In this post, I’m going to show you the best SendOwl alternatives you can try today.
SendOwl is an online marketing platform that helps you sell digital products, subscriptions, and memberships.
But here’s the problem.
It has several downsides like:
- Limited customization options
- Very few checkout templates
- No A/B testing for conversion rate optimization
- No ability to filter searches for transactions
If you need better customization options for your store design and checkouts, plus advanced features like integrations, you’ll want to look at other alternatives to SendOwl.
I’ve researched and narrowed down the list to the top 7 options.
Let’s dive in and see what each one offers.
ThriveCart – Most advanced alternative
ThriveCart is one of the best shopping cart platforms available today at a one-time fee of $495.
You can sell both digital and physical products with various subscription plans.
When it comes to cart types, it has standard, sales cart, embeddable, popup, 1-step, and 2-step cart checkout templates that you can customize to match your brand.
To boost your sales, it offers 1-click upsells, bump offers, downsells, cart abandonment recovery, and much more.
The best part is you can set multiple payment types like free trials, tripwires, split payments, recurring sales, pay what you want, flexible subscriptions, etc.
ThriveCart integrates well with most popular shopping carts, funnel software, email marketing platforms, membership sites, and more.
It also has Zapier and webhooks integrations to connect with your favorite tools.
It integrates with Authorize.net, PayPal, Google Play, Apple Play, and Stripe payment processors.
Currently, ThriveCart is offering a lifetime deal at $495.
If you need features like dunning management, automatic sales tax calculation, and affiliate center, you’ll need to upgrade to the pro plan for an additional $195.
👍 Pros
- Affiliate program: ThriveCart comes with a feature-rich affiliate program that lets you set cookie attribution, cookie length, affiliate-specific commissions, and even exclusive affiliate-specific coupons.
- Growing popularity: ThriveCart’s popularity is steadily increasing due to its one-time fee and deep integrations with various email marketing software and Zapier.
- Flexible payment options: ThriveCart provides flexible payment options with integrations with Google Pay, Apple Pay, and other options like Pay as you want.
- Thrivecart Learn: Along with their lifetime deal, you also get access to ThriveCart Learn, a lightweight LMS platform where you can host your courses and send them as part of your subscriptions.
- Conversion-friendly checkout pages: ThriveCart has a growing library of conversion-friendly checkout pages and recently rolled out enhanced checkout editor functionality, letting you add various conversion-friendly elements and components.
- Split testing: ThriveCart offers a split-testing feature that lets you test different products or various elements of the same product.
👎 Cons
- Interface improvement: The interface could be enhanced for better usability. For example, editing the checkout page of a product requires navigating through multiple clicks, which can be time-consuming and cumbersome.
🏆 Bottom line: In my opinion, Thrivecart is the best alternative to SendOwl. It not only comes with all the features that SendOwl has, but it’s also more affordable and has excellent conversion-friendly features like upsells, downsells, order bumps, and behavioral automation abilities. As a shopping cart solution, it has deep integrations with almost all popular platforms so you can plug it on top of any other apps you’re using throughout your entire sales funnel.
Lemon Squeezy– Best alternative to Gumroad
Lemon Squeezy has gotten super popular lately, especially after Gumroad hiked their transaction fee to 10%.
This change pushed many big creators to jump ship.
Take Thomas Frank for example – he makes over $100,000 monthly and switched to Lemon Squeezy because of his high sales volume.
Here’s something most people don’t know about Lemon Squeezy – its tax compliance feature is a game-changer.
Beyond just being a shopping cart, Lemon Squeezy acts as a merchant of record.
What does this mean?
They handle all the complex financial stuff including sales taxes, EU VAT, and maintaining financial records.
This makes life so much easier compared to platforms like Gumroad.
The pricing is refreshingly simple too.
No matter how much you sell, you’ll pay just a flat 5% transaction fee.
Lemon Squeezy goes beyond basic features by offering email marketing tools, letting you reach customers directly.
They’re also quite generous with their free tier – you can manage up to 500 members without paying a penny.
🏆 Bottom line: Lemon Squeezy stands out from the crowd with its fair 5% pricing, comprehensive tax handling as a merchant of record, and useful extras like built-in email marketing. If you’re a creator looking for a hassle-free platform that won’t eat into your profits, this is definitely worth checking out.
Payhip – Best value for money (with course feature)
Payhip is an online solution to sell digital downloads & memberships.
You can sell ebooks, memberships, software, design assets, music, or any type of digital product with ease.
For digital downloads, you can limit the download attempts and stop illegal sharing with PDF stamping.
Now about Courses!
They’ve recently added a course builder.
