Every new seller asks the same question: Gumroad or Etsy? It is the wrong question. These are not two versions of the same store. One is a search engine with a checkout bolted on. The other is a cash register you can put anywhere. Serious sellers use both, for different jobs.
Etsy is a marketplace with built-in discovery. Buyers show up with a credit card already in hand and search for what they want. You do not have to bring your own traffic, which is why a brand-new seller can make a first sale there without an audience.
The trade: Etsy owns the marketplace relationship. It controls the search results, the buyer communication, and the rules, and you compete in a grid of near-identical thumbnails where the listing does most of the selling. That is why the listing audit matters more on Etsy than anywhere else.
The fees, as of mid-2026: $0.20 to list, 6.5% transaction fee, and 3% plus $0.25 payment processing. On a $10 digital download, Etsy keeps about $1.40. If an Offsite Ad brings the sale, add 15% below the threshold, or 12% once your shop reaches $10,000 in Etsy sales during any 365-day period. Cross that line once and participation becomes mandatory for the lifetime of the shop, even if sales later drop. One partial offset: Etsy's Share & Save program refunds 4% of an order when the buyer arrives through your own tracked link, so traffic you generate yourself costs a little less.
Gumroad has almost no discovery. Nobody browses Gumroad the way they browse Etsy. If you list a product there and tell no one, you will sell exactly zero copies. It is a checkout page, a file host, and a customer list.
That last part is the whole reason it earns its keep. Every buyer and every freebie download lands on a customer list you can actually work with: you can message them about the next product, the bundle, the free tool, subject to the same consent rules as any email marketing. Etsy gives you a transaction. It does not give you a marketing list.
The fees, as of mid-2026: 10% plus $0.50 per sale, before card processing of roughly 2.9% plus $0.30. On the same $10 product, Gumroad keeps about $2.09. That fixed $0.50 stings hardest on cheap products, which matters in the pricing math. You are not paying for discovery. You are paying for the direct relationship.
| Etsy | Gumroad | |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Built in, buyers come to you | Almost none, bring your own traffic |
| Fees on a $10 sale | ~$1.40 (more if Offsite Ads) | ~$2.09 |
| Free products | No, minimum price required | Yes, freebies allowed |
| Customer list | Stays with Etsy | Builds yours |
| Best job | First sales, discovery traffic | Email capture, direct sales, bundles |
On a single sale, usually. But the math changes the moment you think past one transaction. Etsy controls the marketplace relationship. Gumroad hands you the direct one, and a buyer you can reach again is worth more than an anonymous sale, every time. One list subscriber who sees your next three launches beats a stranger who bought once.
The split: Etsy for the discovery traffic you did not have to generate. Gumroad for the customer list you get to keep.
Run both, with each platform doing the job it is built for. Paid products go on both platforms, same price, same listing quality. Free products go on Gumroad only, since Etsy requires a minimum price and free is the whole point of an email capture. Your own traffic, like Pinterest pins and blog posts, points at Gumroad, where the sale builds your list, not just revenue. Etsy earns its fees on the discovery traffic you did not have to generate, and Share & Save claws back 4% on the occasions you do send someone there yourself.
The one non-negotiable on both platforms: the listing has to convert. Views without sales is a page problem, and the fix is the same audit either way.
Run the Free Listing Audit →Free tools, no strings: the Starter Toolkit is 5 copy-paste AI prompts for validating, listing, and pricing digital products. Free on Gumroad, and it puts you on the list that hears about new systems first.
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