Both get you paid. They optimize for different things.

The trade-off

Gumroad is a storefront, checkout, delivery, and EU VAT handler in one. Fees are higher per sale, but setup is an afternoon and tax compliance is done for you.

Stripe is raw infrastructure — lowest fees, total control, but you own checkout pages, file delivery, receipts, and sales-tax registration. That's a week of setup and ongoing compliance homework.

Fee reality (approximate)

• Gumroad: ~10% flat + processing
• Stripe: ~2.9% + 30¢ (plus your payment platform's cut if you use one)

At 20 sales/month of a $29 product, the fee difference is roughly $35/month. That's the price of never thinking about VAT MOSS.

The decision rule

Under ~$1,000/month in product revenue: Gumroad, no contest — your time is worth more than the fees. Past that, migrating to a Stripe-based setup (Lemon Squeezy is a middle path that handles tax too) starts paying.

This site's products page runs on Gumroad links for exactly this reason — see the first-30-days launch plan for the full playbook.