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Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link to Hostinger. If you sign up through it, Automated Wealth Lab earns a commission at no extra cost to you. Etsy, Gumroad and Lemon Squeezy are not affiliate partners — the tables below were built from their published fee schedules, checked in October 2026, and each platform wins somewhere.
Selling a digital product — a template pack, an ebook, a preset bundle, a Notion system — means choosing who stands between you and the buyer’s card. That choice is priced three different ways: Etsy charges a stack of small fees and brings its own shoppers; Gumroad charges a flat percentage and handles your taxes; Lemon Squeezy charges the least per sale and also acts as your legal seller. Headline rates (“6.5%!” vs “10%!” vs “5%!”) compare almost nothing, because each rate sits on a different stack. So this article assembles the full stacks and computes what you actually keep on a $19, a $49 and a $99 sale — the three price points digital products actually transact at.
Short answer: Per sale, Lemon Squeezy keeps the least (you keep ~92–95%: 5% + $0.50, card processing included, taxes handled as merchant of record). Gumroad direct costs more (you keep ~83–86%: 10% + $0.50 plus 2.9% + $0.30 processing) and its Discover marketplace costs a flat 30%. Etsy costs ~10–12% all-in for a US seller before any Offsite Ads fee — but Etsy is the only one of the three that brings buyers to you. The cheapest platform for traffic you already have is Lemon Squeezy; the most expensive mistake is paying Gumroad’s 30% Discover rate on buyers you brought yourself.
The three fee schedules, as published
All rates below are the platforms’ published schedules, verified October 2026. US seller, US card, digital download (no shipping) unless stated.
| Fee | Etsy | Gumroad | Lemon Squeezy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | 6.5% transaction fee (on price + shipping + gift wrap) | 10% + $0.50 per sale (direct) | 5% + $0.50 per transaction |
| Card processing | 3% + $0.25 (US, via Etsy Payments, on the order total incl. tax) | 2.9% + $0.30, charged on top of the platform fee | Included in the 5% + $0.50 |
| Listing fee | $0.20 per listing; renews every 4 months and on each sale of a multi-quantity listing | None | None |
| Marketplace rate | Offsite Ads: +15% if an order is attributed to an Etsy-run ad (12% once the shop passes $10k in 365-day sales; capped at $100/order; optional below $10k, mandatory above) | Discover: flat 30%, processing included | None (no marketplace) |
| Regulatory operating fee | 0% for US sellers; applies in some countries (UK 0.48%, France 1.14% since June 2026) | None | None |
| Surcharges | Currency conversion 2.5% if listing and payout currencies differ | None published on direct sales | +1.5% international transactions; +1.5% PayPal; +0.5% on subscription payments |
| Monthly fee | None (optional Etsy Plus $10/mo; one-time shop setup fee of $15–$29 applies to many new shops) | None | None |
| Who is the seller for tax? | You (Etsy collects/remits sales tax in many jurisdictions as marketplace facilitator) | Gumroad — merchant of record since January 2025; calculates and remits sales tax/VAT/GST worldwide | Lemon Squeezy — merchant of record; VAT/sales tax handled |
One schedule note worth flagging: Swell’s October 2026 Gumroad pricing analysis reports a high-volume tier — direct sales drop to 5% + $0.50 once paid sales pass $20,000 in a calendar month, resetting monthly. If that holds at your volume, Gumroad’s direct math improves markedly (a $49 sale keeps ~$44.33 instead of $41.88). We flag it as reported rather than fold it into the main tables, because it is new and the main tables should reflect the rate every new seller actually starts on.
What you keep: $19, $49 and $99, computed
Assumptions printed once, applied everywhere: US seller, US card, digital download with no shipping charge, Etsy listing fee amortized at $0.20 per sale, no Offsite Ads attribution, no international or currency surcharges, one-time (non-subscription) Lemon Squeezy sale.
| Price | Etsy — fees | You keep | Gumroad direct — fees | You keep | Lemon Squeezy — fees | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $19 | $1.24 + $0.82 + $0.20 = $2.26 (11.9%) | $16.74 | $2.40 + $0.85 = $3.25 (17.1%) | $15.75 | $0.95 + $0.50 = $1.45 (7.6%) | $17.55 |
| $49 | $3.19 + $1.72 + $0.20 = $5.11 (10.4%) | $43.89 | $5.40 + $1.72 = $7.12 (14.5%) | $41.88 | $2.45 + $0.50 = $2.95 (6.0%) | $46.05 |
| $99 | $6.44 + $3.22 + $0.20 = $9.86 (10.0%) | $89.14 | $10.40 + $3.17 = $13.57 (13.7%) | $85.43 | $4.95 + $0.50 = $5.45 (5.5%) | $93.55 |
Three patterns in that table decide real businesses:
1. Fixed fees punish cheap products — everywhere. The $0.50s, $0.30s and $0.25s don’t scale down, so a $19 product surrenders 17.1% on Gumroad and 11.9% on Etsy, while a $99 product surrenders 13.7% and 10.0%. Lemon Squeezy’s single flat charge degrades the most gracefully (7.6% → 5.5%). If your catalog lives under $25, fee structure matters more than any other platform feature.
