Where to sell ebooks online: platforms, fees and taxes

Three ways to sell an ebook online

Pick the channel before you compare tools. It decides who brings the buyers and who deals with tax.

• Your own sales page. A page presents the ebook and leads to an online checkout, with Stripe for example. You set the price and get every buyer’s email address, so you can offer them other products later. In return, bringing visitors is your job, through social media or an email list.
• A selling platform. Gumroad, Payhip or Sellfy handle checkout and deliver the ebook. Some add a marketplace where buyers can discover your products, and some handle tax for you.
• An online bookstore. Amazon KDP sells your ebook to its own customers, and other stores, such as Kobo (through Kobo Writing Life), Apple Books or Google Play Books, work on the same principle. You tap into their audience, but the store sets its rules and keeps a share of the price.

	Your sales page	Selling platform	Online bookstore
Who brings buyers	you	you, sometimes helped by a marketplace	the store, on top of your own audience
Who sets the price	you	you	you, within the store’s limits
Who is the official seller	you	you, or the platform if it is a merchant of record	the store
Who collects the tax	you	you or the platform, depending on the tool	the store
What the buyer gets	your file, as is	the file you upload	an ebook in the e-reader or app format

Where to sell your ebook: platforms compared

Shoplit.io, our product, belongs to the first group, with one extra step: it also creates the product. Its AI assistant writes, illustrates and lays out the ebook from one sentence, then writes its sales page if you ask for it in the same message.

• Yes
• Partly
• No

Platform commission, excluding payment processing fees. Prices checked on October 20, 2026 on the official websites. Sources: Gumroad (1, 2, 3, 4), Payhip (1, 2, 3, 4), Sellfy (1, 2, 3, 4), Amazon KDP (1, 2, 3, 4)

Gumroad, Payhip and Amazon can show your ebook to buyers who have never heard of you. Gumroad’s Discover marketplace first requires real sales and a review (Discover requirements); Payhip lets you list your products on its marketplace for free, after a review (changelog).

On Amazon, the sales page is Amazon’s product page, which you can enrich with text and images. On the platforms, you build your product page yourself; Gumroad also offers an AI agent that writes it for you. On Shoplit.io, it draws on the content and colors of the ebook the AI wrote: you go from idea to product on sale without copying and pasting from one tool to another.

On tax, Gumroad, Amazon KDP and, to a large extent, Payhip collect and remit it for you (details below). For more on these tools, read our Gumroad alternatives and Shoplit.io vs Payhip comparisons.

Fees and commissions: what you keep from each sale

Up to three deductions stack up on every sale: tax (if you owe it or the platform collects it), the tool’s commission and the payment processor’s fees.

• Shoplit.io: the Free plan lets you create and sell a first ebook with its sales page, with a 10% commission per sale; the Pro plan, at €29/month, brings the commission down to 0% and adds your own domain and email marketing. Stripe fees come on top.
• Gumroad: no subscription. It takes 10% + $0.50 per direct sale, plus card or PayPal processing fees, and 30% on a sale from its marketplace, processing included (Gumroad pricing).
• Payhip: a free plan with a 5% commission, 2% on the Plus plan at $29/month, and no commission on the Pro plan at $99/month. PayPal or Stripe fees come on top.
• Sellfy: no free plan, only a 14-day trial with checkout turned off. After that, a subscription from $29/month with no commitment and no commission. Each plan covers a set amount of yearly sales, past which Sellfy expects you to upgrade, and PayPal or Stripe fees come on top (Sellfy pricing).
• Amazon KDP: publishing is free. With the better royalty option, Amazon keeps 30% of the price excluding VAT, as long as the price stays within the band Amazon sets and the buyer is in an eligible territory (the US and the UK are on the list). Delivery costs, based on file size, also come out of your share. Otherwise, Amazon keeps 65% (Kindle royalties).

