Payment providers compared

[dannytaurus]

Payment providers for plugin sellers compared: fees on real sales, plus features

WARNING: long post!

I use Gumroad and although I'm fairly happy with it, I feel like it's time to move. I've spent the last few weeks looking at other services. I ended up going through eight options in more detail than I planned, so here is the write-up in case it saves someone else the time.

What the numbers are. I took several thousand of my real 2026 sales (price, VAT / sales tax, buyer country, card or PayPal, affiliate or not) and replayed each one through every provider's published fee schedule.

To keep my own revenue out of it, everything below is expressed as fees per $1,000 of pre-tax sales, with every one of those real buyers "buying" a $10, $50 or $100 product instead of what they actually bought.

Note: fee pages were checked in August and September 2026. They can change over time. I am in the UK, which matters for a few rows (noted below). Absolutely none of this is tax advice, of course.

TL;DR

• Everything I looked at is cheaper than Gumroad (about 17% all-in for me).
• The flat per-sale fee matters more than the percentage for cheap products. At $10, Moonbase's €1 is 12% of the price on its own - at $100 it's only 1%.
• Moonbase is the most complete for plugins (licensing, PayPal, currencies, affiliates, migration) and the most expensive of the alternatives: about 12-15% depending on which currencies I set prices in. It's also the only one that charges per-payout fee (€5) and they have the highest fixed per-sale fee (€1).
• Stripe Managed Payments, Polar and Fungies all land around 7-9%. Stripe and Polar have no PayPal. Stripe is payments and tax only, not a store.
• Lemon Squeezy has the best feature match after Moonbase, but Stripe owns it now and its own CEO says the future is Stripe Managed Payments. It's no longer a contender.
• Payhip is the cheapest with a store attached (roughly 5-10% depending on plan and turnover), because it is not a merchant of record: you stay the seller and part of the tax problem stays yours.
• SoundSync has the friendliest fee shape for small sales (flat 10%, no per-sale fee) but is very new and I could not find the legal and tax basics on the site yet.

Costs

Fees on $1,000 of pre-tax sales, made up four different ways. The 'mixed basket' is 30 x $10 + 8 x $50 + 3 x $100.

Provider	100 x $10	20 x $50	10 x $100	Mixed basket	Not in the figure
Gumroad (direct sales)	$226	$155	$146	$174	Discover sales cost a flat 30% instead
Moonbase, one GBP price	$218	$125	$114	$150	€5 per payout
Moonbase, GBP + EUR + USD prices	$200	$108	$96	$132	€5 per payout
Moonbase, one USD price	$196	$103	$91	$127	€5 per payout
Moonbase, one EUR price	$184	$91	$80	$116	€5 per payout
SoundSync	$100	$100	$100	$100	$10/month minimum, $9.99 minimum price
Lemon Squeezy	$127	$87	$82	$98	1% of every payout to a non-US bank (about $9 more)
Payhip Free	$114	$89	$86	$96	currency conversion, see below
Polar Starter	$120	$80	$75	$91	Stripe payout + conversion fees outside the US (about $14 more)
Stripe Managed Payments	$94	$72	$70	$78	possibly up to $87, see below
Fungies	$107	$67	$62	$77	possibly Stripe's 2% conversion on payout (about $15 more), unconfirmed
Polar Pro	$97	$65	$61	$73	+ $20/month
Payhip Plus	$84	$59	$56	$66	+ $29/month
Payhip Pro	$64	$39	$36	$46	+ $99/month
Stripe on its own, no merchant of record	$59	$37	$35	$43	you register, collect and file the tax yourself

The same figures as a percentage of pre-tax sales. The "not in the figure" notes above apply here too, and monthly plan fees are still on top. "My savings" is how much of the Gumroad fee bill each option would cut on the mixed basket, with Gumroad's fees as 100%.

Provider	100 x $10	20 x $50	10 x $100	Mixed basket	My savings
Gumroad (direct sales)	22.6%	15.5%	14.6%	17.4%	baseline
Moonbase, one GBP price	21.8%	12.5%	11.4%	15.0%	14%
Moonbase, GBP + EUR + USD prices	20.0%	10.8%	9.6%	13.2%	24%
Moonbase, one USD price	19.6%	10.3%	9.1%	12.7%	27%
Moonbase, one EUR price	18.4%	9.1%	8.0%	11.6%	33%
SoundSync	10.0%	10.0%	10.0%	10.0%	43%
Lemon Squeezy	12.7%	8.7%	8.2%	9.8%	44%
Payhip Free	11.4%	8.9%	8.6%	9.6%	45%
Polar Starter	12.0%	8.0%	7.5%	9.1%	48%
Stripe Managed Payments	9.4%	7.2%	7.0%	7.8%	55%
Fungies	10.7%	6.7%	6.2%	7.7%	56%
Polar Pro	9.7%	6.5%	6.1%	7.3%	58%
Payhip Plus	8.4%	5.9%	5.6%	6.6%	62%
Payhip Pro	6.4%	3.9%	3.6%	4.6%	74%
Stripe on its own, no merchant of record	5.9%	3.7%	3.5%	4.3%	75%

