Honest answers.
Everything we'd want to know before paying for a digital-products platform. No marketing fluff.
Pricing & billing
What you pay, what you keep, and what happens at the trial's end.
How much does Sell actually cost?
€19 per month, flat. Zero commission on your individual sales — you keep 100% of what your buyers pay, minus Stripe's standard processing fee (~2.9% + 30¢ on cards) which goes to Stripe, not us. There's a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Is there a free plan?
No free tier — but the 14-day trial unlocks every Pro feature with no card on file. After 14 days you decide: subscribe at €19/month or your store gracefully switches to read-only. Nothing is deleted.
What happens at the end of my trial?
If you don't subscribe, your dashboard switches to read-only and your storefront stays publicly visible but the Buy button is disabled with a 'store paused' message. Subscribe anytime to resume — your products, releases, and past orders are kept intact.
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes, from your billing portal. You keep full Pro access until the end of the current paid period, then your account transitions to the same read-only state as an expired trial.
Do you charge VAT on the €19/month?
Yes, Stripe Tax applies the right rate automatically based on your billing country. If you're a VAT-registered business inside the EU but outside Belgium, B2B reverse charge applies (no VAT charged).
Will the €19 price ever change?
Any future price change applies only 30 days after we notify existing sellers by email, and we grandfather active subscribers into their current price for as long as their subscription stays active. Founding sellers stay at €19/month indefinitely.
Payments & Stripe
Why you connect your own Stripe account — and what that means in practice.
Why do I have to connect my own Stripe account?
Because your buyers pay you directly. Money lands on your Stripe balance, never on ours. We don't hold funds, settle them, or act as Merchant of Record on your behalf — that keeps the relationship between you and your customer clean, and avoids platform-VAT obligations falling on us.
What if I don't already have a Stripe account?
We spin one up for you during onboarding via Stripe Express — it takes about 3 minutes (legal name, address, ID document). If you already have a Stripe Standard account, connect it via OAuth instead and keep all your existing customers, payouts, and reports in one place.
What commission do you take per sale?
Zero. 0%. The only money Sell receives is your €19/month subscription. Your buyer's payment lands straight on your Stripe account.
What does Stripe charge?
Stripe's standard rate: roughly 2.9% + 30¢ per successful card charge in most countries. That's their fee, paid to Stripe — Sell has no markup on top.
Do you ever touch the money?
Never. We use Stripe Connect direct charges, which means the buyer's card is processed by Stripe and credited straight to your Stripe balance. Sell receives no funds, no holds, no escrow.
How do refunds work?
You issue refunds from your dashboard (or directly in Stripe). When a refund is processed, Sell immediately invalidates the associated download links and license keys so the buyer can't keep redeeming after they've been paid back.
Taxes & legal
Who collects VAT, what you report, and how Belgian e-invoicing fits in.
Who collects VAT on the products I sell?
You do. Because money goes to your own Stripe account, you are the Merchant of Record for your own sales — you collect, declare, and remit VAT yourself (or your accountant does). Stripe Tax on your own account can automate the calculation if you enable it.
I sell to EU buyers — do I need OSS registration?
If you're an EU-based seller and your cross-border B2C digital-services revenue stays below €10,000 per year, you can apply your home-country VAT rate to all EU sales. Above that threshold you must register for OSS (One-Stop Shop) and charge each buyer's country VAT.
What about DAC7 platform reporting?
DAC7 is the EU rule that requires marketplace platforms to report seller earnings to tax authorities. Because each seller is paid directly on their own Stripe account, Sell is a software subscription rather than a marketplace of record — Stripe handles 1099-K and DAC7-style reporting on the account where the money settles, which is yours.
I'm in Belgium — what about Peppol e-invoicing?
Since 1 January 2026, B2B invoices between Belgian businesses must be exchanged via Peppol. The invoice Sell issues you for your €19/month subscription complies with Peppol. For the invoices you issue to your own B2B buyers, you handle that on your own accounting or Stripe side.
