Lemon Squeezy vs Gumroad

At a Glance

Lemon Squeezy

Gumroad

Lemon Squeezy

Gumroad

No features listed.

Lemon Squeezy

Pros

Setup takes literally under an hour for a digital product or SaaS subscription — the simplest checkout experience I've found+163
Acts as merchant of record like Paddle, so all VAT and global tax compliance is handled without extra work+148
The built-in affiliate program lets customers refer others and earn commission without any external tool+127
License key generation for software products is built in and works great for desktop apps and plugins+109

Cons

Limited customization for the checkout flow — you can't deeply brand the experience the way Stripe Elements allows

Payments

Stripe vs Paddle vs Lemon Squeezy

Payments

Stripe vs Lemon Squeezy

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Gumroad

Pros

Lowest barrier to start selling anything digital — you can have a product page live in 5 minutes with no technical setup+167
The creator community and discovery features give small products some organic visibility you don't get with pure payment processors+142
Pay-what-you-want pricing and flexible discount codes work great for early access launches and presales+118
Analytics per product are easy to understand and share with co-founders or investors without needing a BI tool+94

Cons

The fee structure (10% on free, 0% on paid plan but $10/mo) makes unit economics tricky for low-margin or high-volume products+156
Checkout is hosted on Gumroad's domain which feels less professional than a custom checkout for SaaS products+134
Payout holds and account restrictions are reported frequently by creators and the appeal process is slow and opaque+119
No real subscription management features — upgrading plans or managing per-seat billing requires manual workarounds+98