How to read it:

• My buyer mix, which drives the surcharges: roughly a third UK, a quarter EU, a quarter US, the rest mostly Australia and Canada. About a third pay with PayPal, about 5% arrive through an affiliate link, and three quarters of sales have VAT or sales tax added (14% on top on average). That last one matters because most providers take their percentage on the tax-inclusive total, so "5%" is really 5.7% of what you priced. A US-heavy customer base will see lower numbers almost everywhere (less tax in the total), and especially on Polar and Lemon Squeezy, whose +1.5% is on every non-US card.
• Monthly plans only pay off above a certain turnover. Payhip Plus beats Free above about $1,000/month, Pro beats Plus above about $3,500/month. Polar Pro beats Starter above about $1,100/month at a $25 average sale.
• Moonbase charges 0% extra for EUR, +1% for USD and +3% for any other currency you set a price in. The "GBP + EUR + USD" row is my planned setup (GBP for UK buyers, fixed EUR and USD prices for everyone else, all surcharges absorbed by me). If you set a single price, use the row for its currency. One GBP price is the most expensive way to run it, because the +3% then lands on every sale and not only on the UK ones.
• Stripe rows use UK Stripe card rates (1.5% UK, 2.5% EEA, 3.15% international, + 20p). Under Managed Payments a Stripe entity becomes the seller and I could not confirm whether domestic rates still apply; if everything is charged as international the basket is $87. US sellers should redo this with 2.9% + 30¢.
• Payhip rows assume the store is priced in the currency of your own bank account. Payhip allows one currency per store, so if you price in USD and bank in GBP or EUR, Stripe (2%) and PayPal (3%) convert every sale: add about $24 per $1,000.
• Gumroad is measured from my actual fees, not modelled: 10% + 50¢, plus 2.9% + 30¢ for cards or PayPal's own cut (which averaged nearer 5% + 60¢ for me).
• Refunds, chargebacks and free downloads are not included. The model reproduces the worked examples on Polar's and Lemon Squeezy's fee pages to the cent.

Published fees, for reference

Provider	Headline	Surcharges
Gumroad	10% + 50¢ + card processing (2.9% + 30¢)	30% flat on Discover sales
Moonbase	5% + €1, on the tax-inclusive total	+1% non-European card, +1.5% PayPal, +1% USD / +3% other non-EUR currency, +3% affiliate sale, +€5 per payout
Stripe Managed Payments	3.5% on the tax-inclusive total, on top of normal Stripe processing	none (no currency fee with Adaptive Pricing on)
Polar	Starter 5% + 50¢, Pro $20/month, 3.8% + 40¢	+1.5% on every non-US card, Stripe payout fees
Fungies	5% + 50¢	none published
Lemon Squeezy	5% + 50¢, on the tax-inclusive total	+1.5% non-US buyer, +1.5% PayPal, +3% affiliate sale, 1% payout to a non-US bank
Payhip	Free 5%, Plus $29/month + 2%, Pro $99/month + 0%, on the pre-tax price	your own Stripe and PayPal fees on top
SoundSync	10% of the pre-tax price, processing included	$10/month minimum

What about losing PayPal?

Stripe Managed Payments and Polar do not take PayPal, and SoundSync doesn't mention it either. A third of my buyers use it. I happen to have a natural experiment: Gumroad inexplicably switched PayPal off for four months in late 2024, when it was well over 40% of my sales. Revenue in those months, leaving out December, was about 4% below the four months before, which is inside my normal month-to-month noise. PayPal buyers mostly paid by card instead. This was just me, so treat it as a data point and not a law, but the cost was a lot smaller than I expected.

