Ecommerce Platforms for Digital Products: Who Handles Tax, Fees and Payouts

Choosing a platform to sell digital products looks like a choice between storefronts. In practice, it's a choice of who sells to your buyer, who files the tax and when your money arrives. This guide compares the main platforms on those points, using only each vendor's own pages, read on October 14, 2026.

Two families: merchant of record or your own store

Every platform in this comparison falls on one side of a line. Either the platform is the merchant of record and resells your product to the buyer in its own name, or you are the seller and the platform is software plus a payment processor.

On the left: Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle and Stripe Managed Payments. On the right: Shopify, WooCommerce, Podia, Kajabi and a plain Stripe checkout. A merchant of record charges more because it carries more: tax registrations, filings, fraud and disputes. Your own store costs less per sale and gives you the customer relationship, the checkout and the choice of processor. Everything else in this comparison follows from that line.

Ecommerce platforms for digital products compared

Every cell below comes from the vendor's official page, read on October 14, 2026. Prices change: the Source column tells you where to check.

The second table covers what you sell and how buyers get it.

Merchant of record or your own account: what really changes

Being the merchant of record means more than a line on the receipt. Paddle's developer docs list what it covers: it handles tax registration and sales tax, calculates tax at checkout from the customer's location, and remits it to the right authority.17Paddle Developer, Paddle for digital products Stripe's own comparison table puts it in one row: with Managed Payments the merchant of record is Stripe; with its other products it is "Your business".28Stripe Docs, Managed Payments

Paddle's acceptable use policy, updated April 13, 2026, also excludes physical goods, "access to a community of experts" and resale without a valid reseller certificate.18Paddle Help Center, What am I not allowed to sell (updated April 13, 2026) Stripe Managed Payments covers software, games, e-books, audio and video, digital art and online courses, and doesn't support physical goods or platform integrations through Connect.33Stripe Docs, Managed Payments eligibility28Stripe Docs, Managed Payments Read the list of the platform before you build on it.

Payhip sits in between. It says it acts as your reseller for EU and UK VAT, so it is responsible for that VAT, and as a marketplace facilitator in the US and a digital platform operator in Canada, so it collects and pays sales tax there. For any other tax you add, Payhip collects it and sends it to you to declare.21Payhip, VAT and taxes

For the full mechanics, with the risks on each side, see our guide to the merchant of record and the payments side in digital goods merchant.

What you file yourself when you are the seller

On Shopify, WooCommerce, Podia, Kajabi or a Stripe checkout, the tax on your sales is your job. The tools help you calculate it: Shopify Tax is free up to $100,000 of sales, then 0.35% in the US and 0.25% in the EU, UK and Canada on Basic, Grow and Advanced, capped at $0.99 per order.3Shopify Help Center, Shopify Tax pricing But Shopify tells merchants to "file and remit your taxes correctly".4Shopify Help Center, Shopify Tax Podia says it "doesn't file or remit your sales taxes for you".24Podia Help Center, Collecting sales taxes on Podia WooCommerce says it isn't a tax professional and sends you to one.8WooCommerce, Setting up taxes in WooCommerce

In the EU, VAT on digital products sold to consumers is due at the rate of the customer's country. Here is where you stand:

Sources: European Commission OSS portal; Irish Revenue.31European Commission, VAT One Stop Shop portal32Irish Revenue, VAT and electronically supplied services In the US, each state decides whether digital products are taxable, so a seller with buyers in many states needs a tax tool or an advisor. That workload is what a merchant of record's fee pays for.

What each platform costs at two revenue levels

Fees are easier to judge in dollars. The example below uses only the prices published on October 14, 2026, for one-time sales to US buyers paying by card, with no tax, refunds or currency conversion.

• Level 1: 100 sales of a $20 product, so $2,000 a month.
• Level 2: 1,000 sales of a $30 product, so $30,000 a month.

Our calculation from the published prices in the tables above. Payhip and Podia monthly fees at the prices listed on their pricing pages; Podia's are yearly-billing prices.

Three things the numbers show:

• Flat fees win as you grow. At $2,000 a month, Payhip Pro costs more than Payhip Plus. At $30,000 it costs $530 less.
• The merchant of record premium is a few points. At Level 2, Paddle costs $830 more than your own Stripe checkout. That gap is the price of having no tax registrations and no dispute work. Whether it is worth it depends on how many countries you sell to.
• International buyers change the math. Lemon Squeezy adds 1.5% outside the US, WooPayments adds 1.5% on international cards and 1% on conversion.14Lemon Squeezy Docs, Fees5WooCommerce, WooPayments fees Run the example again with your own country mix.

Your own store isn't free beyond the card fee: hosting, a theme, apps or extensions, and an accountant or tax tool all come on top. Shopify's online card rates by plan weren't shown in the version of the pricing page we read, so Shopify isn't in the calculation. Check them for your country. What a transaction fee is made of, line by line, is covered separately.

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Platform by platform

Shopify

Shopify sells digital products through its own free Digital Downloads app.34Shopify App Store, Digital Downloads Files go out automatically or manually after purchase, with up to 50 files and a combined 5 GB per variant; download access is unlimited by default, or capped per customer.2Shopify Help Center, Digital Downloads Plans run from Basic ($19 a month billed yearly, $25 monthly) to Advanced ($299 yearly) and Plus (from $2,300). If you take payments through a third-party provider instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus.1Shopify, Pricing (read October 14, 2026) Shopify makes sense when you already sell physical goods there, or plan to.

