This might sound obvious, but one of the most important aspects of an online business is having a way for customers to actually pay you.

In the very beginning, you have a long list of options to choose from like Stan Store, Beacons, Stripe, PayPal, SamCart, and many more…

All of them do just fine, but there’s one problem that comes up once you start making consistent sales:

Those pesky taxes.

Now I’m not a tax specialist, this is not legal advice, and you should do your own research and seek appropriate counsel before making any final decisions, but…

I want to share 3 payment-taking options with you that help you avoid a lot of the tax headaches that come with a digital product business.

1. The Classic Gumroad Approach

Gumroad was one of my favorite platforms to collect payments and deliver products with because it’s so simple to set up and use.

And at the time I used it, so many people were buying Gumroad products on Twitter so pretty much all my customers had their payment options saved on the platform making it even easier to convert sales.

Back then, they had a free plan and a premium plan where you could pay a monthly fee and get reduced transaction fees, but nowadays…

There’s a 10% platform fee per sale along with payment processor fees of at least 2.9% which sounds like a lot, and it is, however they take care of sales tax and VAT tax for you.

If you’re selling ebooks, courses, coaching, or memberships, it could be a good option if you don’t want to pay anything up front to start your business.

Just keep in mind that 10% fee adds up quite a bit once you get to bigger numbers.

2. A New Addition To My Recommendations

Another platform that handles sales and VAT taxes for you is Teachable which is probably one of the better platforms out there if you’re selling online courses and can work for digital downloads, memberships, and coaching too.

Admittedly, I don’t have experience using this platform as a seller, but I have several products from other creators using the platform and the customer experience is pretty smooth and easy to use.

One thing to note is you have to use their in-house payments platform for them to handle taxes for you.

Also, their plans start at $39/month and they have 7.5% platform fees per sale until you upgrade to their $89/mo plan or higher.

If my math checks out, once you’re doing ~$700/mo in sales, then it’s worth upgrading to the next plan because you’ll save more in fees than the difference between $39 and $89.

3. My Personal Platform Choice For 2026

As you probably already know by this point, I use Skool for everything: Courses, downloads, community, and coaching.

While it’s definitely not the best choice for ebook sellers or people who want to strictly sell courses, it’s my favorite community platform out there and works great for group coaching.

It’s pretty easy to navigate as both a seller and a customer, and has everything you need to operate a business online without overloading you with features you’ll never use.

And just like the first 2 options, they handle all the sales and VAT tax burden for you on both of their plans.

The Hobby plan is $9/mo and has 10% transaction fees for all transactions.

The Pro plan is $99/mo and has tiered transaction fees of 2.9% or 3.9% based on transaction size, but they’re lower than managing your own Stripe account and taking payments directly.

Some Important Things To Note

All of these platforms charge at least 2.9% transaction fees for payment processing and there’s no way around that for online payments, no matter what plan you’re on.

None of these platforms will handle income taxes for you, and it’s your responsibility to set aside earnings to pay that tax bill.

But those 2 things are unavoidable whether you use a Merchant of Record like the 3 options above or not.

At the end of the day, it’s nice to not have to worry about which state or country you owe taxes to based on your revenue or number of transactions in that particular jurisdiction.

That’s exactly what these platforms offer.

That said, if you want help with the other aspects of launching a digital product business such as niche selection, product selection, funnel setup, and getting customers…

Start by reading my 3 Step Launch Plan and daily emails which you can get access to here:

​https://gabejohansson.com/launch-plan

Any questions? Let me know.

Talk soon,
-Gabe