Direct-to-consumer has been prevailing marketing policies around the globe lately. Moreover, this creates loyalty and a healthy relationship between the consumers and the sellers.
The ideology of no intermediate certainly has enhanced the growth of any e-commerce platform. In such circumstances, Gumroad and Substack are a variety of online platforms that provide easier selling methods.
Key Takeaways
- Gumroad is an e-commerce platform that enables creators to sell digital and physical products directly to customers. In contrast, Substack is a newsletter publishing platform for writers to build and monetize their email subscribers.
- Gumroad charges a transaction fee and a small monthly fee, while Substack takes a percentage of revenue generated through subscriptions.
- Gumroad focuses on selling products, while Substack is centered around building a community of readers through newsletters.
Gumroad vs Substack
The difference between Gumroad and Substack is that Gumroad is a provider of multifarious services to digital creators. Meanwhile, Substack is a tool that entirely helps you to create a subscription to the newsletter. Besides, they serve similar services, as both enable the digital selling process from the seller to the client, with no intermediate.
Gumroad is an online platform that promotes cooperation in selling products from sellers to consumers directly without any interference from an intermediate. The company Gumroad was founded by Sahil Lavingia in 2011 in a way to make the selling process easier and more convenient.
Through this, many professionals, such as software developers, artists, authors, and many more, have shown their engagement by selling digital content directly to clients.
On the other hand, Substack is an online platform offering help by publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters.
It was created by Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi in 2017 to assist newsletter subscriptions. Professionals like journalists and prodigious media sites have been making use of this substack as it pitches in well for newsletter subscriptions.
Comparison Table
| Parameters of Comparison | Gumroad | Substack |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | Gumroad is an online selling platform where creators sell products directly to consumers. It is also known as D2C businesses. | Substack is an online platform that highly focuses on subscription newspapers by publishing, making payments, setting analytics, and designing infrastructure. |
| History | Sahil Lavingia and Sachin Khanna are the founders of Gumroad. He commenced e-commerce in 2011. | Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi created Substack in 2017 especially to connect readers with the writers. |
| Industry | Gumroad is a decentralised organisation that focuses on e-commerce, the digital industry and the self-publishing of the creator’s products directly to the consumers. | Substack is a subscription platform where you are asked to pay a certain amount at regular intervals to access the purchased product. |
| Features | Gumroad plays as an independent, where you can establish an account on Gumroad, create targeted audiences and start selling your products digitally or physically. | Substack is an open subscription platform. Even a basic writer with zero experience can enrol on this platform. Substack creates traffic to your product as it appears on email. |
| Mechanism | Gumroad works only if you pay a certain amount through PayPal or a credit card statement to that product you are looking for, such as e-books, files and music etc, to the customers. On the other hand, you can also purchase a product that can be delivered to your doorstep. | Substack is an online platform email newsletter field, where writers can publish their own newspaper either by asking for payroll or giveaway. |
What is Gumroad?
Gumroad is also such an online platform that enables the sale of products owned by creators to the consumers with the absence of any third party. It was founded in 2011 by Sahil Lavingla to make the selling method as easy as social sharing.
The headquarters of Gumroad is situated in San Francisco, California, US. It builds the relationship between a seller and buyer smoothie, as it directly makes contact. Many professionals, like authors, comedians, filmmakers, musicians, and software developers, are claimed to be active on Gumroad.
Usually, digital contents are the only products that make progress, like albums, comics, ebooks, films, games, music, or tutorials. It also offers tools to process payment, host and deliver a file, market and communicate with clients.
It works on statistics, auditing the most spent product by the creators to construct the site in such a way that it attracts potential buyers. Lately, the option to subscribe has been introduced, offering creators the tools to create paid communities, courses, software, newsletter, and so on.
What is Substack?
It has been over four years, and Substack still hits the pinnacle of success for its support for subscription letters. This online platform renders publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure, following subscription newsletters.
Moreover, the substack is great in hand for journalists, reporters, high-handed writers, politicians, and many more. Substack is considered a more stable means to maintain readers through a direct connection with writers.
Furthermore, it has garnered enough attention among the community of journalists. Over and above, Substack has been acclaimed for publishing original reports, which include personal writing, opinion pieces, research, and analysis of experts.
That said, it is also a website with lightweight content and free of malicious activities, such as harassment, spam, threats, pornography, and so on. And lately, the founder has added the option of podcasting to discuss threads among newsletter subscribers.
It is free. However, a certain piece requires payment to read. Over 500,000 subscribers are active on substack websites. On the other hand, it also enables writers to get access to monetize by sending readers their write-ups.
Main Differences Between Gumroad and Substack
- Gumroad is an online selling platform, whereas Substack is an online open subscription platform.
- Gumroad sells products of creators to customers directly, in an electronic way, such as ebooks, files, documents and music. Moreover touts the product in a physical way. On the other hand, Substack is an online portal where you can subscribe to write a newspaper or do it for free also.
- Gumroad’s products can be accessible only if you pay a certain amount for the product. Furthermore, Gumroad is an e-commerce industry. Whereas Substack is a subscription platform, the writer has to pay a recurring amount to publish their own newspaper.
- Gumroad was founded in 2011 as an online-selling product without any intermediaries. Albeit, Substack was launched in 2017 for subscription newsletters.
- Gumroad is an online selling and shopping platform where customers can opt for electronic and physical products. Substack plays as an online subscription newsletter by publishing, designing the creator’s writing, setting analytics to create insights and receiving payments for the subscription.
- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4842-2829-6_7
- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-48439-2_46
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Sandeep Bhandari holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Computers from Thapar University (2006). He has 20 years of experience in the technology field. He has a keen interest in various technical fields, including database systems, computer networks, and programming. You can read more about him on his bio page.
