Gumroad says “10% commission.” The actual number on your payout statement is 13–16%. Here is exactly where the rest goes.
TL;DR
Gumroad takes 10% of every sale, but that's not the whole fee story. Stripe payment processing adds another ~3% + $0.30 per transaction, and currency conversion for non-USD buyers adds 1–2%. On a $10 sale, a creator actually keeps about $8.41, not $9. On a $50 sale: $44.05, not $45. The smaller the price, the bigger the percentage Gumroad's $0.30 Stripe floor eats. This article breaks down the real take-home for three common price points and compares against Lemon Squeezy, Payhip, and Getly so you can pick the platform whose fee curve fits your typical sale price.
Section 1
Gumroad's pricing page is refreshingly short. Here is what they advertise:
That all sounds reasonable. The catch is the line in parentheses — Stripe Connect handles payment processing (separately billed). That parenthetical is doing a lot of work. It's the difference between a 10% fee and a real-world 13–16% fee, depending on your average sale price. And there are a few other layers nobody puts in the headline marketing: the fixed $0.30 transaction floor, currency conversion for non-US buyers, refund recovery costs, and chargeback fees. Let's walk through them in the order they actually hit your payout.
Section 2
Gumroad uses Stripe Connect under the hood. That means every transaction is also a Stripe transaction, and Stripe's standard pricing applies on top of Gumroad's 10%. Stripe charges you, the seller, separately. Stripe's standard rates are:
2.9% of the transaction + $0.30 fixed for US-card transactions
+1% international fee when the buyer's card is issued outside the US
+1% currency conversion fee when the buyer pays in a non-USD currency
Let's do the math on the simplest possible case: a $10 USD sale to a US buyer paying with a US-issued card. No international fee, no conversion.
That's already the cleanest version of the story. It does not include refund handling (you eat the Stripe fee on refunds — Stripe keeps it), chargebacks ($15 fee per dispute, win or lose), or tax obligations (Gumroad isn't a Merchant of Record outside very specific cases — see section 4). Add a chargeback to a $20 sale and you've effectively lost money on it.
Section 3
Here is what creators actually take home, for the most common Gumroad price tiers, on a US-buyer-with-US-card scenario (the cheapest possible case for the seller):
| Sale price | Gumroad 10% | Stripe 2.9% + $0.30 | Total fees | Creator nets | Effective % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10 | $1.00 | $0.59 | $1.59 | $8.41 | 84.1% |
| $50 | $5.00 | $1.75 | $6.75 | $43.25 | 86.5% |
| $100 | $10.00 | $3.20 | $13.20 | $86.80 | 86.8% |
| $200 | $20.00 | $6.10 | $26.10 | $173.90 | 86.95% |
Notice the curve. The smaller the sale, the worse it gets. A $1 sale on Gumroad? $0.10 commission + $0.33 processing = $0.43 fees, creator nets $0.57. That's a 43% effective fee. A $5 sale nets you $4.06 — already a 19% effective fee. This is exactly why Gumroad effectively kills micro-pricing: the $0.30 Stripe floor isn't proportional, so it eats small tickets alive. If your average sale is under $10, Gumroad is one of the worst fee structures available.
Section 4
The numbers above are the best case. International buyers and currency conversion both cost you extra. Here is what they look like:
EU VAT is another thing Gumroad does not auto-handle for sellers. Lemon Squeezy does — they act as a Merchant of Record and remit VAT on your behalf. If you sell €1,000+/year to EU buyers, you may be required to register for VAT in some member states yourself. Gumroad will not do this for you. Either price it into your margin, or use a platform that takes MOR responsibility.
Section 5
Same scenario as before — US buyer, US card, no FX. Net amount the creator receives after all platform and processing fees:
| Sale price | Gumroad nets | Lemon Squeezy nets | Payhip nets | Getly (mo 1–3) | Getly (mo 4+) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10 | $8.41 | $9.00 | $9.20 | $9.00 | $8.00 |
| $50 | $43.25 | $47.00 | $47.10 | $45.00 | $40.00 |
| $100 | $86.80 | $94.00 | $94.30 | $90.00 | $80.00 |
Caveats — read this part:
Honest note about Getly: Getly's 20% effective rate on a $50 sale is $40 net vs Gumroad's $43.25. So Getly is worse than Gumroad on pure fee math once you're past the 3-month promo. We're not pretending otherwise. Why pick Getly anyway? Marketplace discovery (Gumroad is store-only — buyers don't browse it), crypto payouts in 100+ countries Stripe doesn't cover, and Getly Pro recurring revenue your products can be opted into. The fee tradeoff is real and it should be a deliberate choice — not a surprise.
Section 6
No platform is universally best. The right choice depends almost entirely on your average sale price and your buyer geography. A rough decision tree:
FAQ
Gumroad's 10% commission is on top of Stripe's processing fees of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. On a $10 sale to a US buyer with a US card, you pay $1.00 in Gumroad commission and $0.59 in Stripe fees — total $1.59, leaving you with $8.41 (84.1%). On a $50 sale you keep about 86.5%. The smaller the price, the worse the percentage gets, because the $0.30 fixed floor is a much bigger chunk of a $5 sale than of a $100 sale.
No. When a buyer disputes a charge, Stripe keeps the original 2.9% + $0.30 processing fee, and you also pay a $15 chargeback fee. Gumroad doesn't refund any of it. So a single chargeback on a $20 product can cost you the full sale amount plus another $15 — meaning you actually lose money on that order.
The $0.30 is a fixed Stripe processing fee charged on every transaction regardless of price. On a $1 sale that's 30%. On a $5 sale it's 6%. On a $100 sale it's 0.3%. So if your average sale price is under $5, the $0.30 floor effectively doubles your fee burden compared to a creator selling $50 products. This is why Gumroad's economics fall apart for low-ticket creators — the math just doesn't work.
At small prices, yes — Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee plus 6.5% transaction fee plus 3% + $0.25 payment processing, which on a $5 sale comes out worse than Gumroad. At larger prices, the gap closes: a $100 sale on Etsy costs roughly $9.95 in fees vs Gumroad's $13.20. But Etsy gives you marketplace discovery and search traffic that Gumroad doesn't, so the comparison is rarely just about fees.
Go to your Gumroad dashboard, then Settings → Payouts → Transaction history. Each transaction shows the gross sale amount, the Gumroad fee, the Stripe processing fee, and your net payout. Export it as CSV if you want to analyze your effective fee rate by product or price band — most creators are surprised when they see their actual percentage versus the headline 10%.
By Mykola Piatkov — solo founder of Getly Store. Updated April 2026.
Honest pricing, marketplace traffic, and crypto payouts in countries Stripe doesn't cover. Three-month early-seller promo gets you to 90% net while you build up your store.