Digitally vs Gumroad: Which Platform is Best for Selling Digital Products?

If you’re selling digital products online, choosing the right platform can make a huge difference in your sales, branding, and customer experience. Two popular options are Gumroad and Digitally – Digital Products (a Shopify app). While both allow you to sell digital products, Digitally offers more advanced features, greater control, and long-term growth potential, making it the smarter choice for serious sellers.

What is Gumroad?

Gumroad is an all-in-one platform for selling digital products like PDFs, videos, templates, and memberships. It’s designed for simplicity: you can upload your products and start selling in minutes. Gumroad automatically delivers digital files to your customers and charges transaction fees on each sale instead of a monthly subscription.

Pros of Gumroad:

• Beginner-friendly and easy to set up
• No monthly fees; pay per sale
• Supports digital downloads, memberships, and subscriptions

Limitations:

• Limited branding and customization options
• Fewer marketing tools
• Harder to scale as your business grows

Gumroad is ideal for creators just starting out or selling simple digital products. However, if you plan to grow a serious digital business, you may soon encounter limitations.

What is Digitally – Digital Products?

Digitally is a Shopify app that allows you to sell digital products directly from your Shopify store. Unlike Gumroad, it integrates seamlessly with Shopify, giving you full control over your store, branding, and product delivery.

Digitally comes packed with features designed for serious sellers:

• Instant digital delivery with download limits and expirations
• License key delivery and QR code access
• Custom email templates for product delivery
• Full compatibility with Shopify’s marketing and analytics tools

This makes Digitally a powerful solution for growing your digital product business while maintaining professional branding and security.

Digitally’s Comprehensive Security Features

Security is a core focus of Digitally. The platform offers multiple layers of protection to prevent piracy and unauthorized distribution.

Key security features:

• PDF stamping: Embeds buyer info (name, email, order number) into PDFs, either visibly or invisibly
• Download attempt limits: Restricts how many times a purchase link can be used
• Unique buyer restrictions: Ensures links work only for the original buyer, verified by email or IP
• License key generation: Automatically creates unique keys for software products, tracks usage, and manages activation

These features run automatically once configured, giving you robust protection without ongoing effort

Gumroad’s Basic Protection

Gumroad focuses on basic file protection:

• Unique download links per purchase
• Expiration dates for download links
• Download attempt tracking

While Gumroad provides basic security and license key functionality for software, it lacks advanced features like PDF stamping, per-buyer restrictions, or automated license key management. For high-value products like software, courses, or premium content, Digitally’s security is far superior.

Product Types and Delivery Options

Both platforms handle basic digital downloads, but Digitally offers greater versatility and delivery control.

Digitally’s Product Support

• Subscriptions & recurring payments: Perfect for membership sites, SaaS products, or ongoing content
• License keys: Automated generation and activation tracking
• Bulk digital delivery: Manage large product catalogs efficiently
• QR code access: Adds a layer of secure product distribution

Gumroad’s Digital Product Focus

Gumroad supports:

• Digital downloads (ebooks, music, video, digital art)
• Membership subscriptions with recurring payments
• Pre-orders and pay-what-you-want pricing

While Gumroad is excellent for straightforward digital products, Digitally is built for sellers who need advanced delivery options, subscription management, and secure software distribution.

Why Digitally is Better Than Gumroad

1. Full Brand Control

With Digitally, your customers experience your own branded store. You can use your domain, Shopify themes, and custom checkout emails. Gumroad’s pages are uniform for all sellers, which can limit credibility and trust.

2. Advanced Digital Delivery

Digitally lets you set download limits, expirations, license key delivery, and even QR code access for files. This is perfect for software, memberships, or high-value digital downloads.

3. Deep Analytics and Insights

Shopify + Digitally provides detailed sales, customer, and marketing analytics, helping you optimize and grow your business. Gumroad’s reporting is much more basic.

4. Marketing & Growth Tools

With Shopify apps, you can integrate email marketing, upsells, SEO, cart abandonment, and ads, giving you the tools to scale your digital product business beyond what Gumroad allows.

5. Lower Long-Term Costs

Gumroad charges a percentage on every sale, which can add up as you grow. Digitally’s app fee is fixed, and Shopify fees are more predictable, helping you keep more revenue over time.

• Gumroad: Best for beginners or small-scale sellers who want fast setup and minimal fees.
• Digitally (Shopify): The superior choice for serious sellers who want full brand control, advanced delivery options, marketing tools, analytics, and the ability to scale.

For anyone looking to grow a professional digital product business, Digitally clearly outperforms Gumroad.

Start selling smarter today! Upgrade your Shopify store with Digitally and take full control of your digital sales.