Best Gumroad alternatives for Indian creators (2026)

Gumroad is the default recommendation for “sell a digital product online”, and for a creator selling in dollars to a global audience it is still a reasonable default. But it charges 10% + $0.50 per direct sale plus card processing, pays out in dollars, and keeps a $100 minimum payout. For an Indian creator whose buyers are on UPI, each of those is friction.

Here are five real alternatives, with their published fees and the specific creator each one fits. Disclosure: we build Beevo, which is one of the five. We have written the entry for Beevo the way we would want a competitor to write it — including what it cannot do.

The shortlist, in one table

1. Payhip — the cheapest percentage, if you are already global

Payhip runs three plans on identical features: Free at 5% per sale, Plus at $29/month with 2%, and Pro at $99/month with 0%, with Stripe or PayPal processing on top of all three. The published advice is that Plus starts paying for itself somewhere around $1,000–1,500 a month in sales, and Pro past roughly $3,500 — do that maths on your own numbers, because it depends on your average price.

• Good for: digital downloads, memberships, and simple courses; anyone already comfortable with Stripe.
• Watch out for: processing fees are separate; Payhip is not the merchant of record for most taxes, so EU/UK VAT is handled but other jurisdictions are your problem; and prices are in USD.

2. Lemon Squeezy — merchant of record, aimed at software

Lemon Squeezy charges 5% + $0.50 per transaction with no monthly fee, and adds 1.5% for international transactions, 1.5% for PayPal and 0.5% for subscription payments. In exchange it acts as merchant of record, which means it is the legal seller, files sales tax and VAT, and absorbs chargeback liability. It is owned by Stripe and is being steered toward Stripe Managed Payments — worth knowing before you build a business on it.

• Good for: selling software licences, SaaS-style products, or anything where tax compliance across many countries would otherwise be your job.
• Watch out for: it is engineered for global digital goods, not rupee course sales; domestic Indian cards and UPI are not its centre of gravity; the platform's own future path is a migration to Stripe.

3. Instamojo — the Indian workhorse for mixed catalogues

Instamojo publishes 5% + ₹3 on digital goods and 2% + ₹3 on regular products on its store plans, with 18% GST charged on the fee itself, and its Growth plan drops the percentage on regular products to 2%. Payment links are priced separately at around 3% + ₹3. It is a genuine Indian payments company with UPI support and rupee settlement, which is why so many small Indian businesses start there.

• Good for: sellers mixing physical goods with digital ones, and anyone who needs a payment link more than a course platform.
• Watch out for: a course is not its native shape — there is no learner dashboard tracking lesson progress, no curriculum structure, and no built-in video streaming for lessons. You are buying checkout, not a classroom.

4. Razorpay payment pages — the do-it-yourself route

Razorpay's standard platform fee is about 2% + 18% GST on domestic transactions with no setup or annual fee, and UPI carries zero MDR by RBI mandate while still attracting the gateway's platform fee. You can create a payment page in minutes and deliver the course by email or a private link. On paper it is the cheapest per-sale option on this list by a distance.

• Good for: creators with a website, a developer, or a strong ops instinct.
• Watch out for: you are building the rest yourself — access control, receipts, refunds, a place to actually watch the videos, and support when a buyer cannot log in. The 2% is the cheapest line item and the most expensive total, in hours.

5. Beevo — rupees, flat 8%, courses only

Beevo is a creator storefront at /@yourname with course sales pages, secure Razorpay checkout in rupees, a learner dashboard, and email receipts. Pricing is ₹0/month and a flat 8% platform commission per successful eligible sale, with gateway charges and applicable taxes settled separately under the provider's terms. There is no marketplace, no Pro plan, and no per-transaction fixed fee.

• Good for: an Indian creator with an existing audience selling a course priced in rupees.
• Watch out for: no foreign-currency checkout, no mobile app, payouts recorded manually by Beevo admins under the payment arrangement, and no discovery — nobody finds you through Beevo, by design. If you need a catalogue to shop in, we are the wrong tool.

The question that settles it in thirty seconds

Not “which is cheapest” — which currency does my buyer hold?

1. 1Rupees, paid by UPI. Your shortlist is Instamojo, Razorpay pages and Beevo. A dollar-priced platform adds conversion and a checkout your buyer may not trust.
2. 2Dollars, paid by card or PayPal. Your shortlist is Payhip, Lemon Squeezy and Gumroad. Rupee platforms cannot take the payment cleanly.
3. 3Both. Pick the primary one and treat the other as a second shop. Running two catalogues badly is worse than running one well.

What we would tell a friend

• Selling a first course to your own Instagram or YouTube audience in India? Beevo. The 8% is the whole fee structure, and the buyer experience is built for a phone.
• Selling templates or e-books to a global list? Payhip's free plan, or Gumroad if you want Discover.
• Selling software or anything with tax complexity abroad? Lemon Squeezy, with an eye on the Stripe migration.
• Already have a site and someone technical? Razorpay pages and keep the 2%.