Gumroad vs Lemon Squeezy fees

Gumroad: one flat rate

Gumroad charges a flat 10% + $0.50per transaction on direct/profile sales, and that is all-inclusive — Gumroad is the Merchant of Record, so card processing and sales tax are already inside it, with no separate 2.9% + $0.30 on top. There's no monthly plan to factor in, and the rate is the same no matter how much you sell. (Rate checked against gumroad.com/pricing in August 2026 — verify current rates.)

Lemon Squeezy: percentage + fixed, all-in

Lemon Squeezy historically prices as a percentage plus a fixed per-transaction amount(around 5% + $0.50 on its standard pricing), with that fee already bundling its merchant-of-record and processing role rather than splitting processing out as a separate line. The structure is closer to “one combined rate” than Gumroad's “platform fee, then processing on top.” (Verify current Lemon Squeezy pricing before relying on these numbers.)

The structural difference that matters

Gumroad's percentage is higher (10% vs ~5%) but it has no monthly cost. Lemon Squeezy's lower percentage is paired with a larger fixed component (~$0.50 vs ~$0.30), which hurts cheap products more. So the answer flips depending on price:

• Low-priced items (a few dollars): the fixed per-sale charge dominates — Gumroad's smaller fixed fee can win.
• Higher-priced items ($30+): the percentage dominates — Lemon Squeezy's lower 5% can pull ahead despite the bigger fixed fee.

There's no universal winner. Run your actual price through the numbers rather than trusting a headline rate.

Don't forget Discover

Gumroad has its Discovermarketplace, which charges an extra fee on sales it sources for you. If you rely on Discover for distribution, Gumroad's effective rate on those sales is meaningfully higher than the flat 10% — a factor Lemon Squeezy doesn't have an equivalent of.