Linktree alternatives: 6 picks that can take a payment
A list of links is not a shop. If you sell something, the question is where the checkout lives.
The short version
- The real test is the checkout. A page of links sends the buyer somewhere else to pay, and some of them never arrive.
- Linktree can sell now, but its cut on digital products depends on the plan, and it is highest on the free one.
- Stan and Beacons are the all-in-one picks, with a monthly fee or a percentage respectively.
- Gumroad or Payhip alone is the cheapest start, because both cost nothing until something sells.
- One product needs one link, not a link-in-bio tool at all.
If you sell a digital product, the Linktree alternative worth paying attention to is one that can take the payment and deliver the file on the page itself. Stan Store and Beacons do that as all-in-one pages; a Gumroad or Payhip profile does it with no monthly fee; Carrd gives you a better-looking page that still needs a checkout plugged in. Linktree itself now sells digital products too, so switching is not automatic. And if you only sell one thing, the best alternative is no link-in-bio tool at all: point the bio straight at the product.
Most lists of Linktree alternatives compare themes, analytics and how many buttons you get. That matters if you are a musician listing four streaming services. It matters much less if you are a faceless creator with one product, a free lead magnet and a profile that has to turn a curious visitor into a buyer.
So this list uses one test: what happens between the tap and the money?
Why does the checkout matter more than the page?
Because every hop loses people. A visitor who taps your bio link has already done the hard thing, which is leave the feed. A menu of links asks them to choose; a link to another site asks them to load a new page and trust a new domain; and only then do they meet a price.
The faceless marketing funnel walks through that whole path. The short version is that the bio page is the narrowest point of it, and a tool that keeps the checkout on the same page removes at least one step from the narrowest point.
That does not make a plain list of links useless. It means the list should be short, and the thing that sells should be first. How to write an Instagram bio that sells and a Threads bio that converts cover the words above the link, which do more work than the tool below it.
The six picks, side by side
| Tool | Takes payment on the page | Delivers the file | How it charges | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stan Store | Yes | Yes | Monthly fee, no platform cut | All-in-one, once you are selling |
| Beacons | Yes | Yes | Free plan with a percentage, paid plans without | All-in-one, starting at zero |
| Gumroad profile | Yes | Yes | Percentage per sale, no monthly fee | First product, no fixed cost |
| Payhip | Yes | Yes | Free plan with a percentage, paid plans lower it | Same, with a bit more store |
| Carrd + a checkout | Through a plugged-in form or button | Via the checkout you connect | Small yearly fee plus the checkout's cut | A page that looks like yours |
| Linktree | Yes, for digital products and courses | Yes | Seller fee by plan plus processing | Staying put, with links first |
Card processing (Stripe or PayPal) comes on top of the platform's own cut almost everywhere. It is the same few percent on every option, so compare the platform's share, not the total.
1. Stan Store: the all-in-one, with a monthly fee
Stan is the tool most faceless creators on Instagram are already using, and for a real reason: the checkout, the product, the email capture and the delivery all live on one mobile page. The buyer never leaves.
It is also the one with a clear fixed cost. According to Stan's pricing page in September 2026, there are two plans, Creator at $29 a month and Creator Pro at $99 a month, with no free plan, a 14-day trial and no Stan transaction fee on either. The features most sellers eventually want, such as email broadcasts, discount codes, upsells and affiliates, are on the higher plan.
That trade is the whole decision, and it deserves more than a paragraph here, so it has its own page: the Stan Store review covers what each plan gets you and who it suits.
2. Beacons: the all-in-one that starts free
Beacons does most of what Stan does, including a store with digital products, and it has a free plan. The catch is the shape of the fee: according to Beacons' help centre in September 2026, its free and entry plans carry a 9% transaction fee, and the higher-priced ones 0%.
That is the right shape for someone who has not sold anything yet. Nothing is paid until a sale happens, and the percentage only starts to sting once there is real volume, at which point moving up a plan is easy arithmetic.
Its weakness is the same as Stan's in the other direction: a lot of features on one page, and the temptation to use all of them. A Beacons page with twelve blocks is a Linktree with extra steps.
3. A Gumroad profile: no monthly fee, and it handles the tax
Gumroad is usually thought of as a checkout rather than a bio tool, but every account has a profile page that lists your products, takes the payment and delivers the file. For one to three products that is a perfectly good bio link.
Gumroad's pricing page lists a per-sale percentage plus a fixed amount on direct sales, a higher cut on sales that come through its Discover marketplace, and no monthly fee. It is also the merchant of record, which means it collects and remits sales tax and VAT for you. That is the least glamorous and most valuable line in this whole comparison.
