Selling physical items or using freelancer’s websites to sell physical and digital goods may seem like a good idea but it has its challenges as well. On the other hand, building your own website or online business and selling goods sound phenomenal and lets you be the boss with people working under your directions.
Gumroad is a lucrative online shopping (eCommerce) platform that adds a flair to e-commerce websites with a varied range of features, add-ons, and more. We tried it extensively to get a clear picture of how it works, its features, business models, and overall Gumroad Review that you should check out before closing a deal with it or any of its alternatives.
Gumroad Review 2021
The first thing that comes to mind for those who don’t know what Gumroad is will be how the platform works and so we will explain everything to you in this article. Gumroad is a platform that you can use either on your existing blog or website or create a custom landing page to showcase your crafts and services.
Gumroad was launched in 2011 and has been around for a decade now offering customers a platform to add their music albums, written materials, digital goods including animation, books, apps, comedy, photography, and almost every other thing you can think of.
Once you embed it on your website or use it as a standalone platform to sell stuff, visitors can select the product they want to buy and checkout via the payment gateway embedded on Gumroad for a quick and hassle-free processor in a few minutes.
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Gumroad has proven instrumental in giving artists, creators, writers, and other creative professionals a platform to earn money while staying in their budget selling both digital and physical goods and services. Gumroad is equipped with an armamentarium of features and add-ons which makes it a great eCommerce platform for artists and creators to choose among its competitors.
What are the alternatives to Gumroad? (Gumroad Alternatives)
Just like any other tool or services you can even think of, Gumroad has a few alternatives although I would recommend reading this Gumroad Review before closing in the deal. Its alternatives include Sellfy, Payhip, Robora, Chirpify, Ribbon, Seiz, Fiverr, and others although all these platforms have their pros and cons.
What can you sell on Gumroad?
On Gumroad, you can sell anything but it is preferred that the product is digital because that is what we have seen selling the most on this platform.
What is the pricing structure on Gumroad for selling your digital products?
It is great that Gumroad offers you the full flexibility regarding choosing a plan and you can create your account for free or select any paid plan. We have mentioned the pricing structure of this platform in detail down below.
How Does Gumroad Work?
There’s no rocket science involved here but since you are searching for a review, here’s how Gumroad actually works.
Firstly, you would need to create an account on Gumroad that requires basic details like email address and name, etc.
Next up, you will be asked to set-up payment information which includes how Gumroad will charge you for every purchase or once every month if you get the premium plan. This also includes banking details of where exactly you want to amount to transfer.
The next step is to create a portfolio that contains information about you, the lineup of all the products that you want to sell.
Here, you will have to add products one-by-one and include details like name, variant, descriptions, price, colors, etc. You need to add photos or videos to show how the product looks since a product listing without a photo won’t attract much.
Now that you have created it all, wait for the confirmation from Gumroad that should arrive soon.
Once the account is set up, you can send out links to your profile or products to potential customers. You can share it over social media, create ads on newspapers or digital media, or integrate it with your website or paste links on your blogs as affiliates to get more visitors to your Gumroad profile.
As the visitor pays the said amount, he/she will get access to the digital goods or get delivery of any physical product.
Gumroad: Pros
- Accepts all major Credit cards & PayPal
- Free Plan
- Supports Payment Plans and Subscriptions
- Create discounts and offers on the go
- Supports SD and HD streaming
- Light-weight platform
- Automated Email Marketing Tool (Workflows)
- Generate license for software
Gumroad: Cons
- Doesn’t supports Apple Pay or cryptocurrencies
- Requires Zapier for third-party integration
- No live or phone chat
- No A/B testing functionality
- Poorly documented knowledge-base
- There’s no free trials or paid trials
Gumroad: Features
- Ease of Use
Gumroad is perfect for beginners and professionals who are looking for a no-frill platform to sell their craft. You can either integrate it on your website or create a landing page on Gumroad itself allowing visitors to arrive at your profile and buy if they are interested.
The landing pages are straightforward although you can use CSS to tweak it further if you like. All the integrations and features are clearly specified on Gumroad’s dashboard and are super easy to use. Widgets lets you create buttons to integrate it anywhere, pricing with features is specified clearly.
Of course, it isn’t the most powerful online eCommerce platform to sell digital products but it surely something you should consider thanks to its ease of use, sufficient apps and integrations, and pricing options that suit your budget like no other. It also has a free 14 days trial if you want to try it out.
- Sell Anything
At Gumroad, there’s no limit on how many products you sell and what category. You can be a painter, craftsman, woodworker, or artist or a novelist, graphics designer, and so on and Gumroad will support you in your endeavor to sell your digital and physical goods too.
To name a few categories that Gumroad supports, you can sell goods in Apps & Software, Comedy, Comics, Games, Music, Photography, Podcasts, Merchandise, Crafts, and DIY and so on.
- Auto Updates
Gumroad offers tools to keep followers and visitors in the loop. It lets you send automated emails via its feature called Workflows. Once it is set up, visitors and customers will get emails that you can plan and schedule in advance. It helps tap onto potential customers.
You can also use the email subscription tool like MailChimp or get a built-in one as a form allowing visitors to sign up and get automated emails. It will also send out automated thank you notes, feedback email, and other required emails to convert visitors into customers by retargeting the lost souls.
This makes Gumroad the best course selling platform 2021 since you can update those who subscribed to your courses via automated emails.
- Add-ons to Boost Sales
There are a few things you get on Gumroad that are literally powerful sales boosters. This includes creating coupon codes that you can either publish via posts on Gumroad, send it via email, or mention it on your blog/website and other avenues. You can create multiple coupons for the same products, create discounts on each product, and more.
