The 10 best Podia alternatives for 2026

1. 1.ByteSellOur pick

   For a course business the sum is short: nothing at the entry tier and no share of any sale on any tier. Students pay the Stripe, PayPal or wallet already in your name, and a cohort’s Discord or Telegram access opens and closes with the subscription. Check the free plan’s file ceiling first.

   Pros

   • Zero percent on every tier, so a cohort launch is worth exactly what students paid
   • Students pay your own Stripe, PayPal or crypto wallet with no balance in between
   • Discord and Telegram access is granted on payment and revoked when a subscription lapses
   • Affiliates, coupons and subscription billing carry no percentage on any plan, free included

   Cons

   • The free plan stores 500 MB in total and rejects any single file above 50 MB
   • Recorded lessons need the $29 Pro plan, which also unlocks a custom domain and unbranded pages
   • Analytics history stops at seven days on free, so an early launch cannot be reviewed later
   • There is no course player as such, so lessons are sold as files and gated access

   Podia would take, in a year

   $2,088and ByteSell would take none of it

   On a $50 product selling 50 times a month, at 5%, plus $49 a month. ByteSell is 0% on every plan including the free one, and the buyer pays your own Stripe, PayPal or wallet, so nothing is held in the middle.

   Free plan, no card, keep every cent of every sale.

   Get started

2. 2.Payhip

   Courses, memberships and downloads run from a single Payhip storefront, and no capability is withheld from the free tier, so the cheapest plan is the whole product. It also acts as a US marketplace facilitator and settles EU VAT, which is the quiet piece Podia leavers forget they were getting.

   Pros

   • Every feature is present on the free plan, so nothing is withheld behind a tier
   • Payhip settles US sales tax as a marketplace facilitator and handles EU VAT for you
   • Sales land in your connected processor immediately rather than waiting in a platform balance
   • Products and revenue are both uncapped, whichever plan you happen to be on

   Cons

   • Five percent of each sale on the free plan, and the $29 Plus tier still keeps two
   • Reaching no transaction fee at all costs $99 a month
   • Thirteen processors are listed, though most sellers can connect PayPal plus one other
   • No annual price is published, so paying ahead buys no discount

   Payhip fee calculatorPayhip alternatives

3. 3.Stan Store

   Aimed at a creator selling coaching and courses to a social audience rather than through a website. The unlimited course builder, recurring subscriptions, booking and community all sit on the $29 Creator plan, and Stan keeps none of what a student pays. There is no free tier to test that on.

   Pros

   • Nothing taken per sale on either plan, so the monthly figure is the whole platform cost
   • An unlimited course builder, subscriptions, booking and community all sit on the $29 tier
   • Payments settle into a connected Stripe or PayPal instead of a Stan balance
   • Paying yearly brings the Creator plan down to $25 a month

   Cons

   • No free plan exists, only a fourteen day trial before billing begins
   • Email marketing, funnels, upsells and affiliate management are all held for the $99 plan
   • The store cannot be embedded in your own site, and Stan suggests domain forwarding instead
   • The default Stripe path builds a Custom account Stan manages, so an existing one will not connect

   Stan Store alternatives

4. 4.Ko-fi

   The gentlest landing if your students already support you directly, since memberships, monthly tips and shop sales share one page and nothing is owed monthly. Recorded material fits: Contributor carries 200 GB with individual files up to 5 GB. Everything you sell rather than are given costs 5%.

   Pros

   • Nothing to pay monthly, and money reaches your own PayPal or Stripe straight away
   • Contributor holds 200 GB of assets, with each file allowed up to 5 GB
   • Fifteen hundred shop items on Contributor, alongside memberships and commissions
   • Your supporter email list can be downloaded whenever you want it

   Cons

   • Anything sold rather than donated costs 5%, memberships and commissions included
   • New accounts open in Contributor mode, which applies that 5% to ordinary tips as well
   • Ko-fi Gold at $12 removes the fee, and Ko-fi’s own Gold page says you no longer need it
   • There is no custom domain, so the page stays at ko-fi.com

   Ko-fi fee calculatorKo-fi alternatives

5. 5.Sellfy

   A modern shop rather than a teaching product, so the lessons are files you sell instead of a course player. It takes no cut of anything until your store passes the plan’s rolling annual revenue line, and its Starter plan accepts a 10 GB file, which covers most recorded modules comfortably.

   Pros

   • No transaction fee at all on any of the three plans
   • The Starter plan accepts product files up to 10 GB, which covers recorded modules
   • Print on demand merchandise sells from the same storefront as the downloads
   • Buyers pay your own Stripe or PayPal, so nothing waits for a payout run

   Cons

   • Each plan caps annual revenue, starting at $10,000 on the $39 Starter tier
   • Cross that rolling ceiling and every subsequent order carries 2% until you upgrade
   • Checkout stays switched off for the whole fourteen day trial, so nothing can sell
   • Only Stripe and PayPal connect, and affiliates wait for the $79 Business plan

   Sellfy fee calculatorSellfy alternatives

6. 6.SendOwl

   A delivery and checkout engine that has been posting files to buyers for years, with no percentage on any plan and no funds held anywhere. It suits a course sold as a bundle of downloads rather than as lessons in a player. What it prices instead is order count and annual revenue.

