Payhip

Abs Farah and his co-founder built Payhip in the UK in 2012 as a simple way for creators to sell ebooks, courses, software, and memberships without needing a full e-commerce platform. The key feature was simplicity: create a product, get a link, start selling in minutes. Payhip used a freemium model with a transaction fee on the free plan (5%) and reduced fees for paid plans, making it accessible to creators just starting out. The platform spread through creator communities — bloggers selling ebooks, musicians selling sheet music, developers selling templates — and grew steadily without paid advertising. Payhip differentiated itself from Gumroad by being genuinely UK-based and European-GDPR-friendly, resonating with European creators. Over the years the platform expanded to support courses (with video hosting), memberships, coaching sessions, and affiliate programs. Payhip now serves hundreds of thousands of creators worldwide and generates an estimated $50k+/month in revenue, entirely bootstrapped from its UK origins.