Curios vs Payhip for Authors

Jul 18, 2025

Summary: 
Historically Payhip offered good tools to help indie authors go direct, but Curios brings a new and complete technology stack that makes this safer, easier, and more lucrative for indie authors. 

1 | The Money Math Favors Curios—Every Time

Payhip’s “Free Forever” tier looks appealing, but that 5 % platform fee stacks on top of Stripe/PayPal’s 2.9 % + 30¢ gateway charge. Sell ten $14.99 books and you forfeit about $14.84; move a thousand and watch $1,484 disappear in fees. Meanwhile Curios shifts the card fee to the reader, so you pocket the entire list price—whether you sell ten copies or a million. The higher your volume, the wider the earnings gap grows. 

Bottom line: Curios lets you keep 100 % of the sale price from day one, while Payhip takes 7–8 % of every payment unless you upgrade to a $99/mo “Pro” plan.

2 | Fulfillment & File Security: Download Links vs. Safe Delivery

Payhip’s model is too simple and this creates file safety risks. On Payhip, after purchase, the buyer gets a download link. You can add PDF stamping or impose download limits, but the file itself lives on customers’ hard drives—easy to forward, easy to share, easy to pirate. To deliver securely you’ll need a third‑party service like BookFunnel or Skybridge, adding another monthly bill and platform to manage. 

Curios, however, offers complete and safe fulfillment for your digital books. Readers can read or listen to books in the Curios app, on their ereaders, on partner apps like Bookfunnel’s reading app and more. Curios has excellent Digital Rights Management (DRM) built into the site and into the files and we make sure only the buyer of your book has access. 

Your catalog is protected, your readers enjoy a seamless experience. 

3 | Support and Setup - Avoid the Admin Nightmare

Additionally it is worth mentioning that on Payhip, you are operating your own site and any support of that site falls to you and your team. If the website is down, or a download link is not working, or a buyer wants to know how to get their downloaded file onto their e-reader. You or your team has to handle that. 

On Curios, those responsibilities fall to the Curios team. Our mission at Curios is to make it so you can sell direct without having any of the burden or headaches associated with selling direct. For any book sold on Curios, we handle the support. We handle the reader phone calls. 

Additionally your Payhip site is your site. You have to setup and manage that site. This is yet another administrative burden that prevents you from writing more, promoting more, or just enjoying your life. On Curios, we are a platform and marketplace, so once you upload, you are all set. You don't have to worry about uptime, website flow, SEO. Its all just taken care of so you can focus on what matters. 

4 | Discovery: Marketplace Flywheel vs. Solo Storefront

Another critical difference between Payhip and Curios is that Curios delivers a marketplace effect. This refers to the cross pollination that can occur when multiple people are selling similar items in a similar place.

It is very important to remember that readers read more than just your work. 

Payhip hands you a standalone storefront URL. This website exists in a silo. Traffic is 100 % your job—social posts, ads, newsletter, repeat. It can be very difficult to get readers to change behavior and all of a sudden go visit a new and different site. Readers are not accustomed to going there and have to always be driven there. This is not impossible but it does require a high/consistent ad budget to do so. 

Curios plugs your titles into a fast‑growing marketplace where thousands of readers browse daily. Genre carousels, “Readers Also Bought,” and in‑app push notifications put your work in front of new eyeballs. This is not to suggest that you wont have to promote your work. You still will. The effect of the promotion will be magnified by Curios as you can sell into the natural velocity that comes from readers using the Curios app and marketplace on a regular basis. 

5 | Tax & Compliance—Global vs. Partial Coverage

Payhip automatically remits EU/UK VAT, but everywhere else you’re on your own: U.S. state sales tax, Canadian GST/HST, Australian GST, chargebacks—they all flow through your Stripe or PayPal dashboard.

Curios acts as merchant of record worldwide. We identify the buyer’s locale, apply the correct tax, collect and remit it, then send you a tidy royalty statement. No quarterly filings, no Nexus calculators, no sleepless nights.

Curios adds the taxes to the buyer’s final checkout amount, so again, you wont have to have the taxes be cut from your sale price. You still receive 100% of any sales. 

6 | Analytics That Actually Help You Write Better

Payhip’s dashboard covers the basics—units sold and referrer URLs. This is largely because they don't do anything besides offer a download link. Curios on the other hand completely handles fulfillment and since we have an app to read or listen to the content, we dive much, much deeper on the analytics

Curios offers: 

• Completion information - how many readers/listeners finished your book?
• Drop off points - where did your reader or listener stop reading/listening? 
• Reader/buyer information - contact info, demographics, geolocation of reader
• Views/Impressions/Clicks - we output how your sales pages are performing
• Consumption Behavior - what time are people reading your work, what sections of the book did they not stop reading/listening.

Armed with granular data, you can become a better author and run a better business. 

7 | Setup Speed & Ongoing Overhead

Payhip: a hands‑on, multi‑step build

1. Wire the payments yourself. You must connect PayPal and/or Stripe, hopping out to each provider, completing KYC forms, and verifying accounts
2. Tweak a storefront theme. Fonts, colors, product grids, custom domain, embedded buy buttons if you already have a site—every change is on you.
3. Upload files + craft delivery emails. Each product needs its own downloads page and follow‑up message. Lose the link? You resend it manually
4. Repeat for every new release—compress audio files, update URLs, chase support tickets when customers misplace a download or the link leaks onto pirate forums.

Result: hours of up‑front setup and a steady drip of micro‑tasks every time you launch a book.

Curios: drag‑and‑drop, hit publish

1. Upload your EPUB or MP3. Curios auto‑generates product pages, cover art slots, and metadata.
2. Set the price, click “Publish.” Our system handles payment processing, tax calculation, and secure in‑app delivery—no gateways to wire, no download emails to babysit.
3. Future‑proof updates. Replace the master file once; every past buyer’s library updates automatically.

Five minutes and you’re selling worldwide—no themes, no plugins, no customer‑service gymnastics. Release after release, Curios stays friction‑free.

Final Word

Payhip was a good starter cart, prior to the debut of Curios, but it stops at “here’s your download link.” Curios rounds out many of Payhip’s shortcomings—maximizing net revenue, safeguarding your intellectual property, eliminating tax chores, and funneling fresh readers to your catalog. We are of course biased, but we think you’ll be surprised at the speed of upload and the lack of headaches or technical skill needed to get set up on Curios vs Payhip. 

Ready to retire from busywork and keep every dollar your stories earn? Start selling on Curios today