The Owelet blog
Fee breakdowns, income guides, and tax fundamentals for creators selling across platforms.
Ko-fi's shop fee beats Gumroad's direct rate at every price point, and Ko-fi Gold beats both above roughly $240/month in sales. Here's the real math, plus what Gumroad's extra features are actually worth.
Read the post →Per transaction, Patreon's web pledge fee is nearly identical to Gumroad's direct rate, just $0.50 cheaper. The real choice isn't about fees at all, it's whether your work is a one-time product or an ongoing relationship.
Etsy's organic fee stack beats Gumroad's direct rate at every price point tested here. But Etsy's mandatory Offsite Ads fee flips the result completely. Full worked math at four price points.
Etsy brings search traffic and buyer trust at a real fee cost. Ko-fi charges less (sometimes nothing) but gives you no discovery at all. Real numbers for artists selling prints, commissions, and digital downloads.
Wave Pro and Owelet Pro both cost $19/month. One is general bookkeeping that sees bank deposits; the other reads your platforms directly and shows net per sale. Full comparison for multi-platform creators.
I tracked my multi-platform income in a spreadsheet and found a $739/month gap between what I thought I made and what I kept. Here's exactly what breaks when you do this by hand, and when a spreadsheet is still the right call.
QuickBooks Online runs $20 to $275+/month for full accounting: payroll, inventory, invoicing. Owelet is $19 for one thing QuickBooks can't do: real net income per sale across creator platforms. Which does a solo creator actually need?
Google Sheets income tracker templates work on day one and go stale silently. Here's why static templates drift from reality, what Sheets genuinely does better, and what the maintenance actually costs.
Bench is human bookkeeping starting around $199/month; Owelet is a $19 self-serve dashboard showing real net income per sale across creator platforms. Different categories, adjacent problems. Here's how to pick, including the 2024 Bench shutdown context.
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