Stan Store vs Gumroad in 2026: Rent or Commission?

A colourist sells a $20 LUT pack. In a slow month she sells 15 copies, in a good one 75. On Gumroad, the slow month costs her $50.70 in fees and the good one $253.50. On Stan Store the same months cost $43.20 and $98.84.

That gap, $154.66 in a single good month, is what most Stan Store vs Gumroad comparisons stop at, and it points one way.

Then a buyer in Germany pays her. On Gumroad, the German VAT on that sale was calculated, collected and sent to the tax office without her doing anything. On Stan, it is her job, and she may need to register for EU VAT to do it.

So the choice is not really cheap versus expensive. Stan Store charges rent: a flat monthly fee, whatever you sell. Gumroad charges commission: a slice of every sale, and part of that slice pays for handling your tax.

A merchant of record is the business that is legally the seller in a transaction, so it is responsible for charging the right sales tax or VAT, filing it and handling chargebacks.

Gumroad has been the merchant of record for its sellers since 1 January 2025. Stan Store is not; the creator is.

Full disclosure: Framekit is our product and appears in one section near the end as a third option, not in the head-to-head. We did not run stores on Stan or Gumroad; we read each platform's own pricing pages and help centre articles on 19 September 2026, linked them, and priced one $20 product at three volumes. Stan and Gumroad each beat Framekit at something: Stan on courses, bookings and memberships, Gumroad on tax handling and a built-in marketplace.

How We Compared Stan Store and Gumroad

This comparison is built from the two platforms' own published rules rather than from using them, and it keeps what was read, what was worked out and what was reported apart, so a reader can see exactly which kind of claim each sentence is.

Read at the source. Gumroad's fees come from its pricing page and its help article on Gumroad's fees.

Payout, refund, Discover and affiliate rules come from Gumroad's help centre.

Stan's plans and fees come from Stan's help centre articles on Creator vs Creator Pro and on Stan, Stripe and PayPal fees, plus its cash-out, tax and custom-domain articles.

All were read on 19 September 2026.

Calculated. The carried example is a $20 LUT pack sold by a US creator to US buyers paying by card, at three volumes: 15 sales a month ($300), 75 sales ($1,500) and 300 sales ($6,000). Every total is shown with the rates that produced it.

Reported by users. Nothing here. Opinions about support quality and account reviews circulate widely for both platforms; none of them is used as evidence in this post.

The two platforms by the numbers

• $29 a month (Stan Creator) against $0 a month (Gumroad). Stan Creator Pro is $99.
• 0% of each sale to Stan against 10% + 50 cents to Gumroad on direct sales, or 30% when the buyer comes through Gumroad Discover.
• 2.9% + 30 cents in card processing on top for both on direct sales. Gumroad's help centre says its 10% "does not include" processing.
• $232 a month in sales of a $20 product is where Stan Creator becomes cheaper than Gumroad direct sales.
• $10 minimum cash-out on Stan against a $100 minimum payout on Gumroad's standard schedules.
• 1 January 2025, the date Gumroad became merchant of record for its sellers. Stan has not taken on that role.

Stan Store vs Gumroad at a Glance

The table below puts the decisions that separate the two platforms in one place, and it shows that they differ less on what you can sell than on how you pay, who handles tax and where your buyers come from.

Two rows in that table decide most cases. Pricing model settles the cost question for anyone who knows their monthly sales.

Merchant of record settles it for anyone selling to buyers in the EU, the UK or other countries with VAT on digital goods who does not want to register there.

Stan Store: The Phone-First Storefront

Stan Store is built around one idea: the buyer is on a phone, has just tapped a link in an Instagram or TikTok bio, and should be able to buy, book or join without leaving that page. Everything about its pricing follows from that audience of social-first creators.

The $29 Creator plan is unusually complete on product types.

It includes a course builder, recurring subscriptions for memberships, a calendar for paid calls, a community, lead magnets that collect emails, and AutoDM for automated Instagram replies.

That breadth is why coaches and educators like it: a $97 course, a $150 call and a $15 monthly community all live behind one link on one bill.

What $29 does not include is promotion. Discount codes, upsells, order bumps, funnels, email broadcasts, payment plans, Afterpay and Klarna, affiliate management and ad pixels are all Creator Pro at $99 a month.

A Stan seller who wants to run a launch discount is a $70 a month upgrade away from typing a coupon.

The number to rememberon the $20 pack, Stan's all-in cost at 75 sales is $98.84 a month, or 6.6% of revenue, and $29 of that is the subscription. At 300 sales the share falls to 5.1%.

