How Much Do Digital Product Sellers Actually Keep? (Full 2026 Breakdown)

The number sellers ask but rarely calculate

"How much do you actually keep per sale?"

It's the most common question I get from people thinking about selling digital products, and almost nobody can answer it cleanly. They know the rough fee percentages. They've seen the marketing pages. But when you ask "if you sell a $25 product on Etsy, how much hits your bank account?" — most sellers shrug.

This post is the answer, broken down across every common price point and every major platform. The numbers come from current published fee schedules, not estimates. If you want to see your specific situation, our [platform comparison calculator](/tools/platform-comparison-calculator) does the live math.

Etsy: what you keep at each price point

Etsy's fee structure stacks four layers: 6.5% transaction fee, $0.20 listing fee per renewal, 3% + $0.25 payment processing for US sellers, and a 15% offsite ads fee on certain sales.

For a $5 sale: $5.00 minus $0.33 transaction minus $0.20 listing minus $0.40 processing equals $4.07 if you assume the listing was renewed for that sale. But Etsy averages listing fees across multiple sales, so the real per-sale impact is smaller. Realistic net: about $4.23.

For a $25 sale: $25.00 minus $1.63 transaction minus $0.20 listing minus $1.00 processing equals $22.17. That's the standard sale figure most fee calculators show.

For a $100 sale: $100.00 minus $6.50 transaction minus $0.20 listing minus $3.25 processing equals $90.05. The percentage drops as the price rises because the fixed $0.20 + $0.25 components become smaller relative to the sale.

The real wildcard is offsite ads. If your sale comes through one of Etsy's external ad placements (which it often does, especially if you're past the $10K mandatory threshold), 15% of the sale price is taken on top of everything else. That $25 sale drops from $22.17 to about $18.42 net. The $100 sale drops from $90.05 to $75.05.

For sellers who want to model their specific situation, our [Etsy Profit Calculator](/tools/etsy-profit-calculator) handles offsite ads, COGS, and shipping costs in one calculation.

Gumroad: simpler math, fewer surprises

Gumroad's fee structure is the cleanest of the three. As of late 2022, Gumroad charges a flat 10% on all sales. No transaction fee tiers, no listing fees, no separate processing fees on top — the 10% includes everything.

For a $5 sale: $5.00 minus $0.50 fee equals $4.50. For a $25 sale: $25.00 minus $2.50 fee equals $22.50. For a $100 sale: $100.00 minus $10.00 fee equals $90.00.

The catch: Gumroad has its own marketplace called Discover, and any sale that comes through Discover (rather than direct from your own audience) is charged an additional 30% fee instead of the standard 10%. That changes the math significantly. A $25 Discover sale nets you $17.50 instead of $22.50.

Most established Gumroad sellers drive their own traffic (email lists, social media, SEO) so Discover sales make up a small fraction. But for new sellers without an audience, Discover can be the only source of sales, and the 30% fee bites hard.

The thing Gumroad has going for it that the others don't: predictability. You always know what you'll keep. No fee surprises, no offsite ads triggers, no monthly subscriptions. For sellers who hate fee complexity, Gumroad's simplicity is a real benefit.

Shopify: low per-transaction, high baseline

Shopify Basic costs $39 per month plus 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for online card payments (US, as of 2026). The per-transaction percentage is the lowest of the three platforms by a meaningful margin.

For a $5 sale: $5.00 minus $0.45 fee equals $4.55. Plus a fraction of the $39/month spread across your sales volume. For a $25 sale: $25.00 minus $1.03 fee equals $23.97. For a $100 sale: $100.00 minus $3.20 fee equals $96.80.

The numbers above don't include the $39 monthly fee. That fee changes everything depending on volume. At 50 sales per month, Shopify costs an extra $0.78 per sale ($39 / 50). At 200 sales per month, it's $0.20 per sale. At 500+ sales per month, it's negligible.

The break-even versus Gumroad: at $25 average sale price, Shopify becomes cheaper than Gumroad above roughly 27 sales per month. At $50 average, it's about 13 sales per month. Below those volumes, the monthly fee makes Shopify more expensive despite the lower per-transaction rate.

There's also a hidden cost most Shopify guides skip: app fees. A typical Shopify store ends up with 5-10 paid apps for things like email marketing, SEO, reviews, and shipping. Total app costs commonly run $50-150 per month on top of the platform subscription.

If you want to model the break-even across all three, our [platform comparison calculator](/tools/platform-comparison-calculator) handles the volume math.

The fee that nobody plans for: refunds

Here's a fee impact that doesn't show up on most platform comparison pages. When a customer requests a refund, you lose the original sale revenue, but the platform fees behave differently across services.

On Etsy, you get the transaction fee back (Etsy refunds it when you refund the buyer), but you lose the listing fee permanently and you get the processing fee back only sometimes (depending on the payment method and how quickly the refund is issued).

On Gumroad, the 10% fee is fully refunded along with the sale price — but only within the 60-day window. Past 60 days, the refund still happens but Gumroad keeps its fee.

On Shopify, payment processing fees are non-refundable. If you refund a $25 sale, you lose the $1.03 processing fee permanently.

For low-refund-rate sellers (under 2%), this difference is noise. For sellers with 5%+ refund rates (common in some digital categories), it adds up to a meaningful annual cost on Shopify that doesn't exist on Gumroad.

Which platform actually keeps you the most

The honest answer is: it depends on your volume, your traffic source, and your product mix. A few patterns hold across most situations:

Low volume, low price ($5-15 average, under 30 sales/month): Gumroad usually wins on net revenue because there's no monthly fee eating into thin margins. Etsy is competitive but loses if any sales come through offsite ads.Medium volume, mid price ($15-40 average, 30-150 sales/month): Etsy and Gumroad are roughly tied. Shopify starts to compete but the monthly fee is still a meaningful drag.High volume, any price (150+ sales/month): Shopify wins on per-sale net revenue, and the gap widens fast. At 500 sales/month, Shopify's effective fee is around 3-3.5% all-in versus Etsy's 11% and Gumroad's 10%.Multi-channel: Most successful digital sellers use more than one platform. Etsy for discovery (existing buyer pool), Gumroad for direct audience sales, Shopify for branded storefront. The combined approach captures buyers from multiple sources.

If you're already selling on more than one platform and tired of guessing your real combined net revenue, [Anlyzo](/) connects to all three and shows you the unified picture automatically. No spreadsheets, no guessing — just the actual number that hit your bank account this month.

For more on multi-platform setup, read our [guide to selling digital products on multiple platforms](/blog/selling-digital-products-multiple-platforms-guide). For a side-by-side fee analysis specific to printables, see [Etsy vs Gumroad for printables](/blog/etsy-vs-gumroad-for-printables-fee-comparison).