Gumroad vs. Buy Me A Coffee: Which is better for you?

If you want to sell products online, build an income from memberships, get donations, or even just start an online store and share your freebies, as any creator, it’s a no-brainer that two platforms are currently the kings: Gumroad and Buy Me A Coffee. But which one should you choose?

When I created The Novelist, a free Vault for Obsidian that’s designed for novelists and writers, I wanted to share it somewhere outside TechWise Insider’s Shop. Many people don’t visit this website, but they’re already members on marketplaces and platforms that I can use to reach them.

It didn’t take too long to find that Gumroad and Buy Me A Coffee were the TikTok and Instagram of selling online. So I started testing both of them, and used them to provide some of my digital products for free, and sell some others. I mean, do you really know how a platform works until you actually use it?

The core differences between Gumroad and Buy Me A Coffee

Let’s start from the basics, shall we? Both are platforms that you can join completely for free and start selling within minutes after signing up. Both have some similar features and options, but in the end of the day, they’re very different from each other.

What is Gumroad and how it works

Gumroad is an e-commerce platform. It’s built for creators who want to build a serious library of digital products, easily manage all of their clients, use powerful marketing tools, and get discovered through the platform’s Discovery page.

It’s also well-optimized for SEO, meaning that you have very high chances of seeing your products on the first page of Google and Bing, and even get recommended by AI chatbots and assistants.

Once you sign up, you can add the basic information for your online store, such as a profile picture, description, and name, along with a few limited customization options. It’s a great place to sell digital products such as e-books, software, brushes, presets, audio, templates, etc.

With Gumroad, you can also build an email list and send newsletters to your customers, and it’s easier for clients to buy something in Europe and the UK because they don’t have to deal with VAT taxes (but more on that in a bit).

Another great feature that Gumroad offers to its sellers is the ability to create their own affiliate program. That means that, if you’re selling a product, you can choose to let others promote it for you and earn a commission that you set each time a sale is completed from their affiliate links.

What is Buy Me A Coffee and how it works

Unlike Gumroad, Buy Me A Coffee started as a social donation platform that simply provided a quick and easy way for creators to accept donations from their audience. It’s designed to feel friendly and low-pressure, which makes it easier for fans to “chip in” a few dollars to support you while making it easy for creators to earn and get paid.

Nowadays, Buy Me A Coffee is more than a simple donations platform (although that’s still its main feature). If you sign up for a new account, you can sell digital products, such as e-books, presets, templates, art files, Discord access, and whatever comes to your mind (apart from physical products).

As a seller, you can provide a product for free, sell it at a fixed cost, or choose the “Pay What You Want” feature to let your supporters choose how much they want to pay. If you want to sell custom work (let’s say: “I will draw your avatar”), Buy Me A Coffee has a dedicated feature for you that has built-in ‘workflow slots’ that don’t let you get overwhelmed with hundreds of requests.

Want more? Well, you also get to create your own custom discount codes, which work great if you want to run sales and advertising campaigns. There’s an option to allow unlimited sales for your products (which is recommended for most digital products) or sell limited-edition items (e.g., “Only 10 slots available”). Memberships, you say? You got that, too, and you have the option to set up multiple tiers (e.g., $5/mo, $10/mo) with different rewards.

There’s also a Discord integration, which automatically assigns roles in your Discord server on the user’s active membership tier. This is arguably one of the coolest features, if you ask me. Exclusive content (locking posts, galleries, or files from guests or specific tiers) is also available as an option, while a newer feature allows your fans to set up an automatic monthly donation purely for supporting you.

Other features and options include instant payouts, payment support for Stripe, PayPal, and even cryptocurrencies, an email system to send newsletters to your customers, video replies as ‘thank you’ messages, and local currency support.

The tax headache factor

So, let’s say that you go and register on both platforms. You’ve made your first sale on both of them, congrats, now what? Do you pay anything in taxes? Do you fill out a form? Or just slipping away with the money?

Getting paid from Gumroad

Gumroad is the “Merchant of Record.” This means they technically sell the product to the customer. They calculate, collect, and pay the VAT (Value Added Tax) to governments in the EU, UK, and other regions automatically. You don’t have to worry about it.

