Platform Comparison case study

August 9, 2026

A clean, honest comparison — same product, four platforms, four very different paychecks.

Side-by-side: CreatorVault Drops vs Gumroad, Payhip, and Etsy in 2026

BEFORE
Same Lightroom preset pack. Four storefronts. Four different after-fees take-home numbers.
Creators launching (or re-launching) digital products — photographers, writers, beauty creators — who already had a Gumroad / Payhip / Etsy store and were wondering what moving (or starting fresh) actually costs in 2026.
  • Every comparison page they read was written by one of the platforms being compared.
  • Picking the cheapest 'platform %' is misleading once you stack payment processing, payout fees, and 'free tier' limitations.
  • Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee that's invisible until you list 100 SKUs; Gumroad's 10% sits on top of Stripe's 2.9%; Payhip's free plan was free in 2020 and isn't anymore.
AFTER
A single-page calculator that takes a real creator's monthly volume and shows the take-home per platform.
  • Same product priced the same way on all four platforms: a $79 Lightroom preset bundle, sold to the same 4,300-subscriber email list.
  • Side-by-side math: $79 × sales − platform % − Stripe processing − payout fees − listing fees − monthly subscriptions = real take-home per month.
  • A 'migrate from Gumroad in one click' walkthrough for creators who already had a store they were unhappy with — including the URL redirect pattern that preserves affiliate links.
  • Three real audit cases (photographer, writer, beauty creator) showing the before/after take-home when they moved to CreatorVault Drops.

The comparison is built on first-party receipts — not platform-marketing copy — and the calculator is open: enter your numbers, see the real outcome.

The numbers

Key results

+$840

monthly take-home lift

average across the three audit cases after migrating from Gumroad to CreatorVault Drops

0%

platform fee

Stripe processing applies, but CreatorVault Drops takes no platform percentage on either storefront or service revenue

1 click

migration cost

for active Gumroad stores — including a URL redirect to preserve affiliate and SEO equity

audit volume

compared at the same monthly sales level — $2,800, $4,200, and $5,400/mo — across all four platforms

Your drop could be next.

See the tiers, the deliverables, and the timeline for your segment. You'll know whether the studio is a fit before you ever pick up the phone.