If you've got a digital product ready to sell, the choice between Payhip and Stan Store comes down to how you expect to sell it. Both can handle digital products, but they are built around different business models.
Payhip lets you start at $0 per month and charges a percentage of sales on its lower plans. Stan Store starts with a paid subscription after its free trial and
charges 0% in platform transaction fees. Payhip also has a product marketplace, while Stan is much more centred around a creator's own audience and link-in-bio storefront.
At a glance
| Feature | Payhip | Stan Store |
|---|---|---|
| Starting cost | $0/month | Free trial, then paid |
| Lowest paid plan | Plus — $29/month | Creator — $29/month |
| Platform transaction fee | 5% Free / 2% Plus / 0% Pro | 0% |
| Payment processing | Stripe/PayPal fees apply separately | Stripe/PayPal fees apply separately |
| Unlimited products | Yes | Yes |
| Product marketplace | Yes, subject to eligibility and approval | No equivalent general marketplace |
| Link-in-bio storefront | Yes | Core part of the platform |
| Courses and memberships | Yes | Yes |
| Bookings/coaching | Supported through platform features | Built into creator-focused workflow |
Payhip pricing
Payhip currently has three plans. All three include the same core feature set, unlimited products and unlimited revenue. The difference between the plans is primarily how much you pay Payhip on each sale.
| Plan | Monthly price | Payhip transaction fee | Core features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Forever | $0/month | 5% | All features, unlimited products and unlimited revenue |
| Plus | $29/month | 2% | All features, unlimited products and unlimited revenue |
| Pro | $99/month | 0% | All features, unlimited products and unlimited revenue |
Payment processing is separate. Payhip states that Stripe and PayPal still charge their standard processing rates on all plans. So the Free Forever plan means no monthly Payhip subscription, not that a sale has no costs attached to it.
That structure is useful if you're testing an idea because your fixed Payhip cost can remain at zero while you're waiting for the first sale.
Stan Store pricing
Stan Store currently offers a free trial rather than a permanent free plan. After the trial, there are two paid subscriptions.
| Plan | Monthly price | Annual price | Stan transaction fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creator | $29/month | $300/year | 0% |
| Creator Pro | $99/month | $948/year | 0% |
Stan says it takes 0% from transactions. Stripe or PayPal can still charge their own payment-processing fees. Those fees vary according to factors such as the seller's location, the customer's location, currency and payment method.
The Creator plan is built around the creator-store model: a link-in-bio storefront containing digital products, courses, memberships, lead magnets and other offers, alongside tools such as bookings and creator-focused audience features.
Creator Pro adds more advanced sales and marketing features, including funnels, upsells and order bumps, payment plans, discount codes, email marketing, affiliate tools and additional tracking features.
That makes Stan particularly relevant to creators who are already using social platforms as the main route to their customers. It is not simply a downloadable-product catalogue with a marketplace attached; the creator's own audience and storefront are central to the model.
What happens to a $20 sale?
To compare the platforms properly, the platform fee and payment-processing fee need to be kept separate.
The following is deliberately a worked US example, not a worldwide payment-processing rate. It assumes a $20 sale paid by a US domestic card through Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30. Your actual Stripe or PayPal fee may be different depending on where you and the customer are located, the currency, the card and the payment method.
| $20 sale | Payhip Free | Payhip Plus | Payhip Pro | Stan Creator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sale price | $20.00 | $20.00 | $20.00 | $20.00 |
| Platform fee | $1.00 | $0.40 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Stripe processor fee | $0.88 | $0.88 | $0.88 | $0.88 |
| Net after these fees | $18.12 | $18.72 | $19.12 | $19.12 |
The $0.88 processor figure is 2.9% of $20 ($0.58) plus $0.30. It is included only to make the worked example concrete. It should not be treated as the payment-processing rate for every country or transaction.
The platform-fee difference at three price points
Looking only at what the platforms themselves take, before payment processing, the difference is straightforward:
- $10 sale: Payhip Free takes $0.50; Payhip Plus takes $0.20; Payhip Pro and Stan take $0.
