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Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by dhosek on Sunday April 06, 2025 @03:50PM (#43604378)
So what are the alternatives to gumroad? I’d been thinking of using them to sell the PDF version of a book, but after reading about the doge thing, I feel like I need to look elsewhere.
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by kamranjon on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:06PM (#43604522)
I use Shopify and it’s pretty dang nice, especially the shipping discounts you get as a smaller business. I’m not sure of many alternatives though, I just knew it by name so I chose it - there might be better ones out there.
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by lovegrenoble on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:13PM (#43604586)
This one is top, using it for ages: https://getdpd.com
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by chris_pie on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:11PM (#43604565)
There's also Paddle (who's a Merchant of Record)
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by candiddevmike on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:04PM (#43604512)
Paddle works OK and supports a bunch of payment providers
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by kacesensitive on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:07PM (#43604541)
Lemon Squeezy is excellent
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by gkoberger on Sunday April 06, 2025 @03:52PM (#43604401)
Stripe can likely do it with link.com, assuming you don’t need help with distribution
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by nikolas- on Sunday April 06, 2025 @03:53PM (#43604412)
Lemon Squeezy (recently acquired by Stripe) has a native digital product solution (https://www.lemonsqueezy.com/ecommerce/digital-products)
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by oakesm9 on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:00PM (#43604470)
The major benefit of a service like Gumroad is they are the merchant of record and handle worldwide taxes for you. Stripe does not do that (yet?)
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by fuzztester on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:02PM (#43604489)
>taxes for you.

including EU VAT, last I checked.

Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by rchaud on Sunday April 06, 2025 @06:00PM (#43605315)
They announced the MOR feature in December 2024, so I wouldn't really say that's a big selling point for them just yet, they have been around for over a decade.
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by Kye on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:10PM (#43604560)
It depends a lot on what you're selling. Most platforms do general purpose, but they tend to focus in different places. I use Fourthwall for selling stickers: https://shop.kyefox.com

The benefit is no up front cost and you can use your own domain. Even all the support-related stuff is handled through MX and CNAME settings on your domain while their people do all the work.

Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by fuzztester on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:01PM (#43604476)
what is the doge thing?
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by teraflop on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:03PM (#43604498)
Open the article, press Ctrl-F, and type "DOGE" to get your answer.

(TL;DR: DOGE is the name of a new US government agency devoted to gutting other government agencies, and the founder of Gumroad is giving it pro-bono help.)

Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by walmartwagie on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:49PM (#43604858)
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by fuzztester on Sunday April 06, 2025 @05:15PM (#43605014)
Ah yes. For the last two or three weeks, or maybe ditto months, in some of my free time, that I dedicate for reading world news, I've been doing practically nothing but reading about the shenanigans of the Frump and his sidekick the Tusk / the Fsck, so I guess it makes sense that I didn't know what the DOGE was. end of /s

:)

after the /s, thanks for your answer. the /s is dedicated to the HN people I mention below, not to you.

actually by the "doge thing", I meant sahil's interaction with it, which I knew would be in the article, or in a linked one, but was a bit lazy to read.

and I continue to marvel at the brilliance of the knee jerk, trigger happy HN downvoters who can't even imagine that there can be a different interpretation of a phrase like "the doge thing" from what they can think of or know.

DOGE is the right place for those jokers.

Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by andybak on Sunday April 06, 2025 @08:38PM (#43606298)
Alternatively, you posted a 5 word question that was maddeningly vague and was almost destined to be misunderstood.
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by fuzztester on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @10:18PM (#43628330)
>you posted a 5 word question that was maddeningly vague

"maddeningly vague", hell yes, but only for 'hotshot' HN dumbasses (of which there are many here) who don't look before they leap, aka, in this case, don't read (the comment context) before they yap.

proof: here is the comment to which I was replying above, when I asked "what is the doge thing":

>So what are the alternatives to gumroad? I’d been thinking of using them to sell the PDF version of a book, but after reading about the doge thing, I feel like I need to look elsewhere.

See the overall comment, as well as the part I highlighted.

from the context, as shown above, it is clear (to anyone with common sense) that I was asking what they meant by their reference to doge, in the context of gumroad, and was not asking about doge itself, which I could, obviously, have easily googled for.

so, is it now clear to you, dear sir, andybak, that my question was not vague at all, and in fact, it was your comment that was maddeningly idiotic and unjustified? even more idiotic in view of the fact that Frump, Tusk, and their shenanigans like doge and tariffs have been making news headlines all around the world for the past few weeks? in view of that, isn't it likely that I would know what doge meant?

jfc.

in future, look before you leap, or you're likely to land up in a pile of dog(e) shit (of your own making).

Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by thedangler on Sunday April 06, 2025 @04:23PM (#43604663)
Plenty of options. I use sytescope.com with a funnel to sell subscriptions. You can sell digital content on there too and hook it up with lots of payment systems.
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by ninefoxgambit on Sunday April 06, 2025 @08:18PM (#43606206)
I sell templates for a living and have used several of these providers.

The main options are Gumroad - high fees and ugly design, solid system never had issues does most what I need.

Lemon Squeezy - it was very popular until being acquired by stripe. Full of serious bugs, bad support. Lovely design, slightly better fees than Gumroad, but many hidden. Would still use over Gumroad just cause the Gumroad checkout design is so bad it loses sales imo.

Paddle - haven’t used it but I think it’s probably as good as Gumroad or Lemon.

Polar.sh - the trendy new option, most creators abandoning Lemon Squeezy are moving there. Has lots of innovation in features beyond payments such as selling private GitHub access.

All of these platforms are MOR as far as I know, all provide the checkout UI etc. all handle digital asset file delivery. They are perfect for creators selling digital products that want a turn key solution and don’t want to do any development work.

Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by pier25 on Sunday April 06, 2025 @09:52PM (#43606728)
Polar.sh looks great. Do they accept PayPal payments? Probably half of my sales on Gumroad come from PP.
Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by bigbadfeline on Monday April 07, 2025 @02:48PM (#43614612)
https://docs.polar.sh/merchant-of-record/fees >Polar is currently built on Stripe

Stripe supports paypal only in Europe, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by jjani on Wednesday April 16, 2025 @01:06PM (#43707781)
> Lemon Squeezy - it was very popular until being acquired by stripe. Full of serious bugs, bad support. Lovely design, slightly better fees than Gumroad, but many hidden. Would still use over Gumroad just cause the Gumroad checkout design is so bad it loses sales imo.

Curious to read the acquisition made it less popular. Is it due to the concern of Stripe buying it solely as an "extinguish" strategy? Or is it unrelated to the acquisition and just because of the bugs and poor support?

Re:Gumroad's Interestingly Timed "Open-Source" Play by 999900000999 on Sunday April 06, 2025 @09:02PM (#43606414)
Honor System + a paypal donate link at the bottom of your page.

Itch has no mandatory cut at all.

Theirs an argument that taking any payment at all is more trouble than it’s worth.

Say you sell 15 copies of the book per month for 10$ each. After taxes and merchant fees , and the occasional chargeback, you’ll be lucky to net half.

Is 75$ a month really worth the stress ?

This is a part of why I’m going FOSS for my side projects. Even trying to collect a single legit dollar gives people a right to complain.

Of course you can complain on GitHub anyway when it doesn’t work right, but it’s MIT, fork , send a PR or leave me alone.