TL;DR
Beacons lets you sell on a free plan with a link in bio, email, a media kit and Beam, an AI assistant that sets them up on every plan. Fees are 9% on Free and Creator; Creator Plus ($30 a month) drops them to 0%. Gumroad has no monthly subscription: it charges 10% + $0.50 on every direct sale, plus processing (Discover sales are a flat 30% that includes processing), and fits better if you want VAT and sales tax handled, need license keys, or want marketplace traffic.
Plan snapshot
| Beacons | Gumroad | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes: link in bio, store, media kit, 50 email sends/mo, Beam; 9% fee | Yes: free to use, you pay per sale |
| Paid plans (monthly) | Creator $10 / Creator Plus $30 / Creator Max $100 | None |
| Platform fee on sales | 9% on Free and Creator; 0% on Creator Plus and Max | 10% + $0.50 per direct sale; 30% per Discover sale |
| Store | Unlimited products; discount codes, order bumps, limited-quantity offers | Unlimited products; pay-what-you-want, bundles, pre-orders, license keys |
| Courses & memberships | One course (no video hosting) on Free and Creator; unlimited courses with video plus memberships on Creator Plus | Included at the same per-sale fee |
| Email marketing | 50 sends/mo Free, 500 Creator, no monthly limit on Creator Plus | Broadcasts and workflows to customers and followers |
| Media kit / brand deals | Media kit and affiliate marketplace with 12,000+ brands | None |
| Payouts | Straight to your Stripe or PayPal at purchase | Gumroad balance on a schedule you pick; $100 minimum |
| Sales tax / VAT | You handle it | Gumroad collects and remits as merchant of record |
Prices in USD, checked Nov 2, 2026. Sources: Beacons pricing; Gumroad pricing; Gumroad's fees; Gumroad getting paid.
What selling costs you
| Plan | Plan price | Platform fee | You keep on $200/mo in sales | You keep on $1,000/mo in sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beacons Free | $0 | 9% | $173 | $866 |
| Beacons Creator Plus | $30/mo | 0% | $161 | $926 |
| Gumroad direct | $0 | 10% + $0.50 | $166 | $831 |
| Gumroad Discover | $0 | 30% | $140 | $700 |
You keep = sales minus plan price and fees, with monthly billing and $20 orders. Beacons and Gumroad direct also subtract processing (about 2.9% + $0.30 per order). Gumroad Discover's 30% already includes processing.
The flat $0.50 is the part to watch: at $20 the fee is about 13% of the sale, and about half of paid Beacons orders in the month we checked were under $20.
Beacons Free costs less than Gumroad on typical direct sales (9% vs 10% + $0.50, plus processing on both). That is not true of Discover's 30%, or of direct sales after Gumroad's $20,000-a-month high-volume rate (5% + $0.50). Creator Plus costs less than Gumroad once you sell about $240 to $300 a month, depending on your order size, and less than Beacons Free past $333. No fixed cost suits occasional sellers. Under a few hundred dollars a month, I'd stay on Beacons Free. Creator Max ($100 a month, or $83.33 billed annually) adds white-glove onboarding, prioritized support, Google Workspace, an NFC card and VIP events.
Sell at 9% with no subscription, or 0% from $30 a month.
How we compared
We used Gumroad's pricing and help center (Nov 2, 2026). We make Beacons, so where it fits better, we say so. I don't build the checkout, so I checked the fee math against our own order data.
Store and link in bio
Beacons is a link-in-bio page with a store inside it; Gumroad is a store with a profile page attached. A Beacons page holds links, products, email signup, bookings and a media kit, and Beam can build it and draft listings. Creator ($10) adds a custom domain, free the first year; Creator Plus adds buy now, pay later. Discount codes, order bumps and limited-quantity offers are on every plan; installments start on Creator Plus.
Gumroad gives you a storefront with a custom domain and an embeddable buy button, plus pay-what-you-want pricing, pre-orders, bundles and an affiliate program. It generates license keys; Beacons doesn't, so software sellers should stay.
Taxes and payouts
This is Gumroad's strongest argument. Since January 1, 2025, Gumroad is merchant of record and collects sales tax, VAT and GST worldwide at no extra charge. Beacons doesn't: sales go to your own Stripe or PayPal, and tax is yours to handle. Gumroad holds your balance and pays out on your schedule, with a $100 minimum and a 7-day hold on weekly and slower schedules. On Beacons the money lands in your account at purchase.
Courses and memberships
On Gumroad every membership renewal is a new charge: a $10 monthly membership pays Gumroad $1.50 per member each month. On Creator Plus it pays $0, so 20 members at $10 cover the $30 plan, and hosted video comes with it. Beacons also sells appointments from booking pages.
Email, Instagram DMs and brand deals
Beacons includes email on every plan, with signup on your page, and Beam can write and schedule the emails. Gumroad emails customers and followers with broadcasts and workflows. Beacons also has Instagram auto-DMs and a daily-updating media kit with a Work with me form; Beam can find brands and draft pitches you approve before they send. Gumroad has no brand-deal features.
Would you still need a second tool?
Keep Gumroad for license keys or tax handling; you can link those products from your Beacons page. Otherwise Beacons covers the store, page, email and brand deals.
Switching from Gumroad to Beacons
Recreate your products (Beam can draft the listings) and upload each file. Import the Gumroad customer CSV; each contact gets an opt-in email first, so expect the list to shrink. Memberships don't move, so members re-subscribe. Keep Gumroad open so past buyers can still reach their files, and don't close it until those purchases are migrated or otherwise still available.
When to choose Gumroad vs Beacons
Choose Gumroad if:
- You want sales tax, VAT and GST handled for you.
- You sell software and need license keys.
- You sell occasionally, don't want a subscription, or want Discover traffic and can live with 30% on those sales.
Choose Beacons if:
- You sell more than about $300 a month and want 0% at $30, or want a store, link in bio, email, media kit and memberships without per-charge fees.
Put your link in bio, store, email and media kit on one page, free to start.
Our data: what Beacons creators sell in a month
- About 30% of creators who sold on Beacons would have owed Gumroad more than $30 for the month, the price of Creator Plus for 0%.
Source: Beacons sales data (PostHog), Sep 28–Oct 27, 2026: 10% + $0.50 applied to each seller's actual orders, among creators with a paid sale.