You have the audience. The link in your bio points at something — a linktree, a landing page, a DM that says "sent you the details." What you want is for it to take money while you sleep.
Stan Store is where most creators land first. The Creator plan is $29 a month. There is no free plan — a 14-day trial, then the card gets charged. Before you commit to that, it is worth knowing what a free systeme.io account already covers.
Does Stan Store include email marketing?
Not on the $29 plan. Creator gets you the storefront, unlimited products, courses, bookings, subscriptions and AutoDM. What it does not get you is email marketing.
Email, funnels, upsells, affiliates, discount codes and pixel tracking all sit on Creator Pro at $99 a month. Which means the plan that does what most people mean by "a link in bio that sells" is the $99 one, not the $29 one. Annual billing brings those to $25 and $79.
Prices checked 3 September 2026 against Stan's own help centre and blog. Stan publishes no static pricing page, so check it yourself before you decide.
This is not unique to Stan — across six platforms the feature you came for usually sits one tier above the advertised price.
What a free link in bio store includes
- A storefront and pages you build and publish
- A checkout that takes real card payments
- Email marketing — unlimited sends to 2,000 contacts, with automation
- 3 sales funnels
- 1 online course, hosted and delivered
- 1 blog
- 1 custom domain
- An affiliate program for your own products
Read that against Creator Pro. Email marketing, funnels, affiliates — the things Stan puts behind $99 a month — are on a systeme.io plan that costs $0 and does not expire.
Does Stan Store take a percentage of sales?
No, and neither does systeme.io. Stan charges 0% platform fees; systeme.io charges 0% transaction fees on every plan including the free one. Both leave you paying Stripe roughly 2.9% plus 30¢. Anyone claiming systeme.io wins on transaction fees is selling you something.
The difference is the subscription, and whether you pay it before your first sale.
Where Stan Store is genuinely better
Stan is purpose-built for one job. Eleven templates, a mobile store live in minutes, plus bookings and AutoDM — neither of which systeme.io does natively. If you sell calls off Instagram and want it running this afternoon, that $29 buys real convenience.
With systeme.io you build the page yourself. It takes an hour rather than ten minutes. What you get for that hour is the email tool, the funnels and the course builder included rather than gated.
Why the email list matters more than the storefront
A link in bio earns you one sale at a time. An email address earns you every launch after that, without depending on the algorithm showing your post to anyone.
That is why the email tool being gated at $99 matters more than it first looks — it is the part that compounds. If you have not built a list before, this covers starting one with zero followers.
Where the free plan runs out
Three funnels, one course, 2,000 contacts. Selling one or two offers off your bio, you will not touch that. Running several launches at once, you will — and the Startup plan is $17 a month, still less than Stan's entry tier.
The links below are affiliate links. If you open a systeme.io account through one, I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Create your free systeme.io account
No credit card required — free forever plan
If you want the feature-by-feature version, systeme.io's Stan comparison page lays it out. Worth reading with the dashboard already open.
And if you would rather see the whole setup written down first, the Systeme.io Beginner's Quickstart Guide is free — 30 pages, 41 screenshots, from account creation to first sale.
Common questions
Is there a free alternative to Stan Store?
systeme.io's free plan covers a storefront, checkout, email marketing, funnels and a course, with no card required and no expiry. It does not do bookings or Instagram AutoDM, which are Stan's two genuine specialities.
How much does Stan Store cost?
$29 a month for Creator and $99 for Creator Pro on monthly billing, or $25 and $79 annually. There is no free plan — a 14-day trial, then billing starts.
Can you sell digital products from a link in bio without a website?
Yes. A storefront page has its own URL, which is all a bio link needs. A domain and a website are optional and can wait until you want them.
What is the cheapest way to sell from Instagram?
Free, if you build the page and checkout yourself. The cost is an hour of setup instead of ten minutes, and card processing of about 2.9% plus 30¢ per sale, which applies on any platform.
Do you need Stan Store Pro to send emails?
To send marketing email through Stan, yes — email sits on Creator Pro at $99 a month, not on the $29 Creator plan.
Related reading: the cheapest all-in-one plan takes 5% of every sale · what you actually need to run an online business