The gotcha in week threethe cash-out rules. Stan's help centre lists a Stripe payout fee of 0.25% + 25 cents per cash-out with a $1 minimum, a $10 cash-out floor, and no partial cash-outs.

A seller who cashes out weekly on small sales pays $1 each time, which on a $300 month is about 1.4% of revenue for nothing but frequency.

And the store cannot live on your own domain: Stan's help centre says your address stays stan.store/yourusername, with forwarding as the workaround.

Skip Stan if you sell mostly to buyers outside your own country and have no appetite for VAT registration, or if your sales are under about $232 a month and not growing. Both problems cost more than Stan's features are worth.

Verdict: the best all-in-one storefront for a creator whose audience lives on social media and whose income mixes downloads, courses and calls, and a poor deal for a hobby seller.

Gumroad: Pay Per Sale, Tax Handled

Gumroad is one of the longest-running ways to sell digital files directly, and in 2026 it is still the lowest-commitment way to start: no monthly fee, a product page in minutes, and buyers can pay in their local currency where Gumroad supports it.

What changed most in the last two years is not the fee but the tax: since 1 January 2025 Gumroad has been merchant of record for all sales, collecting and remitting sales tax and VAT worldwide.

The fee is 10% + 50 cents on every sale made through your profile or a direct link, and it is easy to misread.

Gumroad's help article on fees says the 10% "does not include" card processing of 2.9% + 30 cents, so a $20 pack sold directly costs $2.50 to Gumroad and $0.88 to processing, a combined $3.38 or 16.9%.

On a $5 product the same stack is $1.45, or 29%.

Two newer rules soften it. Once your paid sales in a calendar month pass $20,000, further direct sales that month drop to 5% + 50 cents, automatically. And when you refund a buyer, Gumroad now returns its own fee on the refunded portion and keeps only the processing part.

The standout detailGumroad sells versions inside one product. Its features page describes letting a buyer pick PDF, ePub or Mobi, or pay more for lossless audio.

For a LUT seller that means one product page with a personal and a commercial licence tier, something Stan's own feature-request list says it does not offer.

The gotcha in week threepayouts. Gumroad's help centre sets a $100 minimum balance before a weekly, monthly or quarterly payout, a 7-day holding period on each sale, and a risk review before your first payout.

Its payout-delays article says payout days are skipped, without an email for each one, until the account is reviewed. A seller making $60 in the first month sees no money that month by design.

Skip Gumroad if you sell more than a few hundred dollars a month to your own audience in one country where you are already registered for tax. You would be paying 10% for a tax service you do not need.

Verdict: the cheapest way to test whether a product sells and the simplest way to sell worldwide without touching VAT, and an expensive habit once direct sales pass about $232 a month. Weighing a move? Our Gumroad alternatives guide ranks the options by what they keep of each sale.

Gumroad Fees vs Stan at Three Revenue Levels

In one lineOn a $20 product Gumroad's direct-sale fees equal Stan Creator's $29 at $232 a month in sales, and above that the gap grows by 12.5 cents on every dollar, reaching $706 a month at $6,000 in sales once processing and Stan's payout fee are counted.

The arithmetic is simple once processing is put on both sides. Every direct card sale pays Stripe 2.9% + 30 cents on either platform, which is $0.88 on the $20 pack. Stan then adds nothing per sale and $29 a month.

Gumroad adds $2.50 per sale (10% plus 50 cents) and nothing a month. The 50 cents is what makes Gumroad's effective rate 12.5% on this product rather than 10%.

Read across the rows and three things stand out.

Stan is cheaper even at $300. That surprises people, because $29 sounds like a lot for 15 sales. But Gumroad's cut of $37.50 is already more than Stan's $29 plus a $1 payout fee, so Stan wins by $7.50 at this volume.

The true crossover on this product is $232 a month on monthly billing, and $200 on Stan's annual plan ($300 a year, $25 a month).

Gumroad's percentage never falls. At 15 sales or 300, Gumroad direct costs 16.9% of revenue on a $20 product.

The only exception is the high-volume rule: past $20,000 of paid sales in a calendar month, further direct sales that month cost 5% + 50 cents.

A creator who sells $25,000 in one month of this pack would pay $2,875 in Gumroad fees before processing, not $3,125.

Creator Pro only makes sense past about $1,500. At $300 a month, Stan's $99 plan costs more than Gumroad. At $1,500 it is $84.66 cheaper than Gumroad direct.

Whether it beats Stan Creator depends entirely on whether its upsells and email add more than $70 of profit.

