Ask HN: Which service do you use to sell downloads? - renaars
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programminggeek
I would use gumroad or whatever is easiest/fastest to get it out there. Don't
worry about fees and junk right away. Get your product available to sell and
focus on selling it. Don't spend a lot of time on how you are going to process
money and deliver the product. Focus on the sales. When you have $10,000 in
sales and 1% margin starts being worth $100, you can spend a few hours maybe
worrying about if gum road is the right choice. Even then, it's probably not
worth worrying about.

Just sell things, enough things that it actually matters who you are using for
processing. But, with 0 sales, you are doing 0 order processing so it doesn't
matter.

~~~
porter
Gumroad is great for getting started. The only annoying thing I don't like
about gumroad is that they don't give you many options for removing the header
image or default call to action text on payment pages. Otherwise, it's a fast
and clean way to accept payments without hassling with SSL, stripe, etc.

~~~
programminggeek
Yeah, but something that removes the friction of going from 0 sales and 0%
conversion rate and a handful of sales at 1% conversion rate is huge. Most
people never even get far enough that changing the logo would be meaningful.

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patio11
I may well be e-junkie's oldest surviving customer, although I eventually
transitioned everything off their app into my app with the exception of Paypal
IPN processing. They've got almost $500 of LTV from me, $5 a month at a time.

If I were making the choice again today, it would be Gumroad by a country
mile. Regardless of whether you end up using them, look up Ryan Delk's
presentations regarding the habits of successful sellers (multi-tier products;
X 2.2X 5X pricing; email marketing). They'll make you much more successful
than the typical person who just throws a $FOO onto the Internet.

~~~
mynameispaul
wait, PayPal doesn't sell downloads? I'm sure they do. I don't know why people
use a 2nd service, that charge 1-2% on TOP of Paypal's 2.99%. why? you're
still using paypal...

~~~
singer
People use a second service because PayPal does not offer such a feature.

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joshdance
I've sold about a thousand dollars thru Gumroad.
[http://gumroad.com](http://gumroad.com)

I like the design. I like the simplicity. People can just use their CC like
normal. They take a percentage of your sales, but so far found it worth it.

I wish it had order tracking (just a box I could tick when I shipped something
would be nice) but that is irrelevant for downloads.

~~~
winslow
Might just be me, but gumrouad's website offers me no help in trying to make a
decision. I'd like to see the actual checkout process and what it looks like
but it keeps giving me a signup page.

~~~
the82nddoctor
I think Paystr is the way to go. They are new, but they offer a bunch more.
Yes, they take a bigger cut than gumroad, but they offer a ton of services for
your digital downloads, like support to your customers, if they have an issue,
they call Paystr and they will resolve it, you do nothing. Also, if you sell
enough, you can get paid THE NEXT DAY. Check them out at
[https://www.paystr.com](https://www.paystr.com). If you want to see them in
action, go to [http://www.joshuasring.com](http://www.joshuasring.com) and try
to buy the book, that's the checkout process. I love how the customer never
leaves the site.

~~~
weisser
I clicked on a few links for Paystr and couldn't find pricing information
(even on the FAQ). Even a Google search yields nothing. It's a gorgeous layout
but I don't think I can bring myself to sign up for a website where they won't
be even remotely transparent about their pricing.

~~~
simonk
25% [http://support.paystr.com/hc/en-
us/articles/202097244-Pricin...](http://support.paystr.com/hc/en-
us/articles/202097244-Pricing-Policy)

------
singer
My service ([https://snappycheckout.com](https://snappycheckout.com)) offers a
Stripe Checkout like experience and allows you to sell files from Dropbox. It
costs 2% or $0.50 (whichever is less) per sale (plus the usual Stripe/PayPal
fees).

~~~
weisser
Do you have tiered pricing? Say I wanted to offer a couple versions of a
product with a few different levels of features?

~~~
singer
You can do that in Snappy Checkout by creating separate products. Here's an
example of where I do that with one of my products:

[https://www.SingersCreations.com/WeatherWatcherLive/Pricing](https://www.SingersCreations.com/WeatherWatcherLive/Pricing)

~~~
weisser
I really like Snappy (from what I've looked at briefly) but I feel like the
pricing options need to be on the main page...

~~~
singer
Pricing appears on the main page twice -- "You only pay the standard credit
card processing fee — plus either 2% or 50¢ per sale". I tried to make it as
easy as possible, but it gets a little complicated if you're using Stripe and
PayPal -- due to the way the Snappy Checkout fee is charged.

~~~
weisser
Sorry for not being clear. I mean the pricing for multiple tiers of an item
I'd be selling. The link you shared (the page looks great) has a button that
says "Buy" then takes me to a page with the various pricing options. Does that
clear up what I meant?

~~~
singer
The page (at the above link) with the various pricing options is the only page
that is using Snappy Checkout. Inside of the Snappy Checkout admin, I added
four products -- so each could have a separate price. And there is a buy
button linked to each product.

Pricing for Snappy Checkout is the same no matter how many tiers your item
has. It's 2.9% plus $0.30 (for Stripe/PayPal) and 2% or $0.50 (whichever is
less) for Snappy Checkout's fee.

If I did not answer your question, then please email me at
Mike@SnappyCheckout.com with some more details.