This means you get LMS features right inside Payhip.
Your course can have various modules with lessons under each one.
Each lesson supports different content types – videos, text, quizzes, downloads, surveys, assignments, and even embeds.
You also get drip content controls to decide exactly when students can access specific lesson content.
Plus, you get lesson preview and course certification features, making Payhip a solid alternative to established LMS platforms.
Pricing starts at $0/month. The forever free plan includes unlimited products and revenue, with just a 5% transaction fee.
The pro plan at $99/month removes all transaction fees.
Unlike other platforms, they don’t hold back features in the free plan – you get everything except for the 5% fee.
As your sales grow, you can upgrade to a higher plan to lower the transaction fee. That’s fair, if you ask me.
🏆 Bottom line: Payhip offers exceptional value with its free-forever plan, comprehensive course builder, and wide range of digital product selling options. The 5% transaction fee on the free tier is fair, and you can upgrade as your business grows to eliminate fees completely.
Sellfy – Best for storefronts
Sellfy is an easy yet powerful platform to sell digital, physical products and subscriptions.
Its main strength is giving you the ability to create highly converting storefronts with shopping cart functionality.
One standout feature of Sellfy is its print-on-demand service. This lets you sell custom clothing, home decor, and more without needing any external integrations.
Let me explain how setting up a storefront works.
Don’t have your own website yet?
No problem.
You can set up a Sellfy storefront and start promoting your products right away.
It comes with a simple storefront editor to customize the store theme, look, and product pages to match your brand.
Already have a website?
Great!
You can easily embed product widgets, buy now buttons, or links on your existing site.
You’ll also get useful marketing features like discount codes, cart abandonment recovery, upsells, and tracking pixels to retarget customers and boost sales.
Here’s the cool thing.
Sellfy includes built-in email marketing so you can send emails directly from the platform.
Its pricing varies based on how many email credits you need.
Sellfy is a freemium platform.
With the free plan, you can sell up to 10 products.
Need to sell more?
You can upgrade to their starter plan at ₹19/mo for unlimited products.
The main downsides?
If you want to remove Sellfy branding or access features like cart abandonment and upselling, you’ll need to upgrade to their business plan at ₹49 per month.
🏆 Bottom line: If you need a storefront solution with print-on-demand capabilities and built-in email marketing, Sellfy is an excellent SendOwl alternative. Its freemium model lets you test the waters before committing to a paid plan, though you’ll need to upgrade for advanced features like cart abandonment recovery and white-labeling.
Gumroad – 10% flat transaction fee
Gumroad is one of the easiest platforms to sell your products.
It’s perfect for creators, artists, and marketers who want to earn a living by selling things they’re passionate about.
While Gumroad is known for digital products, you can sell physical items too.
The platform handles all the shipping, delivery, tax calculation, address verification, and more for you.
For digital products, Gumroad is popular for selling eBooks, software, photos, filters, audio & video files, software presets, sound design templates, recipes, plans, workbooks, and more.
Some noteworthy features of Gumroad are:
- Preorders: Helpful for prelaunches
- Embed checkout buttons: Easy integration with your existing sites
- Affiliate functionality: With affiliate-specific commission rates
- License keys: Great feature for software sellers
- Gumroad Discover: Helps newbies quickly get traction
But here are some downsides of the platform:
- Disappointing transaction fee increase: Gumroad recently increased their transaction fee from 3-5% to a flat 10%, which has frustrated many users. This sudden change has led to popular Gumroad creators migrating to other platforms.
- Lack of advanced marketing options: Gumroad lacks advanced marketing features such as setting up funnels, upsells, downsells, and order bumps. These missing options limit the platform’s ability to optimize sales and conversions.
🏆 Bottom line: If you’re looking for an easy-to-use platform where you can start selling without any upfront investment, and also want to gain extra search engine visibility through the Gumroad discover feature, Gumroad is the platform you should try out.
PayKickStart
PayKickStart is primarily an affiliate management and subscription software designed for course creators, agencies, and SaaS owners.
This software helps you track and manage your customers’ subscriptions.
It also offers advanced marketing features like one-click upsells, order bumps, coupons, and the ability to offer free or paid trials, making it ideal for SaaS owners.
One of the best features of PayKickStart is its library of over 50 customizable checkout templates.
These templates come with built-in conversion boosters like money-back guarantees, security badges, testimonials, and legal disclaimers.
Plus, PayKickStart plays well with over 60 different tools – email marketing software, CRMs, membership platforms, payment gateways, and more.
But here’s the thing – PayKickStart is mainly built for SaaS companies looking to streamline their revenue workflow.
