SoloStore → Payhip alternative
Payhip's free plan is one of the most generous starting points in this category — and the way you stop paying 5% of every sale is to start paying $99 a month. SoloStore is one payment, on your own hosting, at 0% from the first sale.
Short answer: Payhip is genuinely good and genuinely free to start — every feature, $0 a month, 5% of each sale. The catch is that 5%. Buying your way out of it costs $29 a month (Plus, still 2%) or $99 a month (Pro, 0%) — $1,188 a year to get to the number SoloStore starts at. SoloStore is $497 once and 0% forever, which is about what Payhip's free plan takes out of about $10,000 in sales.
The Free Forever plan charges 5% of every sale. On $50,000 of sales that is $2,500 a year — for software advertised at $0.
Pro is $99/mo. That is the plan where Payhip stops taking a cut, and it costs more per year than SoloStore costs once.
Your store, your buyers and your checkout live on Payhip. The plan you are on decides what your own sales cost you.
Every number below came off the vendor's own pricing page, checked 5 August 2026.
| Payhip Pro | SoloStore | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay | $0 / $29 / $99 a month | $497 once |
| Platform cut of each sale | 5% free · 2% Plus · 0% Pro | 0% — always |
| Price of reaching 0% | $99/mo — $1,188 a year | included |
| Fees on $50,000 of sales (Free) | $2,500 to Payhip | $0 to us |
| Fees on $50,000 of sales (Plus) | $348 + $1,000 = $1,348 | $0 to us |
| Year one on Pro | $1,188 | $581 |
| Every year after, on Pro | $1,188 | $84 hosting |
| You can host it yourself | No | Yes |
| Free plan to start on | Yes | No |
| Courses & memberships | Yes | Yes |
| Members' community | No | Yes |
| Sales funnels with upsells | No | Yes |
| Built-in email marketing | Yes | connects to Kit |
| Five-year total | $5,940 on Pro | $917 |
Payhip figures are public list prices from payhip.com/pricing, checked 5 August 2026. SoloStore's total is the one-time licence plus about $7 a month of self-hosting (Railway and Bunny, paid direct). Stripe's processing fee applies on both sides and is excluded.
A comparison page that only flatters itself is an advert. Here is where Payhip wins.
Stay on Payhip if you are pre-revenue and the free plan covers you, or if you would rather someone else be the seller of record. It is a fair deal — it just gets steadily more expensive precisely as things start working.
Two services, no markup, nothing paid to us — and a five-minute setup with no code and no terminal.
Not sure what self-hosting means in practice? Watch the five-minute setup video — it is the entire process, start to finish.
Other questions? Shoot me an email — matt@mattgiaro.com