Visit My EBook Store On Payhip & Pay Less!

Hello, friends and fans!

Today I want to talk to you about Payhip. I have a storefront on there that I’ve been operating for several years, and you may or may not know about it. Heck, you might not even have heard of Payhip before – and that’s what this article is all about. What is it? Is it safe to use?

I decided to let you make up your own minds about it.

I’ve been using Payhip for about three years now. Coming from a situation where I had a limited author website that (due to the package I had at the time) couldn’t operate e-commerce modules to place and sell eBooks, I actually went to the extreme of setting up a second website solely for the e-commerce aspect to my book marketing strategy! Bear in mind that at that time, I also had my books available from numerous book-selling platforms, like Lulu, Draft2Digital, Ebooks2Go, and Amazon. But I wanted to increase my reach, and so for a time, it all worked. Sort of.

I even had a few sales via my e-commerce website – but it was complicated to set up (it literally took me months to get it just right) and every time one of the plug-ins and apps encountered an error or were updated (which happened often), something would crap out and the whole house of cards would come crashing down! At those times, I – a total noob when it comes to running this class of software – would have to call Houston to let them know “we have a problem”!

Somewhere along the way this idea of operating (and paying for) two separate websites looked increasingly like a horrible idea, and – coupled with the expiry of my original website with WordPress, I closed both of them and set up a brand new website with a much cheaper local and “lekker” Souf Efriken service provider. Bye bye went all my careful e-commerce machinations, settings and etcetera. In the meantime I stumbled across Payhip, and I decided I liked it because it offered me the opportunity to offer my books for sale directly from my author website – WITHOUT having to resort to the dark arts just to get clunky things like WooCommerce (believe me, I tried several of these) to interface correctly with my website, my PayPal account – and even with all its own separately installed family of plug-ins! Trust me, that can lead to about as many headaches as Gary Beck gets from listening to explanations of time travel!

But… and here’s the problem.

I’ve had a shopfront on Payhip since about 2020, and three years later, I still haven’t sold a single bloody thing on it!

My books are all on there, and they’re organized, updated and attractively presented, formatted in epub format. They’re even cheaper than they are on Amazon (because I don’t need to cede so much of the royalties of each sale to the mighty and greedy Zon) too! Most of my book pages on my author site have buy links to Amazon, Audible AND Payhip on them. I even get a good deal of “views” for most of them every day… (assuming they’re not from visiting bots) so what gives?

After asking this question this morning, and wondering if anyone else had the same experience, I received several replies similar to this one:
“Payhip definitely works. It’s my biggest market after Amazon.”

“Have you ever marketed your Payhip shopfront?” someone asked me. “Ah… crap! No, I haven’t!” I replied, feeling a bit silly. And that’s where this article came from really – out of a need to tell you a) about my shopfront on Payhip, b) about Payhip in case you didn’t know about it and c) to let you know that Payhip is really above board and safe to use.

That said, let’s take it from the top:

What is Payhip?

Payhip is a website-based e-commerce platform that allows individuals to list and sell digital products (eBooks, PDFs, photos, videos, audiobooks, music, courses, or any other type of digital product really) directly to their customers. And if you think that’s all Payhip can do, you’re in for a surprise – they also have the capacity to sell physical products as well, but that process is more complicated (obviously) and since that part of the equation doesn’t affect our focus (being specifically eBooks) I won’t be including that aspect in this article.

Payhip was created in 2011 as an easy and reliable way to sell digital products, courses, coaching or memberships. It is based out of the UK.

According to Payhip’s own help center:

“Payhip is an e-commerce platform that enables anyone to sell their work directly to their fans and followers. We provide all the tools you need to get up and running, including your own unique storefront where you can showcase your products – from eBooks, software, clothing, art, music, you name it.

If you have a digital, physical, subscription product, coaching service, or course that you want to sell then Payhip can help you with:

• Creating a store your customers can purchase from
• Communicating with your customers
• Powerful marketing tools to incentivize sales
• Building a following”

How Much Does Payhip Cost?

E-commerce software generally has a reputation for being expensive and proprietary, and this is where Payhip differs substantially – first off, in this case you don’t have to buy any software at all. They’re web-based, so all you need to do is visit their website and run everything from your dashboard. No additional software needed!

Unlike most other e-commerce apps I’ve used previously to set up online shops on my own website, there’s no configuration of plug-ins or interfacing with PayPal or other online payment entities to worry about, no “sandbox” or “returns policy” or “privacy policy” pages crap to faff about with or clutter your website with – Payhip does all that work for you. All you need to do is link your Payhip account with your PayPal (or Stripe) account, which takes a handful of clicks to accomplish and you’re done.

Payhip is extremely easy to use, and the best part yet – they’re free. All you need to do is register, open a user account, link your PayPal (so you can get paid) set up your shopfront page, and upload your products. Whoa – free? Well, yes and also no. What do I mean by that? While Payhip don’t charge users for storage of files for example, or for downloading files to customers (like Amazon does), or for using their platform, they DO take a 5% levy off of every single sales transaction. That’s not really much though, is it – because Amazon takes a helluva lot more.

Payhip does have higher package memberships – two in fact, where you can pay them up to $99 per month and then they will either deduct lower levies from your sales, or not at all, but then you’d have to figure out whether your monthly sales volume is worth that sort of expense, or if it’s just better to stick with the 5% levy on each sale. Honestly, for me, the entry-level 5% per sale deal works just fine for me. (Or would, if I were to ever sell anything via that platform!)

What is Payhip’s Reputation Like? Is Payhip A Safe Bet?

“On Trustpilot, Payhip has a rating of 4.4/5 stars, based on 41 reviews.

Users praise their customer service, product pages customization options as well as their response to feedback.

Payhip has received negative reviews however, they are all coming from users who were trying to sell content that had not been produced by them and had no right to be selling it. Furthermore, Payhip has responded to all these reviews.” – Payhip Review 2023.

“Payhip is a powerful yet simple way to sell both digital and physical products online. Being both user-friendly and priced-right, Payhip is certainly worth giving a shot.” – Payhip Review: Features, Demo, And Pricing Guide

“Payhip All the Way! At first I’ll admit to never having heard of Payhip. After testing it out, it’s not my GO-TO platform for digital product selling. If you have an eBook or downloadable software, Payhip IS the Best in Class tool.” – Ewen Finser

If you want to see an in-depth review of Payhip, I suggest you click on the links above to read three.