Gumroad and Lemon Squeezy revenue

Updated 2026-08-04

This is the creator-turned-software-business pairing: templates, ebooks or courses on Gumroad, and a subscription product or licensed tool through Lemon Squeezy.

It's frequently a transition in progress — Gumroad is where you started, Lemon Squeezy is where the recurring business is being built.

The distinction that matters

Lemon Squeezy subscriptions recur. They contribute to True MRR, normalised to a monthly figure.

Gumroad sales don't. They're one-off and go into today's cash.

Keeping these separate is exactly what tells you whether the transition is working. If Gumroad is flat and Lemon Squeezy MRR is climbing, the strategy is succeeding — and you can only see that if the two aren't blended.

What each contributes

Both platforms take a meaningful cut that FRGMNT does not currently subtract — Gumroad around 10%, Lemon Squeezy around 5% plus fees. So today's cash from either reads closer to gross than net. See gross vs net MRR.

The fee comparison

For a $49 one-off product:

• Gumroad: roughly $44 net
• Lemon Squeezy: roughly $46 net

For subscriptions, Lemon Squeezy is the clearly better economic choice, and it's also a merchant of record — so VAT and sales tax are handled for you.

Gumroad's advantage is simplicity and its built-in audience features. For a first product that's worth a lot; for a growing subscription business it's worth less than 5% of revenue.

Setting up

Gumroad needs an access token. Lemon Squeezy needs an API key. Note that neither can be scoped read-only — both are account-scoped tokens, unlike Stripe's restricted keys. Worth knowing before you paste them anywhere.