WooCommerce: an evaluation for digital products

WooCommerce handles downloads in core. A product marked downloadable gets a link by email and under My Account, and access is granted when the order reaches Processing or Completed.6WooCommerce, Digital and downloadable product handling The method matters: "Force downloads" and "X-Accel-Redirect/X-Sendfile" protect the file, while "Redirect only" is labeled insecure by WooCommerce itself, because anyone with the URL can download the file.6WooCommerce, Digital and downloadable product handling

For recurring products you need Woo Subscriptions, built by Woo, at $279 a year.7WooCommerce, Woo Subscriptions WooPayments charges 2.9% + $0.30 on US cards, +1.5% for international payments, +1% for currency conversion and $15 per dispute.5WooCommerce, WooPayments fees The rest is yours: hosting, file security, updates and tax. WooCommerce is the right pick if you already run WordPress and want control without a percentage to a platform.

Gumroad

Gumroad charges 10% + $0.50 per direct sale, plus card processing (2.9% + $0.30) or PayPal fees. Sales through its Discover marketplace cost a flat 30%, processing included. Once paid sales in a calendar month reach $20,000, new direct sales that month drop to 5% + $0.50.10Gumroad Help Center, Gumroad's fees Since January 1, 2025, Gumroad says it handles all tax obligations as merchant of record in regions where it has them, and its help center says it collects and remits VAT on digital product sales to EU and UK buyers.9Gumroad, Pricing11Gumroad Help Center, EU & UK VAT on Gumroad Payouts need a $100 balance, and on weekly, monthly and quarterly schedules each sale waits at least 7 days.12Gumroad Help Center, Getting paid by Gumroad

Lemon Squeezy

Lemon Squeezy's pricing page says it is your merchant of record and takes on tax collection and calculation liability. The fee is 5% + 50¢, with 16 payment methods including PayPal, license keys, subscriptions, upsells and a customer portal.13Lemon Squeezy, Pricing Its docs add surcharges: 1.5% for international transactions, 1.5% for PayPal, 0.5% on subscription payments, 5% on revenue recovered by abandoned-cart emails.14Lemon Squeezy Docs, Fees

Paddle

Paddle is a merchant of record built mainly for software and apps. It charges 5% + 50¢ per transaction, with fraud protection, chargebacks and buyer support included; sellers with products under $10 can ask for custom pricing.16Paddle, Pricing Paddle's page for digital products lists e-books, courses, audio and music files. Delivery runs through your own code: a webhook tells your system to grant access, send a key or unlock the download.17Paddle Developer, Paddle for digital products Payouts are monthly, sent by the 15th, from a $100 threshold.19Paddle Help Center, When and how do I get paid?

Payhip

Payhip has three plans with the same features: Free (5% fee), Plus ($29 a month, 2%) and Pro ($99 a month, no fee), with PayPal and Stripe charging their standard rates on top.20Payhip, Pricing It hosts files up to 5 GB, limits each file to 3 downloads by default, stamps PDFs with the buyer's details, generates license keys and pays you instantly to your PayPal or Stripe account.22Payhip, Sell digital downloads

Podia

Podia sells courses, downloads, coaching, community and events. Mover costs $42 a month billed yearly plus a 5% fee; Shaker ($84) and Earthquaker ($150) have no Podia fee. Stripe or PayPal charge 2.9% + 30¢ on top.23Podia, Pricing Podia calculates tax at checkout, but you file and pay it.24Podia Help Center, Collecting sales taxes on Podia

Kajabi and Teachable

Both are course platforms first. Kajabi starts at $179 a month ($143 billed yearly), with Kajabi Payments at 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic.25Kajabi, Pricing Teachable's Starter plan costs $39 a month plus 7.5% per sale; Builder ($89) drops the fee to 0% with Teachable Payments.26Teachable, Pricing If courses are your main product, read how to sell online courses.

Stripe Checkout, with or without Managed Payments

A Stripe checkout on your own site costs 2.9% + 0.30 USD per US card payment,27Stripe Support, Manually entered card payments (US standard rate) and you are the merchant of record. Turn on Managed Payments and Stripe becomes merchant of record, handles sales tax, VAT and GST in more than 80 countries, and adds 3.5% per successful transaction to its standard fees.28Stripe Docs, Managed Payments29Stripe, Managed Payments (pricing) It works only with Stripe Checkout and Payment Links, not with embedded Elements or Connect.28Stripe Docs, Managed Payments

When your money arrives

Payout schedules decide your cash flow, and they vary more than fees do.

Sources: Paddle Help Center; Lemon Squeezy docs; Gumroad Help Center; Payhip.19Paddle Help Center, When and how do I get paid?14Lemon Squeezy Docs, Fees12Gumroad Help Center, Getting paid by Gumroad22Payhip, Sell digital downloads For a subscription business on a merchant of record, a monthly payout means you carry a month of costs before the money lands.

Customer data and leaving a platform

The day you switch platforms is when ownership matters. Ask these questions before you start, not after.

Stripe documents its card export: it transfers customer card data, emails and metadata to another PCI DSS Level 1 processor, but excludes cards saved with Link, and doesn't export payment history or subscriptions.30Stripe Docs, Request a payment data export Ask every platform for its equivalent in writing. For subscriptions, see saved payment methods and subscription payment processing.

How to choose: the questions in order

If you are earlier than that and still deciding what to sell and how, start with how to sell digital products online.

Where Tagada fits