Features

Provider	Merchant of record	PayPal	Licence keys	File delivery	Affiliates	Free / pay-what-you-want	Email marketing
Gumroad	Yes	Yes	Basic (key + verify API)	Yes	Native	Yes / yes	Built in
Moonbase	Yes	Yes (+1.5%)	Full licensing: online and offline activation, JUCE module, works alongside iLok	Yes, no size limit	Native (+3%)	Yes, no fee / no	No; syncs to Klaviyo, Mailchimp, MailerLite, Brevo, Mailjet
Stripe Managed Payments	Yes	No	No	No	No	Not a store	No
Polar	Yes	No ("planned")	Yes: activation limit, expiry, activate / validate API	Yes, 10 GB per file	Third-party only	Yes / yes	No
Fungies	Yes	Yes, no surcharge	Pre-generated key lists only, no activation	Yes, 50 GB	Separate paid product	Yes / only through the API	No ("coming soon")
Lemon Squeezy	Yes	Yes (+1.5%)	Yes: activation limit, activate / validate / deactivate API	Yes, 5 GB per product	Native (+3%)	Yes / yes	Built in, free to 500 subscribers
Payhip	No (see below)	Yes, your own account	Key + verify + usage counter, no enforced activation limit	Yes, 5 GB per file	Native and free, but you pay affiliates by hand	Yes / yes	Built in, plus sync to Mailchimp, Kit, MailerLite, Klaviyo
SoundSync	Stated, but the docs hedge	Not documented	Serial activation, login, offline grace, deactivation; HISE and JUCE integrations	Yes	By approval	Yes / no, and paid products start at $9.99	Built in, 1,000 sends/month included

Money / Currencies / Payouts

Provider	Currencies	Where your money sits	Checkout on your own site	Import from Gumroad
Moonbase	100+, with fixed prices per currency	With Moonbase, paid monthly (biweekly on request), €50 minimum + €5 fee	Embedded	Yes, assisted migration incl. licences
Stripe Managed Payments	Local currency via Adaptive Pricing	Your Stripe balance, normal payouts	Hosted Stripe Checkout only, no custom domain, buyer sees "Sold through Link"	n/a
Polar	130+, fixed price per currency, tax-inclusive by region	With Polar in USD, 7-day settlement, manual withdrawals	Embedded or hosted	No
Fungies	One currency per offer	With Fungies; daily payouts to a Stripe Express account, PayPal weekly	Embedded, overlay or hosted	No
Lemon Squeezy	One display currency, every charge in USD	With Lemon Squeezy in USD; paid twice a month after a 13-day hold	Overlay, or hosted on a custom domain	Yes, done by their support from a CSV
Payhip	One currency per store	In your own Stripe / PayPal from the moment of sale	Embed button or direct link; custom domain	No
SoundSync	USD; others not documented	Stripe Connect transfers, schedule not stated	Embed or hosted storefront on a custom domain	Mentioned, no procedure documented

Payhip and tax. Payhip is not a merchant of record and does not claim to be. It acts as reseller for EU and UK VAT, as marketplace facilitator for US and Canadian sales tax (since July 2026), and does nothing for the rest of the world, which was 15% of my sales across 48 countries. Refunds and disputes are yours. If you are a UK seller, ask an accountant how the reseller arrangement with a UK company affects your own VAT position before going near it. I have not had that answer yet.

Who is behind each one

Trustpilot figures are as of September 2026. Review sites over-sample angry people, but with a merchant of record the provider holds your money, so held payouts and silent support are exactly what I was looking for.

• Moonbase - Oslo, founded 2023, audio software only. Named customers include Black Salt Audio, Nextmidi and The Audio Programmer. It comes up as a recommendation in the KVR and JUCE forum threads on this subject.
• Stripe Managed Payments - Stripe's own merchant-of-record product, generally available since early 2026. Digital products only. Stripe can refund a buyer without asking you if you do not answer an escalation within 48 hours.
• Polar - Delaware company run from Stockholm, founded 2022, $10M seed led by Accel in 2025, open source. Trustpilot 2.0 from 17 reviews, mostly accounts rejected or closed by automated review and payouts held. Raised its fees in May 2026 and now markets itself mainly as usage billing for AI products, with digital downloads as a side feature.
• Fungies - Delaware company with a team in Warsaw, founded 2023, $850k pre-seed, four or five people. Trustpilot 3.1 from 32 reviews, just over half of them one-star, mostly about withheld funds and unanswered support. There were KVR and JUCE forum threads in August 2026 about its sales reps spamming plugin developers.
• Lemon Squeezy - bought by Stripe in July 2024. Its team built Stripe Managed Payments, and the CEO's January 2026 update says support is slower, updates are fewer and the goal is a migration path to Managed Payments. No changelog entry since August 2025. Trustpilot 1.2 from 178 reviews: rejected stores, held payouts, unanswered tickets. My reading is that it is being wound down, though nobody has said so.
• Payhip - London, trading since 2011, bootstrapped, about ten people, mostly ebook and course sellers. Trustpilot 4.5 from 539 reviews; the complaints are about stores closed without warning. It never holds your money, so a closure costs you the store and not a balance.
• SoundSync - built by one developer (Aaron, who is on this forum) and live since mid-2026. The flat 10% is on the pre-tax price after discounts, which he confirmed to me. When I last checked on 30 September the site named no company or jurisdiction, the terms page had headings but no text, the tax / merchant-of-record docs were explicitly cautious about what is covered, and refunds could not be issued by the seller. Those are things I need settled from whoever holds my money and owes my customers' VAT. The fee shape is the best here for cheap products and I will look again when they are in place.