Run it on your own numbers

Take last month's direct sales on Gumroad, count the orders, and compute 10% of revenue plus 50 cents per order. If that is more than $29, Stan Creator would have cost less on fees alone that month.

Then ask the tax question in the next section before you move, because it is the one line that table does not price.

Gumroad Discover: Is 30% a Fair Price for New Buyers?

In one lineGumroad Discover charges 30% of a sale, processing included, for buyers Gumroad finds for you, which is expensive per sale but cheap per new customer compared with paid ads, and Stan has nothing like it at any price.

Discover is Gumroad's marketplace, and it is the single feature with no Stan equivalent. Stan has no browsing layer where strangers find your store; every Stan buyer arrives because you sent them. Gumroad Discover can put your LUT pack in front of people searching the category.

The price is 30% of the sale, and Gumroad's fee article says that 30% includes all processing. On the $20 pack that is $6.00 per Discover sale against $3.38 for a direct one, so each marketplace buyer costs you $2.62 more.

Whether that is fair depends on what a new customer is worth to you. If a Discover buyer later buys your second pack directly at 16.9%, the first sale bought you a customer for $2.62 extra.

Getting onto Discover takes time.

Per Gumroad's Discover help article, your account needs payout settings filled in, a $100 balance from genuine sales and a pass through the risk review, which it says takes about three weeks on average after you cross $100.

Each product then needs at least one sale, a category and ratings switched on.

One detail changes the maths. Products listed on Discover are automatically opted into the Gumroad Affiliates program, in which anyone can promote your product for a fixed 10% commission.

You can opt out, but if you do not, some sales will carry an affiliate's 10% on top of Gumroad's fee, and Gumroad's help centre says fees are split between you and the affiliate in proportion to the commission.

When Discover is worth ita niche product with category search demand (Cinema 4D materials, Notion templates, specific LUT styles) and a creator with no audience yet. When it is not: a creator with an audience of their own, where Discover mostly takes 30% of buyers who would have found you anyway.

Tax and Merchant of Record: The Line the Fee Table Leaves Out

In one lineGumroad's commission includes being merchant of record, so it collects and remits sales tax and VAT worldwide, while Stan leaves registration, filing and remittance with you, which for an international seller can be worth more than the fee difference.

Since 1 January 2025, Gumroad's pricing page says it "handles ALL your tax obligations", managing sales tax collection and remittance worldwide, and its tax help article says it is merchant of record for all sales.

Its fee line even reads "10% + $0.50 fee + sales tax": the tax is added for the buyer and handled by Gumroad.

Stan works the other way.

Its sales tax help article explains that you can turn on automatic tax calculation through Stripe Tax if you have Stripe connected and are based in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway or the EU.

Stripe then collects tax only in regions where you are registered. For EU sales Stan says you will be registered through the EU One Stop Shop as well as in your own country. The registrations and returns are yours.

What does that cost in money? The calculation part is cheap: Stripe's tax pricing page lists Tax Basic at 0.5% per transaction where you are registered, which is $7.50 on a $1,500 month.

The work is the expensive part: registering, filing quarterly returns and keeping records, whether you do it yourself or pay an accountant.

This is where the fee table can flip. For a US seller whose buyers are almost all American, US digital-goods tax rules vary by state and Stan's calculation tool handles the collection side, so Gumroad's tax service is worth little.

For a seller in the UK or EU with buyers across Europe, Gumroad's 10% is buying a real service.

Our guides to whether you need a merchant of record and VAT on digital products cover when the obligation starts.

Payouts and Refunds Side by Side

In one lineStan pays out sooner and from a lower balance but charges a fee each time you cash out, while Gumroad pays out free on a weekly schedule but holds money for 7 days and waits for a $100 balance and a risk review before the first payout.

Cash flow matters more than headline fees for a creator in their first months. Here is how money moves on each platform, taken from each help centre.

The practical difference shows up in month one. A Stan seller who makes $60 can cash out $60 for a $1 fee a few days later. A Gumroad seller who makes $60 has not reached the $100 minimum and may not have passed review, so the money waits.

Stan's help pages are also explicit that cancelling your subscription does not cash you out: you log back in to move any remaining balance.

On refunds, Gumroad is now the friendlier of the two for its own fee: refund a $20 pack and Gumroad's $2.50 comes back, while the processing part stays with the processor.

On Stan there is no platform fee to return, and Stripe keeps its $0.88. Both are covered in more depth in our guide to refunds and chargebacks on digital products.

