Stan Store vs Linktree, plus 9 Stan Store alternatives and what each one costs

Stan Store vs Linktree depends on what you sell. Stan has no free plan, only a 14-day trial, then $29 monthly ($300 billed annually) with no cut taken from your sales.

Linktree's free tier holds links and sign-ups, and selling digital products there starts on Pro at $12 a month on annual billing. Stan fits courses, bookings and memberships; Linktree fits a page that mostly sends people elsewhere.

The nine alternatives run from Payhip's $0 tier with a 5% fee to Kajabi at $143 a month. I run TrackRev, and its free link-in-bio page is entry 9.

Stan Store vs Linktree: price, fees and features

Twelve months of Stan Creator cost $300, against $144 for Linktree Pro ($12 times 12). The $156 difference buys a booking calendar, community features and an unlimited course builder under one login, where Linktree routes courses through Kajabi.

Premium is Linktree's priciest listed tier at $360 a year, $60 above Stan Creator, and the one that lists Instagram auto-replies, which Stan includes from Creator.

Neither tool lets you swap its address for yours. Stan's help center says a custom domain cannot be created or embedded, and forwarding from your registrar to the stan.store address is the closest you get.

A Linktree help article agrees and points to a Redirect link.

Stan earns its price if you will use at least two of its built-in parts, such as a course, a booking page, a paid community or AutoDM.

As a link list with a few downloads, $300 a year is poor value next to Linktree Pro or any percentage-fee tool below.

Linktree wins on cost for a small catalog and loses where it cannot sell: the Earn features list covers 35 countries, from Australia and Canada to the United Arab Emirates, and a seller outside them cannot use Pro for products.

How much Stan Store costs, and whether it is free

Stan's pricing article, updated July 22, 2026, answers the free question itself: you get a trial, not a free plan.

After 14 days you pick Creator or Creator Pro, and annual billing saves $48 on the first and $240 on the second.

The step from Creator to Pro costs $70 more each month, or $648 more over a year ($948 minus $300), and most of what it buys is email and promotion tooling.

If email is your main sales channel, $948 a year is what Stan really costs. Beacons lists unlimited email at $300 a year, and Payhip says every one of its plans gets every feature.

What 20 sales of a $25 product cost on each platform

Take one month with 20 sales of a $25 download, so $500 in revenue. The figures count platform charges only, and card processing is separate everywhere.

Stan's $29 undercuts Beacons' free-tier 9% fee at $322 of monthly sales ($29 ÷ 0.09), and any 5% fee at $580 ($29 ÷ 0.05). On annual billing, at $25 a month, those points drop to $278 and $500.

A $25 sale on Gumroad costs $3.00 there, so the tenth sale in a month ($30) already tops Stan's $29.

Below these volumes a percentage fee costs less, and a platform that charges nothing until a sale lands is the lower-risk way to find out whether your audience buys.

The alternatives at a glance

9 Stan Store alternatives, one at a time

1. Beacons, the closest match to Stan

Beacons puts a link in bio, a store, email and a media kit behind one login. Its $0 tier sells unlimited digital products at a 9% seller fee, with 50 email sends a month and real-time analytics.

Creator ($100 yearly, $10 monthly) keeps the 9% and adds a free custom domain and 500 sends. Creator Plus ($300 yearly, $30 monthly) drops the fee to 0% and brings courses with video hosting, memberships and unlimited sends.

The $300 matches Stan Creator's annual price, so choosing between them comes down to features. Beacons is the pick for unlimited email and a domain of your own, and Stan for community features, which Beacons' pricing page does not list.

2. Payhip, for every feature at $0

Payhip is the nearest free alternative to Stan for a plain store, and its plans differ only in the transaction fee.

Free is $0 with a 5% fee, Plus is $29 a month with 2%, and Pro is $99 a month with none, while all three carry unlimited products.

Its menu lists downloads, courses, coaching, memberships and physical products, and Payhip says it collects and remits EU and UK VAT for you.

Plus beats the free tier above about $967 in monthly sales ($29 ÷ 0.03), and Pro beats Plus above $3,500 ($70 ÷ 0.02). It is a store builder, so the link in your bio lands on a Payhip store page.

3. Gumroad, for tax handled by someone else

Gumroad has no monthly plan. It takes 10% + $0.50 on sales through your profile or direct links, and 30% when a new customer finds you through Gumroad Discover.

Since January 1, 2025 it has acted as merchant of record, collecting and remitting sales tax worldwide, which is the reason to accept the higher rate if you would rather not file VAT returns.