Things I couldn't pin down

• Whether Polar, Fungies and Lemon Squeezy charge their 50¢ on a free ($0) download. None of them says. If you give away a lot of free products, ask first.
• Which card rates apply under Stripe Managed Payments once a Stripe entity is the seller.
• Whether Fungies takes its 5% before or after tax, and whether Stripe's conversion fee lands on payouts in another currency.
• Moonbase's help centre says +3% for prices set in currencies other than EUR and USD, while my account settings show a single 1% line.

Where I've landed

Not decided, but it has come down to three rather than eight:

1. Moonbase - it's the most expensive below Gumroad, but everything is included and it's built for plugins. You certainly pay for it, mostly through the €1 per sale, so it suits $50+ products far better than $10 ones.
2. SoundSync - the fee structure is much better, and cheaper, than Moonbase for a similar feature spread, but it's a very young setup with some missing vital documentation.
3. Stripe Managed Payments - around half the cost with full tax cover. Downsides: no PayPal and it means building my own delivery and licensing.

User experience

The next step for me is to examine the user-facing side of each of these. The Moonbase system I know quite well after buying plugins from Jungle Audio and ZAK Sound. I need to see SoundSync in real use and figure out what my own user system would look like if I went with Stripe Managed Payments.

What do I want to build?

Here's the thing: Moonbase, SoundSync and some of the others have all the features I want, but at varying cost above the basic Stripe Managed Payments fees. So how much work am I willing to do (with AI, of course) to build my own cart, checkout, fulfilment, licensing, user accounts, discounts, refunds and email marketing?

Basically: do I want to build web app and marketing tech, or do I want to build plugins?

By the way, email marketing is an important factor. Gumroad includes it in the fee, and so do a couple of the others, but some don't and for large lists it can get expensive using Mailchimp, Klavyio, etc.

Merchant of Record

I definitely want to go with a Merchant of Record system, because no amount of time invested or AI-assistance is better than having someone else taking care of all the sales tax for me.

Parting thought

If Moonbase added support for GBP-holding, halved the fixed per-sale fee, the €5 payout fee and consolidated some of the other fees, they would be a no-brainer.

Corrections welcome, especially from anyone actually selling through one of these.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus Really nice and detailed summary, another option you might want to check is Paddle, I use them for AudioDevSchool because my LMS software includes built in integration, not sure how easy it is to setup for plugins but I seem to recall there is a WooCommerce plugin.

Regarding marketing, there is some stuff on Moonbase roadmap. What I use is FluentCRM + Amazon SES, it's very cheap and all the data stays on my server. I use webhooks from Moonbase to update records in FluentCRM automatically.

[soundsync]

@David-Healey I've tried getting SES for over a year now with no luck, they deny every time.

How did you manage to get it?

If I could get them, I could reduce Soundsync marketing email pricing by nearly 50%.

[David Healey]

@soundsync said in Payment providers compared:

How did you manage to get it?

I don't recall having to do anything special but it was several years ago so my memory is lacking

[tobbentm]

Appreciate you taking the time to share your calculations!
There's certainly a difference in price, but also a massive difference in features and mindset behind the platforms, so I hope you all also consider everything else you need when selecting each, vs what is included in these prices.

In case it's interesting, I just published our email campaigns pricing: https://moonbase.sh/pricing/
Again, fully usage-based, with the idea to be cheaper for the common case compared to competitors.
For a typical plugin dev with an audience of 10k newsletter subscribers, with 2-3 campaigns a month, we're coming in at 34-48$/per month compared to 29-39$ for Brevo, 89$ for Mailerlite, 110$ for Mailchimp, 150$ for Klaviyo.
And by charging per email, if you send less often, then it's way cheaper.

With automations coming next, I hope using our solution (if already using Moonbase) is a no-brainer.

[David Healey]

@tobbentm Yeah I just noticed it in my account :) I don't the pricing can compete with SES but it's nice to have it integrated, and a lot of people can't get on SES it seems. Would it be possible to use our own SES subscription with Moonbase's mailer?

@tobbentm said in Payment providers compared:

There's certainly a difference in price, but also a massive difference in features and mindset behind the platforms, so I hope you all also consider everything else you need when selecting each, vs what is included in these prices.

By switching to Moonbase I massively reduced my costs elsewhere.
I no longer pay for hosting/data transfer costs, this means I'm able to have a cheaper VPS for my website, this was about a £30/month saving.

I was also paying annual fees for several wordpress plugins:

• WooCommerce tax calculations
• Software licensing
• Amazon S3/Bunny
• A plugin that sends WooCommerce data to my accounting software
• Currency conversion plugin
• There's probably a few others I'm forgetting.