------
ivan_ah
[https://gumroad.com/](https://gumroad.com/) : nice design + very simple to
use

~~~
colinismyname
Seconded. They've added a lot of nice (and unobtrusive) features over the last
year, too.

------
luxpir
WooCommerce on Wordpress for an ebook/digital package. Free, barring Paypal
fees (grmmble - I _could_ use a different gateway, or even BTC, but in the
real world PP is my best bet), and user-friendly enough. Has been very
reliable over the years.

------
fookyong
I use e-junkie for growthhackinghandbook.com

Flat monthly fee. Their admin UI is clunky, their checkout pages are basic but
functional, but they solve a number of problems* without asking for a
percentage cut of sales.

I think for basic stuff they work just fine. I'm just selling one ebook and I
just wasn't comfortable with having a cut of my sales taken AND my funds being
withheld by a third party before some weekly or monthly remittance. With
e-junkie the funds go straight to my PayPal account where I can use the money
immediately (I constantly pay for things via PayPal).

*obfuscating download path, handling coupons, handling multiple downloads etc

------
jevin
You can have a look at
[http://www.fastspring.com/](http://www.fastspring.com/) too. I use them to
sell my plugins online. Their support is fantastic.

~~~
wehadfun
I used them aswell

------
felipe_cabrera
I use Avangate - and I love it. They act as Merchant of Record, take care of
all sales tax headache, and with just one integration, I can accept payments
in every country I have customers in, including the "difficult ones" like
Brazil, India or China. Good service, too. Granted their API documentation and
general user experience is a but sucky but if you start working with them, you
will see why they are successful. If they were a public company I would buy
their stock!

~~~
sr-frogs
yeah, I use them too and am very happy. perfect for downloads or
subscriptions.

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bizifyme
Our service [https://www.bizify.me](https://www.bizify.me) offers a complete
package. Credit card processing is included and also payment by mobile phone
(SMS) for many countries. There is also a WordPress plugin and you can install
our App on your phone to easily follow your sales. No setup fees, no monthly
fees, no fixed transaction fees and the price for a digital product can be as
low as 0.1 EUR.

------
quaffapint
I plan on using wordpress and the free paid membership pro plugin
([http://www.paidmembershipspro.com/](http://www.paidmembershipspro.com/)) for
my upcoming release.

Let's me sell a per year license with an optional reduced renewal fee at the
end of the year, which most services don't seem to easily offer. Also then
lets me ties into other things like support forum membership.

------
nelstrom
I'm pretty impressed with SendOwl. I like the flat monthly fee and generous
bandwidth allowance. So far, I've not done a great volume of sales, but my
customers have already remarked on how quickly the 0.8GB video file
downloaded. So the core functionality seems sound. I'm looking forward to
using their affiliates feature to help market my future products.

------
sr-frogs
If you are selling internationally, use Avangate.com. It's a platform built
for selling downloads online and give you instant access to every major
country with local payment methods, etc. I've been selling for 3 years with
them and am very happy. make sure to reach out and ask for discounts - their
published pricing is not final.

------
bhouston
We wrote our own integration into Shopify.com that does RLM-based licensing (a
standard in the visual effects software industry.)

------
jeremymcanally
[http://getdpd.com](http://getdpd.com) is the best option I've found. The
interface makes sense, the pricing is super fair, and they allow you to send
unlimited updates for free to your users (most other services charge more or,
even worse, per update!).

~~~
EvaK_de
No PayPal payments accepted though, which is a showstopper for a lot of users.

From their website ([http://getdpd.com/plans-and-
pricing/](http://getdpd.com/plans-and-pricing/)): "What types of payment do
you accept?

We accept Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. At this time we only accept
payments online so we will not be able to accept a P.O., invoice you, or take
an order over the phone."

~~~
renaars
[http://sellfy.com](http://sellfy.com) accepts PayPal

~~~
EvaK_de
SendOwl does, too.

~~~
singer
[https://SnappyCheckout.com](https://SnappyCheckout.com) allows you to accept
Stripe and/or PayPal.

------
hngiszmo
A friend earned quite a bit with his music on CoinDL:
[https://www.coindl.com/page/author/139](https://www.coindl.com/page/author/139)

It's bitcoin only though but I like the preview for music and the no-bullshit
easy handling.

------
cannam
SendOwl ([http://www.sendowl.com](http://www.sendowl.com)), formerly known as
Digital Delivery App. No particular complaints, but it's been a while since
I've looked at the competition.

~~~
Georgio_1999
Thanks for the thumbs up. George, founder of SendOwl

------
BrechtVds
For WordPress plugins and themes I enjoy
[https://easydigitaldownloads.com](https://easydigitaldownloads.com) It's not
perfect, but has some nice plugins (licensing!).

------
maxx6
Sellfy ([https://sellfy.com](https://sellfy.com)) works great for me. I
especially like the feature to use PayPal and Stripe together.

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infruset
Haven't used it, but I think this deserves a mention as it accepts bitcoin:
[http://coinlock.com/](http://coinlock.com/)

~~~
Georgio_1999
SendOwl also accepts BitCoins

------
garrettdimon
Plasso (formerly Spacebox) I've been incredibly happy with both the service
and the support.

[http://plasso.co](http://plasso.co)

------
graeme
I use woocommerce on Wordpress. I have a large number of products, and their
cart process works pretty well. Checkout is smooth. Plentiful extensions.

------
greenwalls
I have had good luck with Cleverbridge
[http://www.cleverbridge.com](http://www.cleverbridge.com).

------
samreh
If you like/use shopify, check out:
[https://skypilotapp.com](https://skypilotapp.com)

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acangiano
I no longer need them, but in the past I had positive experiences with
FastSpring. eJunkie is also a popular option.

~~~
Cilvic
our experience with fastspring is good as well!

~~~
MarkS12
Is eJunkie is still flash based? SendOwl or GetDPD have been our two
favourites the last few years

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bthomas
Do any of these services have a good workflow for pay what you want downloads?

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antidaily
Bonus if the service is flat monthly fee.

~~~
quaffapint
More of a bonus if they let you choose. When you're first starting out a
monthly fee could likely cost you more.