Among the various tools available on Gumroad, one such tool is Affiliate Marketing. It lets you generate product links for influencers and affiliate users who will run their affiliate program to earn by selling your products. You can set up their email address subject to the fact that they must be Gumroad users. Edit the commission you would like them to have on selling each unit of your product and voila, it’s done.
It might seem like not a big deal but adding currencies can help in sales. A person from the U.S. wouldn’t feel right buying stuff in British Pounds. Thus, adding multiple currencies on-board can seriously help in supercharging sales.
- Analytics
No doubt analytics plays a crucial role in getting the best out of any marketing strategy. Gumroad offers a great analytics feature that lets you track moves made by visitors. The dashboard includes everything from a total number of views and visitors, followers, and so on helping build your audience.
The powerful Analytics has all information on users who watched, listened, read, and downloaded any products. This aids in tweaking your marketing strategy to get more footfall on your profile which interns increase sales. You can also check out trends on posts and workflows to engage with your audience.
- On-Demand Streaming
As per the plans, the free plan offers unlimited SD streaming while the premium creator plan offers unlimited HD streaming on the platform. This is a handy feature for those selling digital goods on Gumroad as it makes the stuff available instantly.
Take a novel writer by X author for example. The moment users pay for the novel, he/she can get instant access to it in HD while the free plan gives SD streaming support. The same applies to videos, files, and others on the platform. All this data stays on the platform without chugging the crucial storage on your device. If you want local access, you can download these files/videos/content in a jiffy.
- Integration
Gumroad has a very specific list of apps and tools it can be integrated too. Too many integrations would have been a major plus but Gumroad does integrate into a handful of apps and tools that should satisfy all your needs. It connects to Zapier that lets Gumroad connects to over 250 applications like Aweber, Mailchimp, Infusionsoft among others which is great for supercharging a Gumroad website.
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It also supports ConvertKit for email-related tasks, Booklaunch which is a landing page-building tool, it can be integrated to WordPress using Gumroad WP plugin, Infusiosoft lets users track customer tags, leads, and affiliates among others. Other tools/apps that can be integrated are IFTTT which is a Zapier-like service allowing users to connect to third-party apps. There’s Sketchfab for 3D content, YouTube Annotations, Drip, and Order Desk for various other features and services on your Gumroad website.
Payment Models
When you add a product or service on Gumroad, you can select the model associated with that particular digital asset.
- Subscription
First up, a subscription-based model allows you to charge an amount on a monthly basis. This is great for those artists or creators that upload or update content every month or so. For instance, magazines and newspapers, blogs and websites that update content daily can use this model.
Usually, you would find websites taking in subscriptions to sell courses. This is also great for services charged monthly or otherwise while keeping the cash flow constant and indeed subscription-based models are more profitable than one-time payment models.
- Membership
This model allows you to grant access to all the archived content to the paying customers.
- Pre-order
This particular model allows customers to buy ahead of others. It is something you can set up allowing users to pre-order something even before it is available to other customers.
Payment Checkout
Adding products on Gumroad is a piece of cake as all the options and functions are self-explanatory. Some of the options have one-liner definitions tagged along with it. Gumroad lets users pay via any Credit Cards including PayPal.
It doesn’t support any other payment modes including Stripe or Payoneer among others. There’s an option to direct deposit to several countries as well in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and the United States only. All the payments (earnings) are transferred to bank accounts on every Friday.
Pricing
Gumroad offers a free tier for beginners and those who want to try out the online cart platform before signing up for its Pro plan. To be honest, one thing that I would like to highlight in this Gumroad Review 2021 is the fact that it is one of the cheapest payment processing solutions out there.
Free Plan
First up, the Free Plan has no monthly fee, of course. You can add unlimited products on Gumroad and get real-time analytics for the same. You also get options for customer management, SD streaming, and add limited posts and workflows. Plus, there’s a 5% + charge fee (3.5% + 30 cents) that it levies on purchases.
Creator ($10/mo)
Creator or Pro plan offers you access to 1,000 customers at just $10. Next up, it removes Gumroad branding/watermark as well as lets you use your own domain.
There’s no cap on posts and workflows to add on Gumroad and unlimited HD streaming support is available too. Finally, the Creator plan charges 3.5% + 30 cents per purchase cutting down the charges that Free plan levies on it.
There’s a feature called “Discover” that adds another 10% fee if subscribed. This feature recommends users of products specific to their search or accounting for past orders which of course elevates the sales.
Customer Service
The most important thing in our Gumroad Review 2021 is Customer Service. No matter which payment processing and cart tool you pick, there is a chance that you might run in problems. It could be anything from trouble adding a product or punching in discounts or it could be something around adding a new currency.
Gumroad offers a pretty extensive knowledge base that covers all aspects of using it with multiple articles available for each aspect. There are 9 articles for building a following, 15 articles on getting paid and fees charged, and so on.
However, if you can’t find a solution for any issue on Gumroad, the only other option is to contact them via email and it could take some time.
Final Thoughts
Gumroad does offer a great prospect for creators and artists. It has a base of over 40,000 artists on-board cashing in $321M in revenue since its inception. It is pretty affordable since you are paying less than half of what other online marketplaces charge you with it.
Gumroad has a tonne of features including subscription-based payments which makes it one of the best course selling platforms in 2021 or anything that requires subscription or payments.
At the end of the day, it is your decision whether to check out Gumroad after reading this updated Gumroad Review 2021 or not.