Without sound too biased, I love using Payhip. I sold my first eBook using the platform way back in 2015. Payhip is a simple and affordable solution for hosting and selling your eBooks online, but it's much more than that. Here's my personal and honest review of Payhip.

When it comes to selling your digital products and downloads, you can explore plenty of platforms and solutions. I've used quite a few of them in my time online. Some have produced good results, some not so much.

Over the years, I've used E-Junkie and Fiverr. Both of these platforms are popular, even today, and very cost-effective. In this blog post I wrote a while back, I shared 9 popular platforms to sell your ebooks, so be sure to check it out if you're looking to compare platforms.

One platform I've not yet used is the Amazon Kindle Publishing platform. I'll be honest, I find the setup a little confusing. However, I hope to publish a book there in the future.

Anyway, in this post, I want to share my personal review of the Payhip platform. This is the website I've been using for the last five years to sell my eBooks.

Have you heard of them?

In this review of Payhip, we'll take a look at the core features, and I'll also share with you the incredible benefits I've received from using Payhip to sell my eBooks over the years.

OK, let's get to it.

What is Payhip?

OK, let's start from the very beginning. If you're not familiar with Payhip, here's the lowdown.

Payhip is an e-commerce service platform that provides simple solutions for bloggers and entrepreneurs to sell digital downloads. Their offerings include intelligent tools and features for hosting and selling digital products directly. You can also sell physical products through Payhip, as well as create simple memberships for your business.

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The company was founded by Abs Farah and Kahin Farah and is currently based in London, UK. Payhip is currently used by over 130,000 customers worldwide.

What I love about Payhip is that there's no waiting around to get paid! You sell your digital download or eBook, and the money is right there in your PayPal account instantly.

Other similar platforms will hold your money and make a payment to you every 30 days or so. If, like me, you'd like to get paid instantly, then you'll love using Payhip.

What are the benefits of using Payhip?

Each online platform is different, and as I said, I've used a few of them in the past.

For me, user-friendliness is crucial, and Payhip is just that - user-friendly. Seriously, anyone can use Payhip, start selling and make money.

Payhip saves me a lot of time, and that's because everything is hosted and configured on the Payhip website. I don't need to mess around configuring anything on my website.

Here's a list of some of the benefits of using Payhip that I think you'll love-

1. EU VAT is taken care of. This is a big plus for me as I don't have the time or resources to figure out how and where to set up individual VAT for EU countries.
2. It's cost-effective. The website takes a very small fee of 5% per transaction for each eBook sale, and zero monthly fees (Basic account). PayPal and Stripe charge their own fees on top of that.
3. Built-in reporting tools - You get access to reporting tools such as daily views, daily sales, top visitor sources, and conversion rates.
4. Access to marketing tools and coupons. - You have the option to create coupons and social discount codes.
5. Set up affiliates - You have the ability to signup, manage and reward your own affiliates.
6. Product promotion tools - You can embed your product and Buy Now buttons right on your website or blog. Check out my eBook sales landing page to see how this works.
7. Grow your list - You get access to tools to set up mailing lists so that your customers can subscribe and stay up to date with your digital products, and more.
8. Instant digital product delivery via email link to buyers.
9. Membership tools - Set up memberships for your products.
10. Sell physical and digital products - As well well as selling eBooks and software, you can use Payhip to sell physical products.
11. Pay what you want pricing - Ideal if you'd like to let customers decide how much to pay for your products.
12. Store builder - Perfect if you have more than one product to sell, or would like to bundle products.
13. Blogging tools - For promoting your products!

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Store Builder

A new addition to Payhip is the store builder and blogging tools features. These are very simple but powerful. The store builder allows you to customize your storefront as well as add sections and products. Currently, you cannot add a custom domain to your store.

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Advanced options

Let's get back to the focus of selling eBooks and digital products on Payhip.

