At a glance
| Whop | Kajabi | Gumroad | Stan |
|---|
| Price to start | $0/mo, pay per sale | $143/mo billed annually ($179 monthly) | $0/mo, pay per sale | $29/mo or $300/yr |
|---|
| Free plan | No monthly fee | No | No monthly fee | No (14-day trial) |
|---|
| Platform cut | None beyond processing (2.7% + $0.30 per domestic card sale) | None on Kajabi Payments | 10% + $0.50 per direct sale, 30% on Discover | 0% (processing 2.9% + $0.30) |
|---|
| Best for | Discord-native creators and paid communities | Course creators and coaches | Selling a single digital product | Solo creators selling from a bio link |
|---|
| Main limit | Billing and buyer accounts live on Whop | High starting price; Basic caps at 5 products and 2,500 contacts | Highest per-sale cut here | No custom domain; email tools are Creator Pro only |
|---|
| Rating | 8.0 / 10 | 7.9 / 10 | 7.8 / 10 | 7.7 / 10 |
|---|
Start with what you sell and where your buyers already are.
- You sell access to a community. Whop is built for it. Its docs describe Courses, Chat, Forums, Events, Files and Discord access as apps attached to a product, with one-time, subscription or free pricing. The trade-off is ownership: payments and payouts run through Whop's own system.
- You run a course or coaching business. Kajabi puts courses, coaching, communities, a website, email marketing and checkout under one login, and says it takes no share of your sales on Kajabi Payments. It only makes sense once revenue covers the plan.
- You sell one product, often. Gumroad is upload, price, share a link. Since January 1, 2025 it has acted as merchant of record and handles sales tax collection and remittance, per its pricing page. That is the main reason to accept its higher cut.
- You sell from your phone and your bio. Stan combines a link-in-bio storefront with checkout, bookings, courses and memberships, and charges 0% transaction fees on both plans. Email broadcasts, discount codes, upsells, payment plans and pixel tracking are Creator Pro features.
Two questions settle most close calls. First, who handles sales tax? Gumroad does on every sale. Whop handles it on Discover marketplace sales where it is registered, and otherwise sells tax handling as a 2% add-on: one option collects tax in all US states and 90+ countries but leaves remitting to you, and the other remits for you only in the US, EU and UK. Kajabi and Stan don't list tax handling on the pages we checked. Sales tax is separate from your own income tax: if you're self-employed in the US, our sister site BestBalances covers quarterly estimated taxes and the 2026 deadlines. Second, can you leave with paying members? All four let you export customer or sales data. Whop, Kajabi and Stan don't document moving active subscriptions or saved cards to another platform, so expect members to re-enter card details if you switch.
Example 1: 100 sales a month of a $29 digital product ($2,900). Assumptions: US cards, monthly plan billing, no refunds, disputes, international cards, taxes or optional add-ons; four payouts a month where the platform charges for them.
| Tool and plan | Platform and plan cost | Processing | Payout fees | Total cost | You keep |
|---|
| Whop | $0 | $108.30 | $10.00 | $118.30 (4.1%) | $2,781.70 |
|---|
| Stan Creator | $29 | $114.10 | about $8 | about $151 (5.2%) | about $2,749 |
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| Kajabi Basic | $179 | $114.10 | not included | $293.10 (10.1%) | $2,606.90 |
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| Gumroad (direct) | $340 | $114.10 | not included | $454.10 (15.7%) | $2,445.90 |
|---|
The math: Whop's 2.7% + $0.30 on a $29 sale is $1.083, so $108.30 for 100 sales, plus four next-day ACH payouts at $2.50. Stan and Kajabi Basic both run at 2.9% + $0.30 ($1.141 per sale). Stan's payout fee is 0.25% + $0.25 per cash-out with a $1 minimum. Gumroad's 10% + $0.50 is $3.40 per sale, and its help center says card processing comes on top. Turning on Whop's 2% tax option would add up to $58. Whop's fee page also lists Radar fraud screening at $0.07 and 3D Secure at $0.03 per transaction without saying when they apply; if both apply to every sale, Whop's total is $128.30 (4.4%). Kajabi billed annually ($143) brings its total to $257.10.
Example 2: a $2,000 program sold to 8 students in one month ($16,000). Same assumptions, one payout.
| Tool and plan | Total cost | You keep |
|---|
| Whop | $436.90 | $15,563.10 |
|---|
| Kajabi Growth (monthly) | $699.40 | $15,300.60 |
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| Gumroad (direct) | $2,070.40 | $13,929.60 |
|---|
Whop is 8 x $54.30 plus a $2.50 payout. Kajabi Growth is $249 plus 2.8% + $0.30 per sale ($450.40), or $649.40 billed annually. Gumroad is $1,604 in fees plus $466.40 processing. Stan is left out here because payment plans, which most buyers of a $2,000 program expect, are a Creator Pro feature.
At high ticket prices, percentage fees dominate and a flat plan pays for itself. At low volume, a $143 to $179 monthly plan is the biggest line on the bill.
When should you pick something else?
- You sell internationally and want tax handled at a lower cut than Gumroad. Look at Lemon Squeezy, a merchant-of-record checkout, or Payhip, which handles sales tax and pays out to your own Stripe or PayPal.
- Courses are the whole business and you don't need a marketing suite. Compare LearnWorlds and Thinkific.
- The community is the product and you want your own Stripe account. Circle fits; Skool is simpler but owns the payment relationship.
- You want tips or light memberships. Ko-fi or Patreon.
- You want a free-to-start bio-link store. Beacons has a free tier.
- Brand deals are the income, not products. Start with a media kit and a way to manage brand deals.
- You'd rather run payments directly. Read our Stripe review.
For two-way breakdowns, read Gumroad vs Whop and Kajabi vs Stan.
