Where to Sell Notion Templates: Gumroad vs Etsy vs Everything Else

Every comparison of these platforms leads with the fee percentages, which is the least important thing about them. The fee spread on a $29 template is about seven dollars. The spread in how many sales you make is the whole business.

The real question is who finds your buyer. Answer that first and the platform choice mostly makes itself.

The one tradeoff that matters

Every platform here sits somewhere on a single line between two extremes.

Marketplaces bring you buyers and take a cut for it. Etsy has enormous built-in search demand from people already shopping. You pay for that in fees, in price pressure from competing listings, and in the fact that the customer belongs to Etsy — you generally cannot email them later.

Storefronts give you ownership and bring you nobody. Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy and Payhip are checkout tools. They take less, they give you the customer's email, and they will send you approximately zero traffic on their own. Every sale comes from an audience you built.

If you already have an audience — a newsletter, a YouTube channel, a subreddit presence — a storefront is obviously right. If you have nothing, a marketplace's fees are the cheapest customer acquisition you will ever find.

The comparison

Published rates at the time of writing. All of these change; verify before you commit.

That last column catches people out. Selling digital goods internationally means EU VAT and US state sales tax obligations that begin at your first sale, not at some revenue threshold. A merchant of record — which is what Lemon Squeezy is, and effectively what Etsy and Gumroad do for you — becomes the legal seller and handles all of it. Rolling your own Stripe checkout means that compliance is yours. The 2.9% headline is not the real cost.

Etsy: the one with the buyers

Choose it if you have no audience and want sales this month.

Etsy's search is the entire value proposition. People arrive already intending to buy a planner, which is a completely different starting point from convincing a stranger on the internet that they need one.

The costs beyond the fees are real, though. Listings expire every four months and cost $0.20 to renew, so dead listings quietly bleed money. Offsite Ads are optional below a revenue threshold and mandatory above it — grow past it and you are paying 12% on ads you did not choose. Price pressure is constant because your listing sits beside forty similar ones. And the buyer is Etsy's: no email list, no relationship, no second sale unless they happen to find you again.

Treat Etsy as paid customer acquisition that happens to be profitable, not as your business.

Gumroad: the default storefront

Choose it if you have any audience at all, or you are testing.

Flat 10%, no listing fees, live in about ten minutes. You get the customer's email, you can change prices and run discount codes without relisting, and there is a built-in affiliate system — you set a commission and other people can sell your template for you, which is genuinely useful for a template with a niche audience you cannot reach yourself.

Gumroad Discover is its own marketplace, and sales that come through it cost 30% rather than 10%. That is not a rip-off, it is the same trade as Etsy: a much higher fee in exchange for Gumroad finding the buyer. Worth having on; not worth relying on.

The honest limitation: outside Discover, Gumroad sends you nothing. A Gumroad page with no traffic pointed at it is a page nobody sees.

Lemon Squeezy and Payhip: the specialists

Lemon Squeezy is the cleanest tax story of the group — a true merchant of record, so global VAT and sales tax genuinely stop being your problem. At 5% + $0.50 it undercuts Gumroad on a $29 sale. One caveat worth knowing: Stripe acquired Lemon Squeezy in 2024 and has been steering merchants toward its own managed payments product, so treat the long-term roadmap as uncertain rather than building your whole operation on it.

Payhip charges 5% on its free plan and 0% on paid monthly plans, which becomes the cheapest option at volume — the crossover is somewhere around a few hundred dollars a month, so run the arithmetic against your actual sales rather than assuming. Smaller and less polished than the others, but the maths is the maths.

The Notion template gallery: not a store, but do it anyway

Notion's own gallery is free to list on and carries real browse traffic from people specifically looking for templates. It is not a checkout — you are listing the template and pointing at wherever you actually sell.

Two reasons to submit regardless of where you sell. First, it is free discovery from the most qualified audience that exists for this product. Second, your creator profile links back to your site, which is worth having on its own if you are also building organic search traffic.

This is the single highest-return hour available to a new template seller, and most people skip it.

What to actually do

No audience, want sales now: Etsy, and submit to the Notion gallery the same week. Accept the fees as the cost of finding out whether anyone wants what you built.

Some audience — a newsletter, a channel, an active Reddit presence: Gumroad. Keep Discover on. Submit to the Notion gallery.

Selling internationally at real volume: Lemon Squeezy or Payhip on a paid plan, once the fee difference is worth the migration.

Never as a starting point: your own Stripe checkout. You get the best rate and inherit a tax compliance obligation, and you still have to solve traffic. Do this when the fee savings pay for an accountant, not before.

Most sellers end up on two: a marketplace for discovery and a storefront for the audience they gradually pull out of it. That is a reasonable end state, not indecision.

Once you have picked a platform, the next question is what to charge — see how to price a Notion template for the four tiers buyers recognise and what you keep after fees at each one.

Frequently asked questions

Is Gumroad or Etsy better for selling Notion templates?

It depends entirely on whether you have an audience. Etsy brings buyers through its own search but takes higher fees, applies constant price pressure, and keeps the customer relationship. Gumroad takes a flat 10%, gives you the customer's email and lets you change prices freely, but sends you almost no traffic unless a sale comes through Gumroad Discover. No audience means Etsy; any existing audience means Gumroad.

How much does it cost to sell a Notion template?

On a $29 template at published rates: Etsy takes 6.5% plus a $0.20 listing fee and payment processing, leaving about $25.80, or roughly $21.50 once Offsite Ads apply. Gumroad takes a flat 10%, leaving about $26.10, or 30% through Gumroad Discover. Lemon Squeezy takes 5% plus $0.50. Payhip takes 5% on its free plan. Your own Stripe checkout costs about 2.9% plus $0.30 but leaves tax compliance to you.

Do I need to handle VAT or sales tax when selling Notion templates?

Yes, and the obligation starts at your first international sale rather than at a revenue threshold. Using a merchant of record such as Lemon Squeezy — or selling through Etsy or Gumroad, which handle it for you — makes the platform the legal seller and removes the problem. Rolling your own Stripe checkout means EU VAT and US state sales tax become your responsibility, which is the real cost hidden behind that low 2.9% rate.

Can I sell Notion templates on the official Notion template gallery?

You can list them there, but it is a discovery channel rather than a checkout — you point the listing at wherever you actually sell. It is free, it carries browse traffic from people specifically looking for templates, and your creator profile links back to your own site. It is worth submitting to regardless of which platform you sell on.

Where do most Notion template creators sell?

Most end up using two platforms: a marketplace such as Etsy or Gumroad Discover for discovery, and a storefront such as Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy for the audience they gradually build out of it. That combination is a deliberate strategy rather than indecision — the marketplace buys you customers, the storefront lets you keep them.

Related: How to Price a Notion Template | Best Notion ADHD Templates | Best Free Notion Templates