Courses, Memberships, Email and Bookings

In one lineBoth platforms sell courses and memberships, but Stan bundles bookings and community into its $29 plan while Gumroad includes email broadcasts, workflows, discounts and affiliates at no monthly cost, so each one's free extras are the other one's upgrade.

The feature lists overlap more than the pricing models suggest. The differences are in which tier a feature sits on and what shape it takes.

"Not listed" means the platform's own features page or plan list does not mention it as of September 2026. It does not prove the feature is missing, so check with the platform if one of those rows decides it for you.

Where Stan is strongera coach or educator who sells a course, a monthly community and paid calls gets all three on the $29 plan, with a calendar that books the calls. Gumroad's features page does not list bookings or a community space.

Where Gumroad is strongera seller who wants to email buyers about a new release, run a launch discount or recruit affiliates gets all of that at no monthly cost. On Stan, every one of those is a $70 a month upgrade.

For a LUT or preset seller, Gumroad's product versions (personal and commercial licence in one listing) are also a genuinely useful detail.

The phone storefront vs the product page

Stan's storefront is designed to be seen on a phone first, and it looks like a link-in-bio page with products stacked under your photo; Stan's pricing article counts 11 ready-made storefront templates.

Gumroad gives you a profile page with your products and a page editor, and it can sit on a custom domain or be embedded in an existing website with a buy button.

The trade-off is ownership of the address. A Stan store always lives at stan.store/yourname, and Stan's help centre suggests forwarding your own domain to it rather than connecting one. Gumroad lets you link a custom domain.

For a creator whose buyers come from TikTok, the address barely matters. For one whose buyers search Google for "cinematic LUTs for Sony", it matters a great deal.

Our Beacons vs Stan Store comparison looks at the one link-in-bio rival that does offer a custom domain.

A Third Option for Creatives With a Portfolio

Neither Stan nor Gumroad is a website, and for photographers, filmmakers and designers that is often the missing piece: the buyer who pays $20 for a LUT pack usually found the creator through their work, not through a bio link or a marketplace, so the store works best on the same site as the portfolio.

Framekit is an AI website builder whose store sells digital files from the portfolio site it builds, so the colourist's reel, client work and LUT packs share one domain and one checkout.

You describe a section or upload a reference image and the AI builds it in your fonts and colours; every product gets a page on the site and a direct buy link for a bio.

The fee sits between the two platforms above.

Framekit's store charges 5% of each sale on the Free and Starter plans, 3% on Pro ($19 a month) and 0% on Business ($39 a month, or $31 billed yearly), always on the post-discount price, with Stripe processing on top.

Files are delivered as soon as payment clears, and buyers can come back for them later.

On the $20 pack, the cheapest Framekit plan for each volume costs:

All three rows include $0.88 of card processing per sale. Stan's row includes its payout fee; Framekit charges on your own Stripe account, and Stripe's pricing page lists payouts on its standard schedule as free.

Two trade-offs need saying plainly.

Framekit is not merchant of record: checkout runs on your own Stripe account through Stripe Connect direct charges, so VAT and sales tax are yours to handle, the same position as Stan and the opposite of Gumroad.

And Framekit has no courses, bookings, memberships or subscriptions, no email marketing sends, no upsells or funnels and no affiliate program.

At $1,500 a month Stan Creator is $6.16 cheaper; Framekit's case is the website, galleries and client video review that come on the same bill, not the store alone.

Stan Store or Gumroad? A Decision Guide

Work through these questions in order and stop at the first clear answer, because the early questions rule platforms out on what they cannot do and only the later ones compare prices between platforms that can both do the job.

1. Do you sell to buyers in many countries and refuse to register for VAT or sales tax anywhere? If yes, choose Gumroad: it is the only merchant of record of the two. If no, go on.
2. Do you sell calls, a community or courses alongside downloads, mostly to a social audience? If yes, choose Stan Creator; it bundles all of them for $29. If no, go on.
3. Do you sell less than about $232 a month of a $20 product (or less than $29 a month in Gumroad fees on your own products)? If yes, Gumroad costs less and needs no subscription. If no, go on.
4. Do you have no audience yet and a product in a searchable niche? If yes, start on Gumroad for Discover and accept 30% on those sales. If no, go on.
5. Do your buyers find you through a portfolio, Google or client work rather than a bio link? If yes, neither is ideal; put the store on your own site. If no, choose Stan Creator, and move to Creator Pro only when email, discounts or upsells have a specific job.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Stan Store or Gumroad cheaper in 2026?

Stan Store is cheaper than Gumroad once your direct sales pass about $232 a month on a $20 product, because Stan charges a flat $29 a month and 0% per sale, while Gumroad charges 10% + 50 cents per direct sale plus 2.9% + 30 cents card processing.