I also don't have the quarterly headache of dealing with VATMoss.

It looks like several of the other options would also offer some of these features too. I'm very happy with Moonbase though, it was easy to integrate. I've been able to add custom functionality with a few PHP/JS snippets. The support is very good and I actually get to talk to a real person! And new features are being added all the time.

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey said in Payment providers compared:

By switching to Moonbase I massively reduced my costs elsewhere.
I no longer pay for hosting/data transfer costs, this means I'm able to have a cheaper VPS for my website, this was about a £30/month saving.

I was also paying annual fees for several wordpress plugins:

WooCommerce tax calculations
Software licensing
Amazon S3/Bunny
A plugin that sends WooCommerce data to my accounting software
Currency conversion plugin
There's probably a few others I'm forgetting.
I also don't have the quarterly headache of dealing with VATMoss.

All of that is included in Gumroad's fee, and unlimited email marketing too (not a usage-based extra charge).

In fact, given that Moonbase's email marketing is extra, they might now be more expensive than Gumroad for me.

But I still think it's time for me to move on from the Gumroad storefront.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in Payment providers compared:

All of that is included in Gumroad's fee, and unlimited email marketing too (not a usage-based extra charge).

Does gumroad give you a proper shopping cart that you can embed on your website? Last time I used it it was just buy now buttons.

Another thing I like about Moonbase is the cart offers feature. I can set it up so if the customer adds £x to their cart they will get a %n discount and this is displayed in the cart like a progress bar which encourages customers to spend a little more to get to the next goal.

Does Gumroad have an affiliate system? That's another thing I'm no longer paying separately for with Moonbase.

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey said in Payment providers compared:

Does gumroad give you a proper shopping cart that you can embed on your website? Last time I used it it was just buy now buttons.

It's just Buy Now buttons, which I don't use. I have the product pages on my own site link to the product page on Gumroad, where they do the actual cart and checkout. This is the main reason I want to move.

Another thing I like about Moonbase is the cart offers feature.

Gumroad doesn't have that exact 'process bar' feature (which sounds cool), but it does have per-product upsells and 'Customers who bought this item also bought', both of which bring in decent extra revenue for me.

Does Gumroad have an affiliate system?

Yes, and it's a good implementation. You can set per-affiliate and per-product rates, you get an affiliate dashboard to see who's earning what. Again, it's all included in the fee. No nickel-and-diming there. Also, most importantly, Gumroad pays out to affiliates directly, so there's never a trust issue or payment complications.

Gumroad also has a Collaborator feature, which allows you to set up a collab with someone, set a percentage split, and they get paid directly too (after fees, which is fair). I've got a couple of good collabs lined up, so I'll be needing a feature like that, wherever I move.

On Moonbase you can set up collaborators using the affiliate feature, with "all sales of a specific product" - which I read as "no referral link or ID required". But remember, the affiliate system, including collaborators, incurs an extra 3% fee. At least the collaborator doesn't have to pay the €5 per-payout fee - that's included in the 3%. Not sure if the 3% affiliate/collaborator fee is included in the 'after fees' - if it is, you both share the 3% fee, if not, you eat the whole 3%.

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey

Would it be possible to use our own SES subscription with Moonbase's mailer?

That would be very cool, and reduce the cost considerably.

[iamlamprey]

Just throwing my 2c in - I've just moved from Payhip to a more dedicated stack (Github Pages + Cloudflare for frontend, Polar as MoR / processor).

I've had a positive experience so far, very easy to setup and the API lets me run sales by just pushing an update to a config.json file - the Github actions & Cloudflare workers take it from there. They use Stripe for payment processing so it's pretty straightforward.

Payhip was a great alternative to Gumroad, but over time I found their load speeds were getting slower and slower. I'm not sure what the reason is, but I had page loads of up to 20 seconds (simple home pages, it wasn't a content issue). This included checkout and was likely inflating bounce rates like crazy. They also have limited metrics / analytics, and my entire site was basically HTML injected so I didn't need the page editor / designer tools.

Now everything is hosted on Cloudflare and I get sub 1s page loads, the Polar checkout is just an iframe.

When it comes to Trustpilot reviews - be aware that a lot of people try and use Polar, Payhip etc to sell lazy, low-effort products like e-books, .pdfs etc. They then promptly get banned from the platforms and then leavy a crybaby negative review saying they got scammed.

This was a very recent move, so I haven't completed a payout yet through Polar, but I've been in contact with their support (had to verify my ID and the Stripe ID checker wasn't working on my old ass Australian ID card) - they replied within 48 hours both times and the communication was crystal clear.

@dannytaurus said in Payment providers compared:

• Whether Polar charge their 50¢ on a free ($0) download. None of them says. If you give away a lot of free products, ask first.

