When you sell digital products the number that decides your income is not the price on the button, it is what the checkout between the buyer and your bank account keeps. Every option a creator can pick is one of three shapes. A per sale platform bills you nothing monthly and takes a share of each order: Gumroad charges no monthly plan and takes 10% plus $0.50 per direct sale. A plan platform bills you every month and passes on card processing only. A mixed platform does both on its entry tier and drops the per sale part higher up: Teachable's Starter plan carries a 7.5% transaction fee on sales, removed on the tier above. Pick the shape that suits how many orders you expect in a month, not the longest feature list, then run the crossover in the section below with your own price. Once the checkout is chosen, the course funnel guide on this site is the free walkthrough for the page that feeds it.
Three fee shapes, and only three
The per sale shape costs nothing in a month with no orders, which is why it suits a first product, a seasonal one, or anything you sell in bursts. The plan shape costs the same whether you sell one order or four hundred, so its cost per order falls the more you sell, and it is the shape that wins once volume is steady. The mixed shape is how a platform prices its cheapest tier: you pay a small monthly amount and it keeps a slice of every sale until you upgrade. Podia, Kajabi, Systeme, ClickFunnels and Circle all sit in the plan or mixed group and publish their tiers openly. Read the tier you would actually be on, not the headline one.
How to sell a digital product at $39: the arithmetic
Price a product at $39. Under the per sale shape the platform keeps $3.90 plus $0.50, so $4.40 leaves with the order and $34.60 lands with you. Fifty orders in a month is $1,950 collected, $220 kept by the platform and $1,730 yours. Under the plan shape you carry card processing instead: the processor's standard fee, 2.9% + $0.30, works out at $1.13 plus $0.30 on that same order, so $1.43 leaves and $37.57 lands. The gap between the two routes is $2.97 an order, which is $148.50 across those fifty sales. So the plan is cheaper only while its monthly price sits under $148.50 at fifty orders a month. Halve the volume and the gap halves with it.
What a digital products platform's monthly plan is actually buying
The plan is not buying the card form. It is buying hosted file delivery that does not break, order confirmation and download links that survive a bounced email, refunds you can issue without opening a support ticket, sales tax handled at checkout rather than by you at year end, order bumps and upsells on the same page, and the buyer list held somewhere you can export. If you would build any of that yourself, price the hours before you call the per sale route free. If you would not build it, and the volume is low, the per sale route is the honest answer.
Sell digital goods, but own the buyer list whichever route you take
The one thing a creator cannot afford to rent is the list of people who have already paid. Before you commit, check that the platform lets you export buyer email addresses and order history in a plain file, and check whether it permits you to email those buyers about your next release. A platform that keeps the list is charging you a second time, in the form of a migration you cannot make. When the checkout is settled, the sales page is the next problem, and the course funnel guide on this site covers the sequence from the first click to the receipt.
Questions people ask about sell digital products
How to start selling digital products: do I need a monthly plan?
No. A per sale platform bills nothing monthly and keeps a share of each order, so a first product can go live with no fixed cost at all.
Which route is cheaper at low volume?
The per sale route, almost always. A fixed monthly plan only overtakes it once the saving per order, multiplied by your monthly orders, passes what the plan costs.
Does a platform's cut include card processing?
Not always, and this is where quotes get misread. Some platforms state a cut that sits on top of the processor's fee, so read the pricing page for both numbers before you compare.
Can I move a digital product to another platform later?
Yes, if you kept the files and can export the buyer list. The move costs you the old checkout links, so redirect them and keep the sales page URL stable.