Small prices hurt most: a $5 product loses $1.00 (20%), against $0.25 on Payhip's free tier, and a $25 sale through Discover costs $7.50.

4. Ko-fi, for tips plus a small shop

Ko-fi's fee article describes two modes, both free to join. One-off tips cost 0%, while shop items, memberships, monthly tips and commissions carry a flat 5% service fee.

Money lands in your own PayPal or Stripe account, where the processor charges its usual rate, typically around 3% + $0.30.

Ko-fi Gold is $12 a month for new signups, on monthly billing only, and the same article says it replaces the 5% fee with 0%. The shop suits a creator whose income is part tips and part a few products.

5. Systeme.io, for $0 and a funnel builder

Systeme.io is the only free tier here that charges no fee on sales.

Its pricing FAQ lists up to 2,000 contacts, 3 sales funnels, 1 blog, 1 course, 1 affiliate program and 1 custom domain, with unlimited emails and file storage, no credit card and no expiry.

Startup is $17 a month for 5,000 contacts, unlimited funnels and 5 courses. The pages are funnel pages, so the link in your bio lands on a funnel rather than a storefront.

It fits a zero budget and some patience for building pages. Pick Stan if you want a ready-made storefront template, since its pricing article lists 11 of them.

6. Podia, for a store on your own domain

Podia starts with a 14-day trial and no card. Mover is $42 a month on annual billing ($49 monthly) with a 5% fee, 50 products, 100 email subscribers and 25 community spaces.

Shaker is $84 ($99 monthly), carries no Podia fee, and raises the limits to 150 products and 500 subscribers, plus upsells and affiliate marketing. Every plan includes a custom domain, a website with a blog, courses, downloads, coaching and events.

Mover totals $504 a year, so it is the pick when the store itself should live at your address and you can spend $204 more than Stan Creator.

7. Teachable, for structured courses

Teachable gives a 7-day trial and a 30-day guarantee. Starter is $39 a month ($29 annual) with 5 products and a 7.5% fee.

Builder is $89 ($69 annual) with 10 products, no fee and an affiliate program, and Growth is $189 ($139 annual) with 50 products, certificates and removable Teachable branding.

Stan Creator gives an unlimited course builder and no fee for $300 a year, while Teachable's cheapest fee-free plan costs $828 a year.

It fits a course sold to students who will log in through Teachable's iOS and Android apps, and it makes little sense as a bio-page store.

8. Kajabi, when the course is the whole business

Kajabi lists Basic at $143 a month on annual billing ($179 monthly), with 5 products, 2,500 contacts, 1 website, 1 community and 2 admin users.

Growth is $199 ($249 monthly) for 50 products and 25,000 contacts, and Pro is $399 ($499 monthly) for unlimited products and 100,000 contacts. The page states there is no revenue sharing, and processing fees apply.

Basic costs $1,716 a year, which is $1,416 more than Stan Creator. That premium pays off for a creator running a full course business with websites and funnels, and does not for one selling a few PDFs from a bio.

9. TrackRev, for a free page that sends people to a checkout

TrackRev's free link-in-bio builder does not sell digital products: it has no store, checkout or email capture.

It publishes without an account at trackrev.io/yourname, with up to 50 links, 12 social icons and 12 theme presets, and the builder has no switch for the "Made with TrackRev" footer.

A free account lets you serve the page from a domain you own, which neither Stan nor Linktree allows (see custom tracking domains for the DNS setup).

It fits when the checkout lives elsewhere, as with a Payhip or Gumroad product page or a Stripe Payment Link (attribution for Payment Links). When the page itself must take payment, use one of the eight above.

Seeing which bio link made the sale

Unless the link in each profile carries its own tag, a store on one address has no reliable way to tell which profile sent a visitor.

Stan puts ad pixels on Creator Pro, and Linktree's Premium plan adds all-time analytics with a data export. Below those plans you get Stan's store and product stats or Linktree's basic analytics.

A different utm_source on each profile's link (utm_source=instagram on one, utm_source=tiktok on another) gives whatever analytics you have something to split by. The free UTM builder tags a URL in seconds, and the UTM parameters guide covers each field.

Test one purchase before trusting that a given store reports the tag per order.

TrackRev's link tracking adds a counted hop between profile and store. It is free for 50 links and 1,000 tracked events a month, and paid plans start at $39 a month (pricing).

On a paid plan, revenue matching reads Stripe, Paddle, Polar and Lemon Squeezy. TrackRev has no Stan, Beacons, Payhip or Gumroad connector, so orders placed there are not matched to clicks.