Prerequisites
- A digital product to sell
- The ability to build or configure a checkout page
Once you've seen a platform take 10% or 30%, running your own checkout starts to look obvious. Stripe charges a fraction of that.
The arithmetic is real. What it leaves out is everything the platform was doing for the difference.
What Stripe Charges
Standard US pay-as-you-go rates:
| Charge | Rate |
|---|---|
| Domestic card payment | 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction |
| International card | +1.5% |
| Currency conversion, when required | +1% |
| Dispute received | $15.00 each |
| Dispute countered manually | $15.00 — refunded if you win, kept if you lose |
Rates differ by country, so check Stripe's page for where your business is registered rather than assuming the US figures apply.
Direct vs Platform, on a $20 Product
| Fees | You keep | |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe, domestic card | $0.88 | $19.12 |
| Stripe, international card | $1.18 | $18.82 |
| Stripe, international + conversion | $1.38 | $18.62 |
| Gumroad, your own link | $2.50 | $17.50 |
| Gumroad, via Discover | $6.00 | $14.00 |
Stripe keeps roughly $1.62 more per $20 sale than a direct Gumroad sale — about 8 percentage points.
At 100 sales a month that's $162. At 1,000 it's $1,620. Real money, and the reason experienced sellers eventually move to their own checkout.
ℹ️ Good to Know
Note how the international surcharges stack. A US seller taking payment from a European customer in euros pays 2.9% + 1.5% + 1% plus the fixed fee. The headline "2.9% + 30¢" describes the cheapest case, not the typical one for a global digital product.
What the Extra 8 Points Buys
This is the part the fee comparison hides. Stripe moves money. It does not run your business.
Checkout and file delivery. You build the purchase flow, secure the download, handle failed payments, and send receipts. Gumroad does all of it.
Sales tax and VAT. Gumroad acts as Merchant of Record, taking on worldwide sales tax collection and remittance. With Stripe you are the seller, and selling digital goods across borders can trigger EU VAT, UK VAT and US state sales tax obligations — some with no minimum threshold. Stripe offers tax products, but they are an addition, not the default.
Disputes. At $15 received plus $15 to contest, a single chargeback wipes out the fee saving from roughly nine $20 sales — or nineteen if you contest it and lose. Platforms absorb much of this friction; running direct, it lands on you.
Discovery. Gumroad's 30% Discover rate is expensive precisely because it brings the customer. Stripe brings nobody. Direct checkout only makes sense if you already have traffic.
⚠️ Warning
The dispute economics bite hardest at low volume. If you sell 50 units of a $20 product in a month, your fee saving over Gumroad is about $81 — and two contested chargebacks you lose would cost $60 of it. At 500 units the same two disputes barely register. Digital goods attract disputes because buyers forget the purchase or raise a chargeback instead of asking for a refund.
When Each One Wins
Use a platform when you're starting out, selling low volume, selling internationally without tax infrastructure, or you'd rather write than build checkout flows. The fee is buying real services, and at low volume the absolute saving from going direct is small.
Go direct when volume makes the percentage material, you already own your traffic, and you have a way to handle tax compliance. The crossover is genuinely a volume question — work out your own monthly saving before spending a weekend building.
💡 Pro Tip
There's a middle path people miss: use Stripe for your main high-volume product and keep a platform listing for discovery. Nothing stops you selling the same thing both ways, and it hedges the "I built checkout and nobody came" failure.
The Costs Neither Option Removes
Tax on your income. Whatever the platform fee, your earnings are self-employment income — in the US, self-employment tax alone is 15.3% of net earnings before income tax.
Refunds. A refunded sale usually returns less than you received, since fixed fees may not come back.
Your time. Building and maintaining checkout is unpaid work. If it takes a weekend plus ongoing maintenance, count that against the saving honestly.
✅ Action Step
Before switching, calculate one number: your last month's sales multiplied by the fee difference. On a $20 product that is about $1.62 per sale. If the total is less than what your time is worth building and maintaining checkout, stay on the platform for now.
Where to Verify Any of This
Stripe's and Gumroad's rates come from their own pricing pages, linked below. Stripe's pricing varies by country and both companies revise terms, so confirm the current figures for your own situation rather than relying on any summary, including this one.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Stripe charge per transaction?
Stripe's standard US rate is 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction for domestic cards. International cards add 1.5%, and an extra 1% applies if currency conversion is required.
Is Stripe cheaper than Gumroad?
On the transaction alone, yes. On a $20 sale Stripe costs about $0.88 against Gumroad's $2.50 for a direct sale. But Gumroad's higher fee covers checkout, file delivery and acting as Merchant of Record for worldwide sales tax, all of which you take on yourself with Stripe.
What does Stripe charge for a chargeback?
Stripe charges $15.00 for each dispute you receive, plus $15.00 for each dispute you respond to manually. The response fee is refunded if you win and kept if you lose.
Do you have to handle sales tax yourself with Stripe?
Yes, unless you add a service that handles it. Stripe processes the payment; it is not automatically the seller of record for tax purposes the way a Merchant of Record platform is. Selling digital goods internationally can create VAT and sales tax obligations from the first sale.
Sources & Further Reading
Every factual claim in this guide is drawn from primary, authoritative sources. Figures reflect the referenced pages at the time of our last review and can change — always confirm current terms on the official site.
- 1Stripe pricing — Stripe
- 2Gumroad pricing — Gumroad
- 3PayPal Merchant Fees (US) — PayPal
- 4Self-Employment Tax (Social Security and Medicare Taxes) — Internal Revenue Service
EarnRoutes Editorial
Researched and fact-checked against primary sources
Compiled from Stripe's published US pricing and Gumroad's published pricing page. Every rate quoted here is stated by the company itself, linked in the source list below. Stripe's rates vary by country — the guide says so and points you to the right page.
Last reviewed on September 9, 2026