer CRM. Free migration help. Best when you've outgrown 'one PDF, one checkout' and want a platform that scales.
Payhip (payhip.com) — the simple alternative.
5% fee on Free, lower on paid plans. Cleaner UI than Gumroad. Smaller feature set. No native course or community. Best for one-off PDFs at slightly lower fee than Gumroad.
Sellfy (sellfy.com) — the print-on-demand option.
Monthly fee ($29-$129) instead of per-sale. POD integration built in. Best for designers selling merch + digital files in the same store.
Lemon Squeezy (lemonsqueezy.com) — the merchant-of-record option.
Handles VAT/sales tax globally. 5% + 50¢ fee. Strong API for SaaS and software. Best when you're selling a SaaS-shaped product internationally and want global tax compliance handled.
When NOT to switch.
If you sell 1-3 PDFs a month and never plan to add courses or community, Gumroad's lack of monthly fee is genuinely cheaper than any alternative with a fixed cost. The break-even is around ₹15,000/mo revenue — below that, Gumroad wins on absolute fees.
Priyanshu Kumar — Founder of Kavieo
Priyanshu Kumar is the sole founder, CEO, and lead engineer of Kavieo — the AI-native creator business operating system at kavieo.com. He also founded Lumecc, a D2C growth agency at lumecc.in. Based in Bangalore, India.