Am I the Merchant of Record?
Yes. Because the buyer pays your Stripe account directly, your business name appears on the buyer's card statement and the legal sales contract is between you and the buyer. Sell is your software provider, not the seller of your goods.
Products, files & releases
What you can sell, file size limits, and how delivery works.
What types of products can I sell?
Three: digital downloads (any file format up to 2 GB per file), license keys (auto-minted on purchase, verifiable via /api/license/verify), and subscriptions (recurring billing routed through Stripe).
What's the maximum file size?
2 GB per file. Uploads stream directly from your browser to private storage on Cloudflare R2 — there is no function-body timeout and no proxy bottleneck.
How do my buyers receive their file?
Instantly. The moment Stripe confirms the payment, we email the buyer a signed download link. Links expire after 72 hours and cap at 5 successful redemptions to prevent uncontrolled sharing.
Can I ship updates to a product after launch?
Yes — every product has a Releases tab. Bump a version, upload the new file, and existing buyers can re-download the latest version from their purchase page (and opt into release-notification emails).
How do license keys work?
For products marked LICENSE_KEY, every paid order auto-mints a unique XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX key. Your app verifies a key with a single HTTP GET to /api/license/verify, which returns its validity, the product it belongs to, and its activation count.
Are there bandwidth or storage caps?
No hard cap during the trial or on Pro. Storage runs on Cloudflare R2 (zero egress fees), so high download volumes from your buyers don't push you into surprise costs.
Developer tools & distribution
REST API, webhooks, embeddable widgets, custom domains.
Is there a public API?
Yes — a REST API at /api/v1 covering products, releases, file uploads, and publish actions. Authenticated with bearer tokens you generate in your dashboard. Full reference at sell.thinkspark.dev/docs/api.
Do you support outbound webhooks?
Yes. Register endpoints in your dashboard to receive HMAC-SHA256 signed events for order.paid, order.refunded, release.published, and subscription lifecycle events.
Can I embed a product on my own site?
Two ways. Drop a <sell-product> web-component on any page (works in plain HTML, Notion via embed, and most CMSes), or paste a Markdown badge that links to checkout with the current price baked in.
Can I use my own domain for my store?
Custom domains are on the roadmap. For now your storefront lives at sell.thinkspark.dev/p/{your-slug} with full per-store branding (color, avatar, OG image).
Is there a Claude Code skill?
Yes — install the sell-push skill and Claude drives the API end-to-end: create product, upload binary, attach to a release, optionally publish. Idempotent via externalId, so re-runs are safe.
Privacy & data
Do you email my buyers?
Never marketing. The only emails we send to your buyers are the order confirmation (with their download link or license key) and release-notification emails when they opted in. Your customer list belongs to you — we don't cross-promote or rent it.
Where is my data stored?
Database on Neon Postgres (EU region), files on Cloudflare R2 (auto-replicated), emails via Resend. The application is hosted on Vercel in Frankfurt (fra1). Daily encrypted backups.
Can I export my data?
Yes. Your dashboard exports orders to CSV, and you can pull product, release, and order data via the REST API at any time. If you ever leave, you take your buyer list (emails, order history) with you — it's yours.
Why Sell vs alternatives
Why not Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, or Polar?
Those platforms take 5%–10%+ commission per sale and act as Merchant of Record, meaning your customers see the platform's name on their invoice and the platform owns the buyer relationship. Sell is €19/month flat — your Stripe, your invoice, your customer list.
Why not Shopify?
Shopify is optimised for physical-first commerce. Selling a digital download well needs the Basic plan plus paid apps for delivery, then transaction fees if you don't use Shopify Payments. Sell is built digital-first from day one — file delivery, license keys, releases, and webhooks ship in the box.
Is this a real business or a side project?
Real business, single founder, profitable from the first paying customer because the platform is built lean — no VC funding, no growth-at-all-costs pressure. The roadmap is public and we ship in public.
Still wondering something?
Spin up the 14-day trial without a card — see if it fits before deciding.