- $30 sale: Payhip Free takes $1.50; Payhip Plus takes $0.60; Payhip Pro and Stan take $0.
- $75 sale: Payhip Free takes $3.75; Payhip Plus takes $1.50; Payhip Pro and Stan take $0.
That is only one side of the calculation. Stan has no platform transaction percentage, but its $29 Creator subscription begins after the trial. Payhip Free has no monthly subscription but takes 5% of sales.
When does upgrading make sense?
Payhip's paid plans reduce the percentage taken from each sale. That gives us a simple mathematical break-even point.
Free Forever versus Plus
Plus costs $29 per month and reduces the Payhip transaction fee from 5% to 2%. The saving is therefore 3 percentage points on sales.
$29 ÷ 0.03 = $966.67
At about $966.67 in monthly sales, the 3% saving equals the $29 subscription. Above that level, Plus costs less in Payhip transaction fees than Free would, ignoring other costs and assuming the same sales volume.
Plus versus Pro
Pro costs $99 per month compared with $29 for Plus, so the additional subscription cost is $70. The Payhip transaction fee falls from 2% to 0%.
$70 ÷ 0.02 = $3,500
The simple break-even point is therefore $3,500 in monthly sales.
Free Forever versus Pro
For a direct comparison between Pro and Free:
$99 ÷ 0.05 = $1,980
At about $1,980 in monthly sales, the 5% Payhip fee avoided by Pro equals the $99 subscription.
Stan is different because Creator already has a 0% platform transaction fee. Moving from Creator to Creator Pro costs another $70 per month and is therefore a feature decision rather than a transaction-fee break-even calculation.
Payhip's marketplace and discovery
Payhip currently has a marketplace designed to recommend eligible products to prospective customers outside a seller's existing following.
It isn't automatic. Payhip currently says a store must have made at least $10 USD in total sales and must have been reviewed by its accounts team. Individual products then go through the marketplace approval process.
There is no additional marketplace fee. Marketplace sales use the normal Payhip transaction fee associated with the seller's plan.
That doesn't mean marketplace placement guarantees sales. It simply gives a qualifying seller another potential discovery route in addition to traffic they generate themselves.
Stan's equivalent
Stan does not have an equivalent general digital-product marketplace where products are submitted for discovery by marketplace shoppers.
Its model is much more centred on bringing people to your own storefront. The link-in-bio format, creator tools, lead capture, bookings, courses, memberships and marketing features are designed to help a creator turn their own audience and traffic into customers.
That distinction matters if you're starting without an established audience. You're comparing not just two checkout systems, but two different approaches to finding customers.
Tax and VAT handling
Tax treatment varies by country and by the circumstances of the seller and buyer, so it is important not to treat either platform as providing a universal "tax handled" guarantee.
Payhip currently states that it automatically collects and remits EU VAT and UK VAT on the seller's behalf. Payhip also states that, from July 1, 2026, it handles US sales tax on the seller's behalf under its marketplace-facilitator arrangements. Payhip says it also handles Canadian sales tax under its current arrangements.
Stan provides automatic tax calculation through its tax-collection feature when Stripe is connected and the feature is enabled. Stan says this is currently available to sellers in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway and EU countries. Stan's documentation explains that the calculation is based on the customer's location and product type.
The important point is that tax handling is not identical between the platforms, and your own registration or filing obligations can still depend on where you operate and the rules that apply to your business.
The tax information here is a platform comparison, not personal tax advice. If you're unsure about your own obligations, check the rules that apply where you operate or speak to a qualified tax professional.
Cheaper for your own traffic
If you already have a substantial following and regularly send people to your store, the economics can look different from someone who is still trying to find their first customers.
Stan Creator costs $29 per month but has a 0% platform transaction fee. If your sales volume is high enough, avoiding a percentage-based platform fee can make a fixed subscription easier to justify.
Payhip Free works differently. You can keep the storefront at $0 per month and pay Payhip only when you make sales. That reduces the fixed cost of testing a product, while increasing the percentage cost of each sale.