This means it’s not exactly budget-friendly for everyone.
The starter plan costs ₹99 per month.
Need more features like your own affiliate center, dunning management, and API access?
You’ll have to go for the growth plan at ₹199 per month.
Want to serve unlimited users and get advanced CRM integrations and customer insights?
The scale plan at ₹299 per month is what you’ll need.
🏆 Bottom line: PayKickStart excels for SaaS companies and businesses with subscription models due to its robust affiliate management and marketing features. However, its relatively high price point makes it less suitable for individual creators or small businesses just starting out.
Podia
Podia is an all-in-one digital storefront to sell courses, digital downloads, and communities.
With Podia, you can create and sell standalone courses, drip courses, course bundles.
You can even pre-sell and pre-launch courses to test if your ideas will work before investing too much time.
Unlike other platforms, Podia also lets you sell digital products, making it a solid alternative to platforms like Gumroad and SendOwl.
When someone buys a digital product, they simply log in to their dashboard to download what they’ve purchased.
Podia also gives you different embed options so you can easily add your digital downloads to your website.
For example, you can copy the embed button and place it on your WordPress site, letting people check out the product with just one click.
Podia pricing starts at $39/mo.
It doesn’t charge any transaction fees, and all its plans have unlimited everything – unlimited products, unlimited messages, unlimited files, and unlimited customers.
🏆 Bottom line: Podia is an LMS that comes with digital product selling and membership features. If you’re only looking to sell digital products, Podia might feel like overkill. But if you’re planning to sell training courses, memberships, and build a community, Podia is the right choice. Instead of using separate platforms for your LMS and shopping cart needs, Podia has you covered.
SamCart
SamCart is one of the leading eCommerce platforms best for selling courses, memberships, products, and services.
It has recently introduced a course builder for you to create, market, and sell your courses.
You can add lessons like text, audio, images, videos, worksheets, digital downloads, and much more.
But remember it doesn’t replace dedicated course creation platforms like Teachable or Thinkific.
Similar to ThriveCart, it provides conversion boosters like 1-click upsells, order bumps, multi-option checkout, abandoned cart recovery, and much more.
It also has in-built split testing where you can test multiple variations of the checkout pages and get detailed reports on the testing results.
SamCart offers a good number of integrations with payment processors, membership site platforms, page builders, email marketing softwares, etc.
SamCart pricing starts at $79/mo.
If you need features like order bumps, post-purchase upsells, and cart abandonment, go with the grow plan at $159/mo.
It offers poor value for money. SamCart lags behind ThriveCart in several key areas.
🏆 Bottom line: While SamCart offers comprehensive checkout functionality and now includes course creation capabilities, its high price point ($79/mo starter) and limited value compared to competitors like ThriveCart make it difficult to recommend for most users unless you specifically need its course builder combined with checkout features.
Selz
Selz is an e-commerce solution that gives businesses a multichannel platform to sell their products and services through their preferred channels.
You can build your own store with the Selz store editor or sell on your existing social networks or websites.
It connects natively with Google Shopping so you can showcase your products and help customers find them easily.
You can even sell products directly on Facebook with Selz. Customize your Facebook shop pages, use Facebook chat to help customers throughout their buying journey, integrate Facebook Pixels, and run ad campaigns to retarget customers.
If you’re using WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or any other website platform, you can easily integrate Selz and transform your website into an e-commerce store.
Noteworthy features of Selz:
- Built-in cart abandonment recovery feature
- Native integrations with PayPal or Stripe
- Supports 100+ different currencies including USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD
- Supports custom fields for better personalization
Selz’s lowest pricing plan costs $26/mo, but this plan doesn’t include Stripe integration, custom fields, license keys, or priority support. To get these features, you’ll need to upgrade to the higher plan at $53/mo.
🏆 Bottom line: Selz offers a comprehensive multi-channel selling solution with native integrations for various platforms. However, its starting price of $26/mo and the need to upgrade for essential features like Stripe integration make it less attractive for budget-conscious sellers compared to some alternatives on this list.
Conclusion
Here are my recommendations:
- ThriveCart would be a good option for you if you’re looking for more flexibility and advanced marketing features at a one-time fee of $495. It’s the one I personally use and recommend for maximum conversions.
- If you’re looking for a solid alternative to Sendowl/Gumroad, then Lemon Squeezy would be the best option because it has a low 5% transaction fee, plus it acts as a merchant of record and handles all the taxes and GDPR-related hassles for you.
- Alternatively, you can also consider Payhip, which comes with a generous free plan and a 5% transaction fee. It also offers paid plans to save you money when you’re spending more on transaction fees.
