Paddle vs Gumroad

At a Glance

Paddle

Gumroad

Paddle

Gumroad

No features listed.

Paddle

Pros

Paddle acts as the merchant of record, meaning they handle VAT, sales tax, and international compliance so you never have to think about it+182
European payment methods work out of the box without extra setup, which dramatically increases conversion for EU customers+158
Subscription management including upgrades, downgrades, and prorations all work correctly without custom logic+134
The affiliate and discount system is built in and doesn't require a separate tool to run simple promotions+112

Cons

The checkout experience is noticeably less polished than Stripe's and can hurt conversion rates for design-conscious brands

Payments

Stripe vs Paddle

Payments

Stripe vs Paddle 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