Payhip Review – Pricing, Features, Pros and Cons

In general, eCommerce platforms come in two flavors. At one end, you have self-hosted solutions like WooCommerce and Magento. On the other end, you have hosted eCommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce.

Online store builders like Payhip forms the bridge between these two ends. eCommerce platforms like Payhip are not as feature-rich as Shopify or WooCommerce. But, they are often the best choice for small businesses needing online exposure.

But, is Payhip the right choice for you?

In this Payhip review, we are going to have a close look into Payhip features. We will also discuss the advantages and limitations of this online store builder.

This Payhip review will tell you if Payhip is the best eCommerce platform for you.

Please note that some of the links in this Payhip review are our affiliate links. If you follow these links to buy anything at our partner website, we will receive a small commission. This helps us to cover the running cost of this website.

Payhip Review

What if you want to launch your online shop with a simple and easy eCommerce platform? What if you want to start an online business for free? Is there any free online store builder that can host your shop right away?

Let me introduce you to Payhip!

Payhip is a hosted eCommerce platform that lets you start selling almost for free. You can run promotions. You can track your sales. 

Before diving in, let me be vocal here. 

Payhip is not a drop-in replacement of platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce. It is not as feature-rich as these platforms. But, if you are looking for a solid yet easy store builder – Payhip may be the answer. 

But is this the best free eCommerce platform for you? Let us find it out. Let us check the Payhip features, pros, and cons in detail.

In this Payhip Review we will cover:

• How to sell on Payhip
• Store customization
• Using custom domain
• What can you sell using Payhip
• Discount coupons
• Affiliate program
• Payhip fees
• Payhip pricing
• Payout processing
• email marketing
• Summary

How to sell on Payhip?

Payhip is a hosted online shop builder. This means Payhip hosts your storefront. You do not manage the server or the eCommerce software. Moreover, you do not have to pay for hosting in the free plan.

Getting started with Payhip is easy and does not even take one minute.

• Head over to Payhip.
• Create a free account with an email and password.
• Add your first product.
• You can customize your shop.
• Add your payment methods.
• Start selling!

After you create a free account, you can start selling your products on the hosted storefront. 

But that is not all. You can also sell from your social media and websites. You can place the checkout or cart on your preferred sales channel and sell the products.

For example, you can share a direct link to your product on your social media. If you prefer so, Payhip lets you embed a buy button on your website. These buy buttons will allow your customers to buy the product right on your blog or website. 

Payhip also allows you to embed the product page on your website instead of adding a buy button if you prefer so.

There is seamless integration between Payhip and these sales channels. Payhip ensures a responsive checkout experience across desktops or mobiles. 

After a successful sale, your customers can immediately download digital goods. Payhip also sends the download details over email.

Payhip supports PayPal and all other major cards for payment processing. Also, you can accept several different currencies in your Payhip store.

If you are wondering about the security of your digital goods, Payhip has you covered. You can stamp PDF files for free to discourage your customers from illegal sharing. 

You can even decide the number of download attempts. By default, Payhip allows three downloads for each digital product.

If you sell software licenses, Payhip can generate, store, and issue software keys for you.

Moreover, Payhip can handle your EU VAT calculations on its own.

Store Customization

As part of this Payhip Review, let us now focus on how to customize your Payhip store.

You can customize your hosted shop only to a limited extent. 

You can customize the color and logo to match your brand. You can change the color and borders of the buy buttons and cart buttons. You can set a background image for your storefront. The Payhip design editor also lets you set the background color of the storefront. 

You can upload a profile photo for your store. Add a short bio for your store. Add your social media links to your Payhip store.

If you know CSS, you will be able to control more of the visual aspects of your store.

But, do not have the impression that you can change the look and feel of your online shop completely. There is no provision to upload any custom theme in Payhip. 

The good news is, the simple and modern Payhip theme works!

You will get basic yet solid analytics to track the traffic to your store. Connect Google Analytics and Facebook pixel to your Payhip store for detailed analytics.

Moreover, you can create email templates. Change the subject and message for the email receipt sent to your customers. 

Using a Custom Domain

Unfortunately, you can not use a custom domain with Payhip even with the premium plans.

Your online store will live as payhip.com/[your username].

This should not be a show stopper if you are creating your online shop as part of a bigger primary platform like a blog. This also works if you want to sell via social media.

But, if you want to build an eCommerce brand – Payhip is not going to work for you.

You must take note of this serious Payhip limitation before your sign up with Payhip.

What can you sell using Payhip?