The honest weaknesses: the profile is plain, you cannot put a row of free links above your products in any designed way, and the percentage becomes expensive at volume. This site sells through Gumroad, so weigh that as you read. How to sell on Gumroad covers the setup.
4. Payhip: Gumroad's shape, with a store
Payhip is the closest thing to Gumroad with a more store-like page. According to Payhip's pricing page in September 2026, the free plan has a 5% transaction fee, and paid plans that lower the fee to 2% and then to none, with every plan getting the same features. It also collects and remits EU and UK VAT on your behalf.
It is a good bio link if you have several products, or plan to, and want them to look like a shop rather than a list. It is a weaker choice if your bio also has to carry free resources and outside links, which it was not built to hold. Where to sell digital products compares it with Gumroad directly.
5. Carrd plus a checkout: the page that looks like yours
Carrd is not a link-in-bio tool; it is a one-page website builder that happens to be excellent at being one. You get real design control and your own domain, and its Pro plans are billed yearly at a small cost.
What you do not get is a shop. Carrd can hold a payment form or a buy button, but the product delivery comes from whatever you plug in, which in practice means a Gumroad, Payhip or Lemon Squeezy checkout behind the button. Two tools, two bills, and one more thing to maintain.
Worth it when the page itself is doing selling work, such as a short sales page for one product. Not worth it just to have nicer buttons.
6. Linktree, which is not what it was
It would be dishonest to leave it off. Linktree now sells digital products and courses from the profile, with its own checkout. According to Linktree's help centre in September 2026, the seller fee on those sales depends on the plan: 12% on Free, 9% on Starter and Pro, and 0% on Premium, with Stripe processing on top.
So the argument for leaving is weaker than it was. It is still a links-first product: the page is designed around a list, and selling is one block among many. If your bio mostly points outward and the product is a side item, staying is fine. If the product is the point, the tools above are built around it.
Which one should you pick?
A simple way to decide, by where you are:
- No product yet. Anything free. Put your lead magnet first and build the list; the tool can change later.
- One product. Link straight to its Gumroad or Payhip page. No bio tool, one fewer click.
- Two to five products and a freebie. Beacons on its free plan, or a Gumroad or Payhip profile if you want the tax handled.
- Selling steadily, and using email, bookings or a course. Stan or a paid Beacons plan, where a fixed fee is now cheaper than a percentage.
The crossover between a percentage and a subscription is plain arithmetic. Multiply your monthly sales by the percentage you are paying, and compare it with the monthly fee. Subscription or one-time pricing is about your own products, but the same maths applies to your tools.
On Instagram, the bio link is often not the best-converting path at all. A keyword in the comments that triggers a DM with the link, covered in the Instagram comment-to-DM funnel, tends to beat a passive bio tap, whichever tool sits behind it.
What should the page actually contain?
Less than you think. The pages that convert tend to have three things, in this order:
- The free thing, with an email field. This is the top of the funnel.
- The paid thing, with a checkout one tap away.
- Nothing else, or at most one line of other links at the bottom.
That shape works on every tool in this list, including a Linktree. The tool decides how many taps sit between the visitor and the payment; the page decides whether they want to take them. How to price a digital product and what digital products sell best will move your numbers more than any switch between these six.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free Linktree alternative?
For someone selling a digital product, a Gumroad or Payhip profile is the strongest free option, because it takes the payment and delivers the file with no monthly fee. Beacons also has a free plan with a store, at a higher percentage per sale.
Is Stan Store better than Linktree?
For selling, usually yes: Stan is built around a checkout inside the page, while Linktree began as a list of links and added selling later. Stan has no free plan, though, so it only pays off once you have something that sells.
Can you sell digital products on Linktree?
Yes. Linktree sells digital products and courses through its own checkout, with a seller fee that depends on your plan plus card processing. Check the current rates in its help centre before comparing.
Do I need a link-in-bio tool at all?
Not if you sell one thing. Pointing the bio straight at the product page removes a click, and every extra click between the profile and the checkout costs you some of the people who were willing to leave the feed.
What do sites like Linktree cost?
Anything from nothing to a monthly subscription, and the pricing is usually a trade between a fixed fee and a percentage of each sale. At low sales the percentage is cheaper; at higher sales the subscription is.
The system behind this, written down
Everything above is the map. The Income Loop is the work inside it: modules 0–6 from the problem you solve to the offer that pays for it, plus ten traffic paths: the deeper post banks, the content sales systems and the full software build sequence, in one place.
Get The Income LoopNot ready to pay for anything? The Basic Income Loop is free and includes a complete seven-day starter for Threads, Instagram or software, enough to find out which one suits you before spending anything.