I've had a few hundred free product downloads over the last week or so - no fees from what I can tell. There's not even a payment form for free products or 100% discount codes: free is free.

The one sort of "downside" I guess is there's only checkout embeds, no cart / add-to-cart (you'd have to roll your own). And no Paypal from what I can tell, I'm not sure how big of a deal that is - Amazon doesn't use Paypal.

If I do come across any negative experience I'll update this post, but so far Polar has been great all around. I've just requested my first payout (only $50) and their docs say they can take up to 2 weeks which isn't a big deal really. Larger payouts might take longer.

[dannytaurus]

@iamlamprey Excellent info - thanks for chiming in!

I'll update the comparison with the facts you mentioned.

I'm turning the whole thing into a webpage, which is easier to view and update than this forum post.

[AlienXY]

Thanks for putting this together, it's the most useful comparison I've seen.

Full disclosure first: I make one of the options in the category you left out, self-hosted stores. It's called Alien XY (alienxy.com). So treat this as one view, not a neutral one.

To your "web app or plugins?" question, there's a middle path: run a ready-made store on your own server with your own Stripe account. Then the only fees are Stripe's, so close to your "Stripe on its own" row (about 4.3% on your mixed basket), with no revenue share on top. Alien XY costs $199 or $499 one-time, or $39/month if you want it hosted for you. It comes with licence keys and activation, file delivery, coupons and affiliates already built.

The catch, and it's a big one for you: it isn't a merchant of record. You'd be the seller, so VAT and sales tax stay your job, same as plain Stripe. Since you've said MoR is a must, it probably doesn't fit your case. I'm mentioning it for people who are already registered for VAT, or who sell mostly in places where that's manageable, and would rather not hand over 7 to 15% for good.

Happy to answer questions here.

[David Healey]

@AlienXY I'm very sus of popup AI generated sites. It might be totally legit but I'd need to be convinced.

[soundsync]

@dannytaurus Thanks for putting this comparison together. I'm Aaron, the developer behind SoundSync. Your post highlighted some genuine gaps in our public documentation, so I've updated the site to make these details much easier to find and compare.

I've also attached a detailed 10-page reference covering the SoundSync entries in your comparison, newer features, and links to the relevant public pages:

Download the SoundSync information reference PDF

Pricing and what's included

SoundSync charges one 10% fee on SoundSync-managed sales, with ordinary payment processing included. There is no additional marketplace fee and no fixed per-sale SoundSync charge. For example, a $49 sale has a $4.90 SoundSync fee, leaving $44.10 for the developer before any agreed affiliate/collaborator shares. Tax is handled separately from product earnings.

The $10 monthly minimum is a minimum, not another subscription charge on top: SoundSync fees already incurred that month, including sales fees and usage charges, count toward it. If those total $7, the shortfall is $3; if they total $10 or more, there is no minimum top-up. Paid products, bundles, and subscriptions must be $9.99 or higher after discounts, before tax.

Transactional emails are included. Marketing email includes 1,000 sends per month, then $1 per started block of 1,000 additional sends. Qualifying free claims and external serial redemptions include 10,000 per month, then $0.005 per additional redemption. These allowances reset monthly without rollover. Normal licensing validation calls are not billed as external redemptions, and a free BOGO gift included in a paid checkout does not incur an external-redemption charge.

Pricing: https://www.soundsync.dev/pricing

Email counting and billing: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs/email-marketing/usage

Fees and redemptions: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs/fees

Payments, Merchant of Record, and the business behind it

PayPal is supported for one-time checkout, alongside Stripe payment options. Recurring subscriptions currently use Stripe. Products and checkout currently use USD only; this is not a claim of local-currency pricing. Any provider currency conversion is separate, and developers bear applicable conversion costs when receiving funds in another currency.

SoundSync Solutions is the Merchant of Record for SoundSync-managed checkout, including developer storefront and marketplace sales processed through that checkout. SoundSync handles the applicable sales-tax/VAT responsibilities for those sales. The tax page lists current country coverage and explains the scope; developer income taxes remain the developer's responsibility. An external reseller collecting its own payment is different: SoundSync does not absorb that reseller's processing fees or become its Merchant of Record merely by fulfilling a serial or entitlement.

SoundSync Solutions is based in Michigan, USA. The business address is 2632 Crossing Circle #1010, Traverse City, Michigan 49684, and support is support@soundsyncsolutions.biz. The site now has substantive Terms and Privacy information, rather than just headings, plus retention and account-closure details.