When hosting a brand new product on Payhip, you also have access to advanced options. These are more beneficial if you are selling software. Here are some of these advanced features -

1. Ability to make your products private.
2. Add an ISBN (Internation Standard Book Number) for your eBook.
3. Upload a few previews or sample pages.
4. Add a limit number to how many copies of your product or eBook can be sold.
5. Generate a unique license key for each of your product/software sales.
6. Memorable URL to your Payhip shop for you to promote!
7. PDF stamping to discourage customers from illegally sharing your products.
8. Limit downloads, and more.

How much does it cost to use Payhip?

Payhip will cost you nothing to set up or even host your digital products and downloads. As I mentioned above, the website takes only 5% commission per transaction fee for a Basic Account.

Other plans include -

• A Plus Plan - $29 per month (Unlimited digital downloads, membership plans, and revenue. Plus 2% transaction fee. Stripe and PayPal have their own fees.)
• A Pro Plan - $99 per month (Same as Standard plan but with zero transaction fees, however, Strip and PayPal have their own fees.)

Things I love and hate about using Payhip

Let's start with the things that I love most about using Payhip -

1. Easy to set up. Once you're set, you can forget about it and let it do the work for you. All you have to do is market your products and make as many sales as you can!
2. Easy to update files when you need to.
3. Your customers are emailed a link to download their digital product/eBook instantly after purchase.
4. Earnings from eBook sales are paid instantly and directly into your PayPal or Stripe account.
5. You have access to a bunch of helpful marketing tools.
6. EU VAT is taken care of, saving you an enormous amount of time and give you peace of mind selling to EU customers.
7. You can update your customers with the latest revisions of my eBooks if they choose to signup for email updates.

OK, so what about the things I hate?

1. Oh boy, I honestly can't think of anything that I actually dislike about using Payhip. I'm so sorry if that sounds so bias. However, as a recommendation, maybe a dedicated WordPress plugin to enable custom buttons or membership features into a post or page using some custom Glutenberg blocks would be cool.
2. There is no option to add a custom domain to your storefront.

So, where can you signup?

If you're interested in signing up to Payhip to sell your eBooks or any other type of digital/physical product, you can signup by hitting the button below. As I said, it's completely free to signup.

How I host my eBooks in Payhip?

I don't have many eBooks to sell; however, here's what I've done to set myself up with Payhip. Hopefully, this information will help you overcome any obstacles you run into getting set up.

Once I have my eBooks ready in PDF format, I create a new product in Payhip and select product type. I then add a cover photo and a sample of my eBook. Just two or three free pages will do fine.

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I also write a unique description for my eBook with a list of the chapters included and some none-salesy marketing blurb.

Then, I select the categories, add a price for my eBook and hit publish.

That is it, it's as easy as that.

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What else can you do with Payhip?

You might have noticed I mentioned something about memberships. Well, with Payhip you can create simple memberships for your business.

This is a relatively new feature and is constantly being improved, so I won't dive too deep into this. I will let you watch the video that I created on how to use the membership tools in Payhip if you'd like to watch it. The video is a few years old now, but nothing much has changed in the process.

Are there any other similar sites like Payhip?

Sure, you can check out this post to learn about 9 other similar websites you can use to sell your eBooks online. Just remember, the more places, the better, right? You can use more than one platform.

Are you ready to start using Payhip to sell your eBooks?

Well, there you have it, my personal review and overview of Payhip and why I love using this platform to sell my own eBooks.

There is no point in me waffling on about the service because it's a simple enough solution for most new and established authors and digital product creators to use, I think.

I want to wish you the best of luck, and if you have anything to say about Payhip; Good or bad, feel free to reach out to me on social media to let me know. I'm always happy to hear feedback from others on the tools and services that I use in my business.

Enjoy.

Affiliate disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links to the Payhip services which I use in my business and therefore recommend. This means if you click on an affiliate link and signup to the service, I may earn a small commission for each eBook you sell using the Payhip platform, at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your continued support.