Ask HN: Best Digital Product Seller Like Gumroad or SendOwl?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15728174

by deadcoder0904 • 9 years ago

8 23 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I want to sell some digital products like apps. So Gumroad makes it easy but it takes a lot of money when I make a lot. I want to sell 10 products till next month & there after the products will increase from 10 to 50 to 100.

1. So I want to ask will it be worth it to use Gumroad or SendOwl. It seems Gumroad takes a large chunk of money when u make a lot.

2. When Gumroad & similar services take 3.5% of my money, do Paypal/Stripe also take a chunk out of my remaining money ?

3. Am I better off building my own custom Paypal/Stripe Checkout form ?

wnm5• 9 years ago

I would say, don't build anything custom until you know you can sell how much you think you can sell. Gumroad is perfect for testing your product market fit, since you don't waste a lot of time seting up a billing system. you sign up, create a product, and get a link (or some js to embed). easy.

gumroad is 3,5% + 0,3$ vs. stripe 2,9% + 0,3$

that is not enough of a price increase to justify wasting a lot of time on setting up a custom checkout form, imo.

deadcoder09045• 9 years ago

Thank you, that clears up a lot of things. but when my product gain a lot of traction, then should i still keep using Gumroad or then move to custom ?

wnm5• 9 years ago

Personally, I wouldn't move. I value the time and hassle saved, more then the money. For my business (https://presskithero.com) I use https://paddle.com, which is even more expensive then gumroad (5% + 0,5%). But they handle VAT (value added tax) for me, which otherwise would be a huge hassle and time sink.

bufferoverflow• 9 years ago

When it comes to accepting credit cards, you can do a bit better, but you will have to deal with fraud yourself.

I'd look at the cryptocurrencies with low fees. Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, etc. Building your own solution for something like this could be a lot of fun.

deadcoder09045• 9 years ago

Seriously I would love to use something like that but it feels like Rocket Science to me till now. I am going to learn & understand it when I am done with my ongoing project & thank you for telling me there is a credit card frauds too bcz I didn't knew about it. But I still don't understand how can they fraud with Stripe/Paypal? Basically I am not getting Credit Card fraud in Online Banking.

itamarst3• 9 years ago

The problem is taxes. You need to pay VAT on EU sales ("MOSS VAT"), sales taxes in many countries... even if you are not resident of those countries. Even as an American if I sell to someone in EU I need to collect VAT.

Options:

1. Don't pay taxes. I am not comfortable with this.

2. Pay taxes yourself. I do not want to figure this out.

3. Have service pay taxes for you. This is what I chose.

AFAICT only two companies actually cover all tax jurisdictions, FastSpring and Paddle. Gumroad only does some.

With Paddle it's trivial for someone to download content without paying, and when I complained they said "oh yeah we should write some docs warning about that".

So if you care about taxes there's just FastSpring. FastSpring is pretty decent, so I'm OK with that.

vram225• 9 years ago

all tax jurisdictions

What do you mean by jurisdictions here? different countries?

itamarst3• 9 years ago

Different countries, but also in the US different states have different sales tax.

ezekg2• 9 years ago

You could potentially get around the distribution issue using a licensing service like Keygen (https://keygen.sh/distribution) (disclaimer: I’m the founder). You could use it alongside a payment provider like Paddle or FastSpring to ensure only licensed users are allowed to download your product.

itamarst3• 9 years ago

Or I could just use FastSpring :)

seanwilson2• 9 years ago

AFAICT only two companies actually cover all tax jurisdictions, FastSpring and Paddle. Gumroad only does some.

Can you elaborate more on what Gumroad are missing out on?

vram225• 9 years ago

How does Gumroad take a lot? AFAIK they have a fixed rate (percentage + a fixed cents amount) for each sale, at least on the free tier. So how do they take larger (except proportionally) when you make a lot?

deadcoder09045• 9 years ago

Yep that's what I meant. Read it again I said "When u make a lot, it takes a lot" which is synonymous to "Proportional". Also, I can save a shit ton of money if I make my own Gumroad.

Ask HN: Best Digital Product Seller Like Gumroad or SendOwl?

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