2. Etsy’s stack is mid-priced — and it’s the only one buying you anything. Etsy’s ~10–12% purchases distribution: search traffic from buyers who arrived intending to purchase. Gumroad and Lemon Squeezy are checkout rails; they bring nobody. Comparing their fees without comparing their traffic is how sellers end up on the cheapest platform with zero sales.
3. The marketplace rates are acquisition costs, not fees. If an Etsy sale is attributed to Offsite Ads, add 15%: the $49 product keeps $36.54 instead of $43.89. A Gumroad Discover sale at $49 keeps $34.30 (flat 30%) instead of $41.88. Both are rational prices for a buyer you would never have reached — and pure loss on a buyer who came from your own link. Manage what’s manageable: below $10k/year in Etsy sales, Offsite Ads participation is optional; on Gumroad, route your own audience to direct links, always.
The subscription footnote
If the product is a subscription rather than a one-off, two numbers move. Lemon Squeezy adds 0.5% on subscription payments (a $49/month plan keeps $45.81 instead of $46.05 — small, but it recurs monthly). And the comparison itself changes: a subscription business needs dunning, a customer portal and plan management, which is a billing-platform decision, not a checkout decision — we priced that stack separately in Pabbly Subscription Billing vs Stripe vs Lemon Squeezy.
The fourth option: your own storefront
Above a few thousand dollars a month, a fourth row enters the table: your own site. A storefront on your own hosting — a WordPress + checkout stack on a plan like Hostinger’s — replaces percentage-of-revenue platform fees with a flat hosting bill plus raw card processing (2.9% + $0.30 via Stripe, before any billing add-ons). The trade is real in both directions: you keep the most per sale and inherit everything the platforms were quietly doing — tax configuration, checkout uptime, fraud screening, file delivery, refund handling. Sellers graduating to this row usually keep a marketplace presence on Etsy for discovery and route repeat buyers to their own store. The template-selling version of this decision, with platform math at the same price points, is in our selling n8n templates breakdown.
Which platform, by seller
You have no audience yet and a searchable product (templates, printables, craft files): Etsy. Pay the ~10–12% stack gladly — it’s the only fee in this article that includes customers. Price with the Offsite Ads scenario in mind so an attributed sale still profits.
You have an audience (social following, email list, a blog) and sell one-off products: Lemon Squeezy. The lowest keep-rate math in the table (92–95%), merchant-of-record tax handling, license keys built in. Gumroad is the fallback if you want its (expensive) Discover optionality or existing Gumroad following.
You sell subscriptions, memberships or an updates club: Start from the billing comparison, not this one — dunning and portals decide it, and Lemon Squeezy’s +0.5% subscription surcharge belongs in that math.
You’re past ~$3–5k/month and fees are a visible line item: Price the own-storefront row. At $5,000/month of $49 sales, the gap between Gumroad direct (~14.5%) and a self-hosted stack (~3.5% processing-only) is roughly $550/month — real money, buying real operational work.
FAQ
Which platform takes the smallest cut on a digital product?
Lemon Squeezy: 5% + $0.50 per transaction with card processing included — you keep $17.55 of a $19 sale, $46.05 of $49, $93.55 of $99 (US card, no international surcharge). It also acts as merchant of record, so global sales tax is handled inside that rate.
Why is Gumroad’s real fee higher than “10%”?
Because the 10% + $0.50 platform fee excludes card processing, which Gumroad charges on top (2.9% + $0.30 for US cards). All-in, a direct $49 sale costs $7.12 — 14.5%, not 10%. And sales attributed to Gumroad’s Discover marketplace cost a flat 30%.
What does Etsy actually charge per sale in 2026?
For a US seller: a $0.20 listing fee, a 6.5% transaction fee, and 3% + $0.25 payment processing — about $2.26 on a $19 digital download and $9.86 on a $99 one (roughly 10–12%), before any Offsite Ads fee (15%, or 12% above $10k/year in shop sales, only on attributed orders). Sellers in some countries also pay a regulatory operating fee (e.g., UK 0.48%, France 1.14%).