Gumroad justifies the higher fee by providing business tools: email marketing (newsletters), automated workflows (send an email 3 days after purchase), and an “Affiliate” system that lets other people sell your product for a commission.

For users, Gumroad feels like a store. It signals “I have a premium product worth buying.” It converts well for high-ticket items ($50+ courses).

Getting paid from Buy Me A Coffee

Buy Me A Coffee is a “Payment Facilitator.” The transaction happens directly between you and the fan. If you sell a $20 ebook to someone in Germany, you are technically legally responsible for registering, collecting, and paying the German VAT.

Buy Me A Coffee is significantly cheaper (5% vs 10%). On $1,000 earned, BMC takes $50 while Gumroad takes $100. The platforms also feels like a social network. It signals “Support my creative journey.” It converts well for low-friction support ($3–$5 tips) or ongoing low-cost memberships.

Which one is better for you: Gumroad or Buy Me A Coffee?

If you plan to sell digital products globally, Gumroad saves you a massive legal/accounting headache. On the other hand, if you know what you’re doing, Buy Me A Coffee is a very, very solid option.

So, which one should you pick? Well, that depends on the following factors:

Choose Gumroad if:

• You are selling files (ebooks, software, brushes, presets, audio).
• You want to build an email list and send newsletters to your customers.
• You have customers in the EU/UK and don’t want to deal with VAT taxes.
• You want to recruit affiliates to help sell your products.

Choose Buy Me A Coffee if:

• You primarily want donations or “tips” from your audience (YouTubers, Streamers, Bloggers).
• You want a simple monthly membership where fans get access to a private feed or Discord role.
• You are selling simple “extras” (like a 1-hour consultation or a small PDF) and want to keep fees low.
• You want an instant payout mechanism (money hits your Stripe account immediately).

Combine both of them (the smart way):

For me, the combination of those two was the perfect “match”. If you’re still unsure, just go ahead and use both of them, test them out, and see which one works better for your needs.

Many creators use Buy Me A Coffee as their “Link in Bio” to accept casual support and small tips, but link out to a Gumroad page for their flagship digital products (like a comprehensive course or ebook).

This lets you keep donation fees low (5%) while getting the tax protection and power of Gumroad for your actual sales.

A quick final comparison:

If you don’t need Affiliates (people selling for you) or License Keys (for software), Buy Me A Coffee is likely the better deal for you. It combines a Shop, Patreon, and Tipping jar into one page with lower fees (5%). If you want to build an e-commerce store, Gumroad is the way.

My personal experience with both platforms

I’ve started with Gumroad because I wanted to take a bit more time and prepare for any taxes that I’ll have to pay when using Buy Me A Coffee.

Gumroad is very easy to get started and manage all your digital products, members, invoices, newsletters, etc. It has a unique and kinda relaxing interface that suits well to my eyes well, and gives me all the formatting options I need to showcase my products properly.

I also got my first donation within the first 24 hours after uploading my first digital product, The Novelist Obsidian Vault, to my profile, and one more download came a few minutes later. That was great, because I didn’t promote anything. But that was it, and within the next few days, it only got one more download.

Buy Me A Coffee, on the other hand, has stayed quietly in the background; no notifications, downloads, or any changes whatsoever. At first, I thought the reason behind the zero downloads was that I didn’t promote my Buy Me A Coffee page as much as I did with Gumroad.

But then again, I didn’t move my fingers for the first two days, so Gumroad actually went on and promoted my digital product (probably within its Discovery results somewhere). But even so, I’m sure there are many creators out there who made their first sale through Buy Me A Coffee, and many others who turned it into a full-time career, so take your pick or combine them.

I will update the article with more statistics, especially when it comes to sales and revenue, and I’ll share them with you here. In the meantime, you can take a look at my Gumroad page and Buy Me A Coffee page and track what I’ve done and shared on both platforms.\

Oh, by the way, here’s a little cool QR-Code that Buy Me A Coffee creates automatically for every new seller (that you can actually share):