Payments: https://www.soundsync.dev/payments

Merchant of Record: https://www.soundsync.dev/trust/merchant-of-record

Tax scope and countries: https://www.soundsync.dev/trust/tax-compliance

Business information: https://www.soundsync.dev/about

Terms: https://www.soundsync.dev/legal/terms

Privacy: https://www.soundsync.dev/legal/privacy

Where funds are held, and when payouts happen

Funds collected through Stripe and PayPal are transferred manually to a dedicated business account used only for developer, affiliate, and collaborator payouts, not business expenses. Developer payouts are made through Stripe Connect. This is a dedicated payout account, not a claim of escrow or deposit insurance.

Payouts are scheduled twice monthly, on the 1st and 15th, after at least a 14-day hold. Eligible funds go into the next scheduled payout after that hold completes. There is no SoundSync payout minimum or routine reserve. The scheduled date means payment initiation, not a guaranteed bank-arrival date; unresolved disputes, account restrictions, or payout-destination issues can affect an individual balance.

Payout policy: https://www.soundsync.dev/trust/payouts

Refunds and disputes

Customers request refunds from the product developer within 14 days of the initial purchase. Authorized developers can refund the full order or selected whole products; arbitrary cash amounts and fractional refunds of one product are not supported. For subscriptions, the standard refund policy covers the initial payment, not renewals, with mandatory consumer rights still applying.

The customer receives the refunded product's paid amount and associated tax. SoundSync retains its original share, and the developer is responsible for actual additional refund charges and confirmed chargeback/dispute losses. This is separate from ordinary checkout processing already included in the 10% fee. Affiliate/collaborator shares reverse according to the original allocation. Access associated with the refunded purchase is withdrawn; unrelated purchases are not removed.

Refund and dispute policy: https://www.soundsync.dev/trust/refunds-disputes

HISE, JUCE, licensing, and delivery

There are now two HISE integration paths: HISEScript, for easier integration without modifying HISE source, and native HISE C++, which requires patching/rebuilding HISE and offers stronger native enforcement. The JUCE package is also available, with activation, processor-owned licensing, and Store/My Products integration. Package-specific requirements matter: HISEScript documents configurable offline grace following a valid state, while the current JUCE release requires online renewal at startup and does not provide offline audio access.

The public API reference includes serial claims and claim status, activation, customer-login activation, validation, and deactivation, with authentication and request/response details. File delivery uses authorized customer downloads, and the customer library brings together owned products, downloads, serials, device access, and support.

HISE docs: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs/hise

Native HISE setup: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs/hise/native-setup

JUCE docs: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs/juce-package

Licensing API: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs/api/licensing

File delivery: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/secure-delivery

Customer library: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/customer-library

Storefronts and branding

SoundSync supports hosted storefronts and a full embedded commerce experience, including catalog, product pages, cart, checkout, and customer access. Custom domains can use the main domain, not just a shop/store subdomain. Developers need domain control and DNS access; SoundSync provides guided setup and manages the hosted connection and SSL certificates once verified. Brand Manager covers logos, light/dark branding, colors, imagery, support details, and the supported brand settings reused across the storefront and other surfaces.

Storefronts: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/storefronts

Branding and domains: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/brand-manager-domains

Affiliates, collaborators, teams, and resellers

There are dedicated native affiliate and collaborator programs, not just reseller attribution under another name. Affiliates use agreed product/rate terms and referral links; collaborators use product revenue-sharing agreements. Their earnings and payouts are tracked separately. Team Accounts are a separate permissions system, so a revenue-sharing agreement does not automatically grant dashboard access. Approved resellers also have serial, external-order, fulfillment, and API integration paths, including WooCommerce.

Affiliates: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/affiliates

Collaborators: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/collaborators

Team Accounts: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/team-accounts

Resellers: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/partners

Partner API: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs/api/reseller-partner

Email, growth, subscriptions, and marketplace discovery

Marketing includes campaigns, audience management, scheduling, reports, and growth flows such as cart recovery, onboarding, review requests, follow-ups, and winback. Promotions include scheduled deals and supported codes/offers. Subscription documentation distinguishes recurring access from models where paid invoices earn product ownership.

Marketplace discovery is included in the same commercial model. Launch into an ecosystem backed by nearly 50,000 established audio-software customers.

Email marketing: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/email-marketing

Growth flows: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs/email-marketing/growth-flows

Subscriptions: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/subscription-bundles

Marketplace: https://www.soundsync.dev/features/marketplace

Two clear "no" answers for the comparison

We do not currently offer assisted Gumroad migration or pay-what-you-want pricing. Imports and external fulfillment should not be described as a Gumroad account-migration service.

Migration policy: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs/migrations

Product setup: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs/products

SoundSync is still a newer platform, and I understand that documentation is only part of evaluating one. My aim here is to make the commercial details and integration requirements public and easy to check, rather than leave you guessing. Thanks again for calling out what was missing.