Below that line Gumroad is cheaper. At $1,500 a month the gap is $154.66 a month in Stan's favour, all-in.

Does Gumroad's 10% fee include payment processing?

Gumroad's 10% + 50 cents fee on direct sales does not include card processing, according to Gumroad's own fees help article: card processing of 2.9% + 30 cents and PayPal fees come on top.

The 30% fee on Discover marketplace sales does include all processing. On a $20 product sold directly, the combined cost is $3.38, or 16.9% of the sale.

Does Stan Store take a percentage of sales like Gumroad?

Stan Store takes no percentage of sales on either of its plans; it charges a flat $29 or $99 a month instead.

Sellers still pay Stripe or PayPal processing, which is 2.9% + 30 cents per US card sale on Stripe, and Stan's help centre lists a payout fee of 0.25% + 25 cents, with a $1 minimum, each time you cash out.

Is Gumroad a merchant of record, and is Stan Store?

Gumroad has been merchant of record for all sales since 1 January 2025, so it calculates, collects and remits sales tax and VAT worldwide on your behalf. Stan Store is not a merchant of record.

It can calculate and collect tax through Stripe Tax, but only in regions where you are registered, and registration and filing stay with you.

Which is better for selling LUTs or presets, Stan Store or Gumroad?

Gumroad is better for LUT and preset sellers who are just starting or who sell internationally, thanks to no monthly fee, merchant-of-record tax handling and product versions for licence tiers.

Stan Store is better above about $232 a month in sales to a social audience.

Sellers whose buyers come from a portfolio site usually do best with a store on their own domain; our guide to the best platforms to sell LUTs compares them.

Can I use my own domain on Stan Store or Gumroad?

Gumroad supports a custom domain and can be embedded in an existing website, according to its features page.

Stan Store cannot connect a custom domain in 2026: its help centre says your store stays at stan.store/yourusername and suggests forwarding your domain to it, and it has no built-in embed either.

How fast do Stan Store and Gumroad pay out?

Stan Store makes US sales available to cash out after 2 to 7 business days, with a $10 minimum and a payout fee, and money reaches the bank 24 to 48 hours after cashing out.

Gumroad holds each sale 7 days on standard schedules, pays weekly by default, needs a $100 minimum balance and pays nothing until your account passes its risk review.

Does Gumroad Discover cost more than regular sales?

Gumroad Discover costs 30% of each sale made through the marketplace, with processing included, against 10% + 50 cents plus processing on direct sales. On a $20 product that is $6.00 against $3.38.

Products on Discover are also opted into Gumroad Affiliates by default, where anyone can promote them for a 10% commission unless you opt out.

Can I move from Gumroad to Stan Store without losing customers?

Moving from Gumroad to Stan Store keeps your customers if you export them first: Gumroad's features page says you can export followers and customers at any time.

Past buyers' downloads stay on Gumroad for as long as you keep those products there, while new sales and email updates would run from Stan.

Stan's email broadcasts need Creator Pro, so check whether you will still be able to email your list on the $29 plan before you move.

Final Verdict

Stan Store vs Gumroad is a choice between rent and commission, and the arithmetic is clear. On a $20 product Stan Creator is cheaper above about $232 a month in sales, and by $706 a month at $6,000.

Gumroad is cheaper below that line, costs nothing to try and has a marketplace Stan cannot match.

The tax line is what keeps Gumroad in the running above the crossover. Its commission buys merchant-of-record status, so a seller with buyers across Europe never registers for VAT.

If that describes you, 10% may be the cheapest compliance you can buy. If your buyers are mostly in your own country, it is a fee for a service you barely use, and Stan's $29 wins.

Pick Stan Creator for a social-first business mixing downloads, courses and calls above $232 a month. Pick Gumroad to test a product, to sell worldwide without tax work, or to reach new buyers through Discover.

Where Framekit losesFramekit is not for sellers who want tax handled, because like Stan it leaves you as merchant of record; Gumroad is the better fit there.

It also does not do courses, bookings, memberships, email sends or affiliates, so a creator whose income depends on those should use Stan. Framekit makes sense when the store belongs on the portfolio site that brings your buyers.

Related reading: Gumroad's fees explained, the full list of Stan Store alternatives, Gumroad vs Lemon Squeezy for another merchant-of-record comparison, and our guide to Stripe fees for creators.

For Stan's plan maths on its own, see Stan Store pricing; if tax handling is the deciding factor, Lemon Squeezy vs Stripe prices the merchant-of-record trade-off per sale.