Payhip allows you to sell digital goods, physical goods, and memberships. You can sell eBooks, software, videos, etc.

If you are planning to sell membership on your website, Payhip can be a good option. You can set up different plans for your subscribers including free trials. You can even sell exclusive content for your members. And did we mention that this means recurrent payment processing? 

Payhip allows self-service access to your members for managing their accounts.

Using Discount Codes in Payhip

You can use discount coupons for your store.

You can create discount coupons in Payhip and run promotional campaigns.

Defining a coupon code is simple and straight forward.

Discounts can be a percent or by an amount. You can create discounts as time-limited or perpetual. Besides, you may even limit their number of usages.

Another very interesting Payhip feature is its ability to fuel social promotion. You can offer your customers extra discounts if they tweet or like your products.

Payhip Review: Affiliate Program

Affiliates can be a huge source of traffic aka income for your online shop. For this reason, affiliate programs must be a part of your marketing strategy. 

It is good to know that Payhip offers the ability to build your affiliate network. Affiliate management is available even to the free tier users. Decide the commission you want to offer to your affiliates for successful referrals.

Moreover, upselling and cross-selling products very easy with Payhip.

Payhip Fees

It is important to understand the Payhip fees clearly. Payhip fees depend on your subscription plan.

In the free plan, you pay a transaction fee of 5%. For the most expensive paid plan Payhip transaction fee is 0%.

Also, keep in mind, you have to pay the standard payment gateway charges. 

Payhip Review: Pricing Plan

Payhip is available in three different pricing plans. 

The unique Payhip feature is all three plans offer every feature of Payhip. No limitations in the number of products. No restriction of revenue.

The only difference between the three plans is the Payhip fee.

Free Plan of Payhip

It is interesting to note that Payhip is one of the few online store builders that offer a perpetual free tier. If you are a free tier user of Payhip, you need to pay 5% transaction fees to Payhip.

Plus Plan of Payhip

The Plus plan comes at a monthly price of $29. If you opt for the Plus plan, your transaction fees drop down to 2%.

Pro Plan of Payhip

The Pro plan is the most expensive Payhip plan. It comes at a monthly price of $99. In this plan, Payhip does not charge you any transaction fee.

But, as I mentioned earlier, Payhip fees are over and above the standard Paypal/Stripe fees. 

Product Pricing in Payhip

Payhip gives you the flexibility to price your products as you wish. You can mark up your products at a fixed absolute price. You can even offer products for free. Moreover, you can give your customers the freedom to quote their own price. 

Payhip does not charge you any transaction fee for free products.

Payhip Review: Payout Processing

This is interesting.

Payhip does not hold your money. It does not wait till you reach some threshold or till a specific day of the month and week. 

You will receive the payouts in your connected Paypal or Stripe account right away.

Note that you can accept payment only in your Paypal or Stripe account. You can even set the default currency for your store.

If you prefer, you can set up an 11 character description for all transactions in your Payhip store. This is what will appear on your customer’s bank statement.

Selling physical goods with Payhip

You can sell physical products using Payhip. Payhip lets you define your shipping-from address. This is the physical location from where you ship your orders. You can also add the destination locations that you ship to. Payhip also lets you configure the respective shipping rates.

Payhip Review: Email Marketing

Payhip does not have any inbuilt email marketing system. But, you can connect with your customers to notify them of new offers with Payhip’s email updates.

Payhip supports email marketing systems like MailChimp, CampaignMonitor, and many others. You can sync your subscriber list to one of these supported email marketing systems.

Payhip Review – Summary

Payhip is right for you if:

• You need a cost-effective yet feature rich online shop builder.
• You need a powerful but free online shop builder.

Payhip is not for you if:

• You need to create a brand.
• You need abilities for complete customization of your store.

Payhip Review – Final Thoughts

In this Payhip Review, we discussed the features, advantages, and limitations of Payhip. We are sure that will now be able to decide if Payhip is the best online store builder for you.

In short, we found Payhip as a solid eCommerce platform. It has enough features to launch a small online business for free. 

But, if you want a branded eCommerce store – Payhip will disappoint you. Lack of support for the custom domain itself kills that prospect. You cannot add any custom functionality to your Payhip store. You have to be content with whatever features come out-of-box in Payhip.

But if you want to start a small scale business for free, Payhip is perfect! 

Head over to Payhip. Create a free account and start selling for free.

Are you using Payhip for your online business? Please let us know your comments. 

And, if this Payhip Review helped you – share it!

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