Trust Center: https://www.soundsync.dev/trust

Documentation: https://www.soundsync.dev/docs

[cartemtune]

Holy cow! Thank you for such a comprehensive comparison. I wanted to provide some additional info as well as a little bit of correction based on my own experience. I used to be on gumroad, migrated to payhip, and then subsequently reached out to payhip's support team after danny's post on another separate thread and I thought I'd share:

• Migration from other platforms: Payhip does offer help with moving product listings over from Gumroad. In my case, they used my Gumroad store URL to recreate the listings on Payhip for free. My understanding is that they copied the text and images from the public pages. You still need to upload the actual product files yourself so this isn’t a full account migration with customers & order data. They actually even offered to "fully furnish" my store too (for free), but I decided to do that myself

• Sales taxes: I am aware that Payhip automatically collects and remits sales tax/VAT for the US, Canada, UK and EU as a marketplace facilitator (not MOR). Outside those regions, you’d need to work out your obligations and handle any required collection and remittance yourself. You can configure custom tax rates in your payhip dashboard, but that doesn’t take care of registration or filing for you.
  Is this set up accountant-proofed? Yes, but I’m in Canada so I can't speak for other countries. I’ve checked my own setup with my accountant, everything is a okay.
  I’ve only opened my store to the US, Canada, UK and EU so far, so the payhip automatic tax handling coverage hasn’t been an issue for me yet. But Danny's point about 15% of sales coming from elsewhere definitely makes me curious about what I might be missing xD I would love some extra $$$$ and I'm looking to see if I can just open up a few extra countries with my current set up so I don't have to do a full migration elsewhere

• Marketplace facilitator vs MOR: If you're like me and your head is spinning with all these jargons, I also asked Payhip’s support team about the tradeoffs between their setup and an MoR. Obviously their answer would be biased, but here's what they said: An MOR handling refunds and disputes doesn’t necessarily mean the seller avoids all the costs. You'd still to check each provider’s refund fees, chargeback terms, payout schedule and reserve policy.
  My personal finding on this is that: e.g. Gumroad has a $100 minimum payout balance. This is likely because they are an MoR and need to cover their sellers' refunds and chargebacks when they happen. I also noticed that Paddle also has a minimum payout of $100 and the payouts aren't instant either i.e. only on the 2nd and 15th of every month

• Lemon Squeezy: I agree. I think this company is being phased out. I have been following with them when I was first looking to move away from gumroad and their Twitter/X account is filled with only motivational quotes for YEARS now xD I don't see any notable new features at all since the acquisition. That's definitely not a good sign. I would AVOID!

You’ve got me curious about Polar and Moonbase now. Would be interested to hear how the actual checkout and customer experience compares once you’ve tried them. Please update

[billyharrison02]

So I really appreciate this comparison bec the last thing I want is to spend hours researching so I much rather use a platform that takes care most of that for me

I'm giving both moonbase and payhip a try. Atp, they seem like the most obvious choices. Bec one is affordable with no min payout meaning I get to keep more of what I earn plus I mostly have german and usa clients so vat and sales tax covered is a big plus. The other one takes care of licensing and activation which is hude. I will test how well they perform especially the post purchase experience

[David Healey]

Moonbase just got 2fa along with some other security improvements

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey Really good to see Moonbase adding new stuff! Looking forward to GBP holding, coming soon hopefully!

I'm interested in SoundSync too, very similar feature set, but much simpler pricing, albeit a newer, less proven company.

[soundsync]

Quick follow-up on the documentation gaps raised earlier: we’ve expanded SoundSync’s public pages so the features, fees, and commercial policies are easier to find.

Product migration is now supported. You can bring a catalog from another platform using public store/product pages or a supported spreadsheet/JSON export. Imports become drafts for review before publishing. Customer accounts and existing recurring payments are separate from catalog migration. Migration details

Security and integrations have expanded too. We support authenticator-based two-factor authentication, recovery codes, and team accounts with role and product-specific access. HISE developers have both HISEScript and native C++ integration paths, alongside the JUCE package. The API documentation now covers substantially more of the platform, including licensing, refunds, subscriptions, and partner integrations.
Account security · Developer documentation

We’ve also expanded the Website Builder and branding tools, including root-domain support and SoundSync-provided SSL, plus native affiliate and collaborator programs alongside reseller integrations.

The commercial details are now explicit: Stripe and PayPal checkout, USD-only pricing, and one 10% SoundSync fee covering ordinary payment processing on SoundSync-managed checkout. Developer, affiliate, and collaborator payouts follow the same schedule: the 1st and 15th, after the minimum 14-day hold.

The updated pages also explain Merchant of Record responsibilities, tax handling, refunds, disputes, and payout eligibility.
Pricing · Trust Center · Payout policy

Thanks again for pointing out what was missing. That feedback helped us make the information much clearer.