A zero-rated ebook sold for £15 to a UK buyer carries no VAT, so the full £15 is yours before fees. Sell a €15 ebook to a buyer in France and, at France’s 5.5% rate for digital books, €0.78 of it is VAT, leaving €14.22 before commission and payment fees.

Sales tax and VAT on ebooks: who collects it?

EU VAT

In the EU, ebooks sold to consumers count as electronically supplied services, taxed at the VAT rate of the buyer’s country. EU rules let member states apply reduced rates to e-publications, so rates vary: France, for example, charges 5.5% on digital books that meet its legal definition of a book, and the standard 20% on content that doesn’t, such as mostly fill-in workbooks or video courses (French tax guidance, BOFiP).

A seller established in a single EU country can apply its home VAT to cross-border sales to consumers until they pass €10,000 a year, counting the current and the previous calendar year. Above that threshold, or if you are based outside the EU, VAT is due in each buyer’s country. The One Stop Shop lets you declare it in one place, with a non-Union scheme for sellers based outside the EU (European Commission).

UK VAT

Digital services sold to UK consumers are liable to UK VAT, and HMRC lists e-books among them (HMRC). Since May 1, 2020, electronic books have been zero-rated, unless more than half of the publication is advertising, audio or video, or it is mainly meant to be filled in; audiobooks stay at the standard rate (HMRC). When you sell to UK consumers through a third-party platform or marketplace, HMRC says the platform accounts for the VAT instead of you.

US sales tax

Since South Dakota v. Wayfair in 2018, states can require sellers with no physical presence to collect sales tax once they pass the state’s economic threshold (Streamlined Sales Tax). Thresholds, and whether digital products are taxed at all, vary by state. Washington, for example, applies sales or use tax to all digital products, however they are accessed, subject to listed exclusions (Washington Department of Revenue). Check the rules in each state where your buyers live, or use a tool that collects the tax for you.

Who collects it, depending on the tool

Gumroad is the merchant of record: it collects and remits sales tax and VAT on all sales, worldwide (source). Amazon collects VAT on its sales and calculates your royalty on the price excluding VAT. For EU and UK VAT on digital products, Payhip says it acts as your reseller and takes full responsibility (Payhip VAT page); since July 1, 2026, it also collects US sales tax (source). Sellfy calculates EU VAT, but remitting it is up to you (source).

With Shoplit.io, the money goes to your own Stripe account and you file any VAT or sales tax you owe yourself. Whichever tool you use, you still report your income.

Do you need a business to sell ebooks?

Selling ebooks regularly usually counts as a business for tax purposes. What that means depends on where you live.

• In the US, the IRS generally treats you as self-employed if you carry on a trade as a sole proprietor, which is what you are unless you set up another structure. Self-employed people generally file an annual tax return, pay estimated taxes quarterly and owe self-employment tax on top of income tax. Some sellers later form an LLC, a structure allowed by state law; your form of business decides which return you file (IRS).
• In the UK, if your gross trading income is £1,000 a year or less, the trading allowance means you may not need to tell HMRC. Above that, you will generally need to register for Self Assessment and report it on a tax return (HMRC).

Wherever you live, ebook income is taxable. Asked whether you have to pay taxes on KDP sales, Amazon replies: “The short answer: yes” (KDP help). This is general information, not tax advice: ask an accountant for your own situation.

How to choose in 4 steps

In Shoplit.io, you start from an ebook that AI writes for you (the step-by-step method) or upload a PDF or ZIP you already have, up to 50 MB. You then set its price and currency in its settings, create its sales page and turn on Stripe payments: the buyer receives their download link after the purchase. The checkbox for waiving the right of withdrawal is in Settings, under Legal pages: the buyer ticks it before paying. Then send your confirmation on a durable medium, for example by email after the purchase.

Once your ebook is on sale, Shoplit.io grows with you: email marketing from the Pro plan, funnels with one-click upsells and video courses on the Business plan.