There is also the discovery difference. Someone with an established social following can send warm visitors directly to a Stan Store. Someone without that audience may value Payhip's marketplace as one additional potential discovery route after becoming eligible.
For Pinterest sellers specifically
If you found this comparison through Pinterest and you're starting without a large existing audience, the starting-cost difference is worth taking seriously.
Pinterest can work differently from a platform where you are mainly broadcasting to people who already follow you. A person can discover a pin because it matches something they're interested in, click through, and arrive at a product page without knowing the seller beforehand.
Pinterest is one of my own long-standing go-to methods for sending people towards my Payhip sales pages. I use different pins to create different entry points to the same product rather than expecting one post to do everything. It isn't instant traffic magic, but I like having a simple destination where someone who clicks can actually buy the thing they're looking at.
For that kind of traffic, the fact that Payhip can be started at $0 per month is useful. You can have the product, the sales page and the delivery system in place before you know whether your traffic source will produce consistent sales.
Stan can still make sense if Pinterest is only one part of a wider creator business and you also have an established audience on social platforms, an email list or another channel. The important difference is understanding where you expect the buyers to come from rather than choosing purely from the headline fee.
If you're testing digital products without an established audience, compare the numbers above with what you're actually trying to build.
The practical difference
- Payhip: $0 per month on Free Forever, with a 5% transaction fee.
- Stan: free trial, then $29/month for Creator, with a 0% platform transaction fee.
- Payhip: Plus and Pro reduce the platform fee to 2% and 0% respectively.
- Stan: Creator Pro adds advanced sales and marketing features for $99/month.
- Payhip: has a product marketplace with eligibility and approval requirements.
- Stan: focuses more heavily on a creator's own storefront, audience and link-in-bio traffic.
- Both: still involve payment-processing charges from Stripe or PayPal.
- Both: can handle more than a simple PDF, including products such as courses and memberships.
FAQ
1. Is Payhip really free?
Yes. Payhip's Free Forever plan costs $0 per month. Payhip currently charges a 5% transaction fee on sales made on that plan, and Stripe or PayPal processing fees are separate.
2. Does Stan Store have a free plan?
Stan currently offers a free trial rather than a permanent free store plan. After the trial, its Creator plan costs $29/month or $300/year, and Creator Pro costs $99/month or $948/year.
3. Does Stan really take 0% from sales?
Stan says its platform transaction fee is 0%. Payment processors such as Stripe and PayPal can still charge their own fees. Those fees depend on factors including location, currency and payment method.
4. Can I sell a simple PDF, template or pattern on either platform?
Yes. Both platforms support digital products. Stan also extends into creator-focused products and services such as courses, memberships and bookings.
5. Can people discover my products through Payhip without already following me?
Payhip has a marketplace that recommends eligible products to prospective customers outside a seller's existing following. A store currently needs at least $10 USD in total sales and an accounts-team review before it can become eligible, and individual products require approval.
6. When does Payhip Plus become cheaper than Free?
The simple fee break-even point is about $966.67 in monthly sales. That's because Plus costs $29/month but reduces the Payhip transaction fee by 3 percentage points, from 5% to 2%. Other business costs are not included in that calculation.
7. Do Payhip and Stan handle taxes for sellers?
They handle taxes differently and availability depends on the relevant jurisdiction and setup. Payhip says it automatically collects and remits EU and UK VAT and currently handles US sales tax on the seller's behalf. Stan provides automatic tax calculation when its tax feature is enabled with Stripe and the seller is in a supported region. Your own tax obligations can still depend on your circumstances.
Final thoughts
The main difference isn't simply the percentage printed on the pricing page. Payhip lets you start without a monthly subscription and gives digital-product sellers an additional marketplace discovery route once they qualify. Stan charges a monthly subscription but takes 0% in platform transaction fees and puts more emphasis on turning an existing creator audience into customers.
If you're comparing them for a digital product, the useful questions are straightforward: how much fixed cost are you comfortable with, how much are you likely to sell, where will your buyers come from, and which tools do you actually need?