   Pros

   • No percentage on any tier, and the entry plan carries the complete feature set
   • Funds never enter a SendOwl account, so no hold or minimum applies
   • A chargeback costs no platform fee, and download access is simply withdrawn
   • Subscriptions, affiliates and buyer email campaigns run from the entry plan up

   Cons

   • The $39 Launch plan stops at 5,000 orders and $10,000 of annual sales
   • Volumes run on a rolling twelve months, and crossing a line upgrades the account automatically
   • Downloads beyond the monthly bandwidth allowance are billed at a dollar per gigabyte
   • Sales tax is tracked but never remitted, so the filing returns to you

   SendOwl alternatives

7. 7.Gumroad

   Nothing to pay monthly, which reads kindly after a $49 plan, and a marketplace attached that occasionally sends a sale you did not chase. It stands as merchant of record, so tax is settled for you. The trade is a tenth of every order and fifty cents, at every size of business.

   Pros

   • Nothing is owed monthly, so a quiet quarter costs you nothing at all
   • Gumroad stands as merchant of record and settles sales tax wherever the buyer sits
   • A marketplace sits behind the storefront and can surface a course to new buyers
   • Buyer email addresses appear in the dashboard and export as a CSV file

   Cons

   • Ten percent plus fifty cents on every order, with no volume tier that lowers it
   • Each sale waits seven days in a Gumroad balance before it can move
   • Nothing pays out until that balance reaches $100, and some countries set a higher floor
   • A sale arriving through Gumroad’s own marketplace is charged 30% instead

   Gumroad fee calculatorGumroad alternatives

8. 8.Beacons

   A creator page with a store bolted on, closer to a link hub than a school, though it does host courses. Removing the seller fee means the $30 Creator Plus plan, which is also the cheapest tier on which a recurring membership can exist at all.

   Pros

   • A free tier exists, which Podia and Stan Store both lack
   • Sellers connect their own Stripe and PayPal, and both can run at once
   • The seller fee reaches zero on the $30 Creator Plus plan and stays there above it
   • Unlimited email sends arrive with that same $30 tier

   Cons

   • Nine percent of each sale on the free plan and on the $10 Creator plan alike
   • Recurring memberships cannot be sold below the $30 Creator Plus tier
   • Removing the Beacons logo from your pages also waits for that $30 plan
   • Bank payouts route through PayPal on a seven to fourteen day cycle after payment

   Beacons fee calculatorBeacons alternatives

9. 9.Whop

   Worth opening only if the cohort is really a paid community and you want buyers browsing who have never heard of you. Whop has its own audience, which no storefront can manufacture. What it does not have is a plan price, because everything it charges is taken per transaction and again on withdrawal.

   Pros

   • Whop has an audience of its own, so a listing can find people who were not looking
   • No monthly plan exists, which suits a course that only runs a few times a year
   • The domestic card rate of 2.7% plus thirty cents is low as a headline
   • Pay the 2% tax fee and Whop handles collection and remittance for you

   Cons

   • Thirteen transaction charges are documented beyond that headline card rate
   • Billing, 3D Secure and fraud screening are each priced individually on every transaction
   • Withdrawing costs again, from $2.50 by ACH up to $23 for a bank wire
   • Its seller terms permit reserves of up to 100% of funds for as long as 180 days

   Whop fee calculatorWhop alternatives

10. 10.Linktree

    The place a course ends up when the seller wants one link and nothing else to maintain. It sells digital products and courses through a Stripe account it creates for you, and it keeps a share of every sale that only reaches zero on the top tier.

    Pros

    • The page itself is free and takes minutes to put a course behind
    • Courses and digital products are both supported product types
    • The seller stays seller of record, with the contract made directly with the buyer
    • Payout cadence is yours to pick, daily, weekly or monthly, from Stripe

    Cons

    • Twelve percent of direct earnings on the free plan, dropping to nine on the middle tiers
    • Zero percent arrives only on the top Premium tier
    • Payments run through Stripe alone, via an account Linktree creates for the store
    • Refunds and disputes are handled entirely in Stripe, never by Linktree

    Linktree fee calculatorLinktree alternatives

Every price above is computed from that platform's own published rates on its entry plan, which is the plan almost everyone is actually on. Where a charge applies only in certain cases, an international card or a payout, the row says so rather than adding it to the headline rate. To put your own prices through Podia's full stack, use the Podia fee calculator.

Every Podia figure and limit is quoted from its own pages, linked in the fee breakdown above.