Who handles sales tax and VAT?
Gumroad (since January 2025) and Lemon Squeezy act as merchant of record: they calculate, collect and remit sales tax/VAT/GST, and the sale is legally theirs. On Etsy you remain the seller, though Etsy collects and remits sales tax on orders in many jurisdictions as a marketplace facilitator. If you sell globally from day one, the merchant-of-record rows remove an entire compliance category.
Is Etsy’s Offsite Ads fee avoidable?
Partly. Below $10,000 in trailing-12-month shop sales, participation is optional. At or above $10,000 it becomes mandatory at the reduced 12% rate, charged only on orders attributed to an offsite ad click within 30 days, and capped at $100 per order. You can’t opt out at scale — you can only price for it.
When does Gumroad get cheaper?
Per Swell’s October 2026 pricing analysis, direct sales drop to 5% + $0.50 once a month’s paid sales pass $20,000 — at that tier a $49 sale keeps about $44.33. We flag this as newly reported; verify it on Gumroad’s pricing page before budgeting around it, since the standard 10% + $0.50 is the rate new sellers start on.
Methodology
What we did: Assembled each platform’s full published fee stack — Etsy’s listing/transaction/processing/Offsite Ads schedule (US rates), Gumroad’s direct and Discover rates with processing charged on top, Lemon Squeezy’s 5% + $0.50 with its published surcharges — and computed per-sale take-home at $19, $49 and $99 under one stated model (US seller, US card, digital download, no shipping, listing fee amortized per sale). All schedules were checked against the platforms’ pricing documentation and independent fee analyses in October 2026.
What we did NOT do: We did not process test sales through any of the three for this article. Figures exclude refunds (note: Gumroad does not return its platform fee on refunded sales), chargebacks, payout fees where they vary by country, and income tax. Non-US sellers face different processing and regulatory rates — Etsy’s regulatory operating fee and country-specific processing are the largest movers — so re-run the tables with your country’s schedule before pricing a product.
Conflict disclosure: Hostinger is an affiliate partner (the own-storefront option). None of the three compared platforms is — and the fee winner, Lemon Squeezy, is one we earn nothing from. The recommendation split follows the tables and the traffic each platform does or doesn’t bring.
AWL verdict
Stop comparing headline percentages; compare stacks at your price point, then ask what the fee buys. Lemon Squeezy is the cheapest rail for your own traffic (keep ~92–95%, taxes handled). Etsy’s ~10–12% is the only stack that includes buyers, which makes it the right first store for a searchable product with no audience — with Offsite Ads priced in, not discovered later. Gumroad sits between: simpler than Etsy, pricier than Lemon Squeezy, and carrying a 30% Discover rate you should treat as an advertising decision, never a default. And whichever rail you choose, this is one decision inside the larger stack ranked in our guide to making money online.
Sources
- Etsy fee schedule 2026 — listing $0.20, transaction 6.5%, US processing 3% + $0.25, Offsite Ads 15%/12% (capped $100, mandatory at $10k+), regulatory operating fees by country (US 0%; UK 0.48%, France 1.14% from June 22, 2026), new-shop setup fee $15–$29: https://revenuegeeks.com/free-tools/etsy-fee-calculator and https://branvas.com/blogs/news/etsy-fees-2026-breakdown (verified October 2026)
- Etsy worked example — a US seller keeps $26.70 of a $30 sale ($3.30 total fees); $22.20 with an Offsite Ads attribution: https://nidhi69n.medium.com/how-much-does-etsy-take-from-a-30-sale-2026-fee-breakdown-4dae978e34b0 (verified October 2026)
- Gumroad pricing — direct 10% + $0.50 plus processing 2.9% + $0.30 on top; Discover flat 30% processing included; high-volume tier 5% + $0.50 above $20,000/month in paid sales (reported October 2026): https://www.swell.is/content/gumroad-pricing (verified October 2026)
- Gumroad fee explainer — merchant of record since January 2025 (worldwide sales tax/VAT/GST handled); per-price take-home table incl. $50 direct sale keeping $42.75: https://checkoutpage.com/blog/gumroad-fees?srsltid=AfmBOornS1AA4wkY9Axu8s-RGUsdYOb_0DEzSk24QQUEHhXxIFHJg4mR (verified October 2026)
- Lemon Squeezy pricing — 5% + $0.50; +1.5% international, +1.5% PayPal, +0.5% subscriptions; merchant of record: https://www.swell.is/content/lemon-squeezy-pricing (verified October 2026)
