DEV Community: Lucas Schneider

💬 2 🔁 4 ❤️ 3 · what peddlum is, without the press release · people keep asking me what peddlum actually is so let me try to explain it without sounding like a press release. peddlum is a market…

tumblr.com

[Boost]

Lucas Schneider — Sun, 10 May 2026 16:24:28 +0000

Jack Thompson

May 9

The 90% Revenue Share Math: Why Gumroad's 12% Cut Costs You More Than You Think

#productivity #indiehackers #saas #startup

Comments 1

3 min read

The 90% Revenue Share Math: Why Gumroad's 12% Cut Costs You More Than You Think #productivity

Lucas Schneider — Sat, 09 May 2026 09:14:52 +0000

Every digital product seller has done some version of this calculation:

"10% fee isn't bad. That's just the cost of doing business."

Then you actually do the math for a year. And you realize 10% of $20,000 is $2,000 — and you could have kept most of that.
Here's the breakdown nobody on Gumroad's marketing page wants to show you.
The actual cut
Gumroad advertises 10%. But you also pay:

Stripe fees (~2.9% + $0.30)
Paypal fees on PayPal sales
VAT handling fees (in some regions)

Effective cut on a $20 product: ~12.5%.
Peddlum charges 10% flat, and absorbs payment processing into that. Effective cut: 10%.
That 2.5% difference sounds tiny. Let me show you what it actually is.
A year of sales
My 2024 numbers, month by month:
January — Revenue: $1,200. Gumroad would take $150 (12.5%). Peddlum takes $120 (10%). Difference: $30.
February — Revenue: $980. Gumroad cut: $123. Peddlum cut: $98. Difference: $25.
March — Revenue: $1,450. Gumroad cut: $181. Peddlum cut: $145. Difference: $36.
April — Revenue: $2,100. Gumroad cut: $263. Peddlum cut: $210. Difference: $53.
May — Revenue: $1,800. Gumroad cut: $225. Peddlum cut: $180. Difference: $45.
June — Revenue: $2,400. Gumroad cut: $300. Peddlum cut: $240. Difference: $60.
July — Revenue: $1,900. Gumroad cut: $238. Peddlum cut: $190. Difference: $48.
August — Revenue: $2,200. Gumroad cut: $275. Peddlum cut: $220. Difference: $55.
September — Revenue: $1,700. Gumroad cut: $213. Peddlum cut: $170. Difference: $43.
October — Revenue: $2,500. Gumroad cut: $313. Peddlum cut: $250. Difference: $63.
November — Revenue: $2,800. Gumroad cut: $350. Peddlum cut: $280. Difference: $70.
December — Revenue: $3,400. Gumroad cut: $425. Peddlum cut: $340. Difference: $85.
Year total: Revenue $24,430. Gumroad would have taken $3,054. Peddlum took $2,443. Total saved: $611.
So that's $611 over a year. Not life-changing.
But wait.
The hidden cost — creator marketing
Gumroad has no built-in creator marketplace. So if I want UGC creators promoting my product, I either:

Hire a UGC agency ($500–$2,000/month)
Use a platform like Aspire or Tribe ($300+/month)
Cold DM creators (free, but eats my weekends)

Peddlum bundles the creator marketplace into the same 10% fee. I tested this in 2024 — running a parallel "agency" track for 4 months cost me $1,200 in agency fees on top of the 12.5% Gumroad was already taking.
Adjusted total cost saved by switching:

$611 in fees
$1,200 in agency fees I would have paid for what Peddlum gives me free
= $1,811 / year

For one product line. I have three.
When the math changes
This isn't true for everyone. Switching makes sense if:

You sell digital products or SaaS
You'd benefit from creator promotion (most do)
You're under $250k/year in revenue (custom enterprise deals change the math)

It's probably not worth switching if:

You sell exclusively to a list you already own (the marketplace traffic doesn't help you)
You have a custom checkout integrated into your site (migration cost > savings)
You're locked into a Gumroad subscription tier with grandfathered pricing

How to switch without losing momentum

Open the Peddlum account: peddlum.com
List the product (~15 min)
Don't delete the Gumroad listing yet — run both for 30 days
Compare conversion rates and creator-driven sales
If Peddlum wins (it did for me), redirect Gumroad checkout to Peddlum

Total switching effort: under 2 hours.
That's it. Run your own numbers. The 90% vs 87.5% framing is too small to motivate change — but layer on the creator marketing piece and it's a different conversation.

The "you need 100k followers

Lucas Schneider — Fri, 08 May 2026 11:41:04 +0000

The "you need 100k followers to make money as a creator" myth needs to die.

I'm a 27-year-old account manager with 2,300 TikTok followers. I started promoting SaaS products on Peddlum in May. By month 6, I was clearing $3,000/month in commissions.

This isn't a flex post. The numbers are small. But the model is teachable, and you can start this weekend.

What UGC actually is

UGC (User-Generated Content) creators don't need a huge following. We're hired by brands to make content for them — content that lives on the brand's accounts, ads, or landing pages, not ours.

The skills required:

Talk to a phone camera without freezing
Edit a 30-second video in CapCut
Hit a deadline

That's it. The market pays well because most marketers can't or won't do this themselves.

Why Peddlum specifically

Most UGC platforms (Billo, Insense, JoinBrands) take 30–50% of your earnings and gate-keep the brands. Peddlum works differently:

Brands list products with a commission rate
You apply to ones you want
You get paid per sale, not per video
Peddlum's cut comes from the seller, not you

It's a marketplace, not a middleman.

Month 1 — Setting up

Created a Peddlum creator profile in 20 minutes. Linked my TikTok, IG, and a 60-second portfolio video I made specifically for the application.

Applied to 14 products in week 1. Got accepted to 3.

First commissions: $47.

Month 2 — Finding what works

Tested two formats:

Talking head reviews (boring, 1.2% conversion)
"Day in my life" with the product woven in (4.8% conversion)

Killed the talking heads. Doubled down on the lifestyle format.

Month 2 commissions: $312.

Month 3 — Compounding

Three things compounded:

Reputation. Sellers see your past performance on Peddlum (sales driven, content quality). Better stats = better products approve you.
Rejected fewer products. I learned which sellers were serious vs which would ghost. Stopped applying to the latter.
Reusable assets. A "morning routine" template I wrote got reused for 4 different products with 5 minutes of edits each.

Month 3: $890.

Month 6 — The math

I now juggle 6 active products. About 4 hours of filming per week, 2 hours of editing.

Last month:

11 videos posted across products
187 sales attributed via UTM
Average commission: $16
Total: $2,992

That's ~$50/hour of actual work. Better than a lot of "real" jobs.

What you'd need to start this weekend

Phone with a decent camera. iPhone 11 or newer is fine.
Ring light. $25 on Amazon.
CapCut. Free.
A profile. Sign up at peddlum.com as a creator.
A portfolio video. Pick a product you actually use — anything — and make a 45-second review of it. That's your sample.

The real talk

Three things kill most people who try this:

Inconsistency. Sellers want creators who deliver weekly, not in spurts.
Generic content. "Hey guys check out this product" gets 0.3% conversion. Specific stories about specific moments get 5%.
Picking the wrong products. If you don't believe in it, the camera knows.

But if you can show up consistently, write a decent hook, and pick products you'd actually use — this works at any follower count.

I'd start at peddlum.com. The application takes 20 minutes. The worst case is you get rejected. The best case is a side hustle that pays your rent.