How To Sell On Gumroad...The $230k Case Study

We were checking out people who promoted how to sell on Gumroad and stumbled across someone who sold $230k worth of product- one pdf and one video.

First think that came to mind...really? You don't hear too many success stories from this platform- mainly Amazon KDP. so we went further and found their Gumroad homepage...and products. 

The author? Daniel Vassallo.

And when you look at the two products in question, well, its actually true.

The pdf- The Good Parts Of AWS...15540 sales at $10:

Then we have the video. Everyone Can Build A Twitter Audience...15310 sales at $25

As of 2025 that equates to:

• $155,400 in ebook sales
• $382,750 in video sales

That is pretty successful :)

How to sell on Gumroad (successfully)...what did Daniel do?

After doing some reverse engineering and checking out interviews and posts Daniel actually reveals how it is done.

The process is 3 step:

1. Have an audience
2. Show them a product that they want
3. Make sure the product is priced at a buyable level.

And that is it.

It is a formula not just how to sell on Gumroad but other platforms as well. 

But all this is very low level. How do we get people to like us, how do we get products? What happens when we give our information away for free?

How to get subscribers that want what you have

The main idea, and what the vast majority of successful businesses do, is to go where the customers are.

Uploading to generalised websites will only get you so far and get some name recognition out there. The main focus area to part your knowledge is the usual areas:

• Forums
• Niche specific websites
• Niche specific groups on social

It is wise to do all three, why? Because:

• Forums open you up to discussion with people who know the topic
• Websites attaches your knowledge to something that the owner is trying to generate traffic to- you will get side association
• Social allows your knowledge and name to spread

And then?

Give away your knowledge. Discuss, help and give.

The more freely you give the more people are going to associate you will that topic and will be warmed up to your style.

Then?

Show them where they can find out more about you. Followers are people who want to know more about the person- if promoting that, the product- if promoting that. If it is you then followers are wanting to know more about you. And specifically you...what are your opinions etc on that topic.

People will ask you questions, and lots of them

Guess what your product would be?

Yep, those questions enlarged and you are giving it to an audience who already likes you. You have been given free market research.

Daniel had 12000 Twitter followers just by doing the above. And the main groundwork for all those sales comes from that audience.

Pricing strategies for Daniels eProducts? 

If you have a steady stream of traffic then you can test price points. You start at an amount and then slowly increase the price until the sales level out. If they start to drop then you slowly bring down the price until levelling off occurs.

What did Daniel do?

For any new product you usually do the following:

• Attractively price- low initially and then raise after a certain time limit
• Have a pre-order price that is a lower
• Attach a bundle to the product- pre-order bundle, an ongoing bundle etc. Related bundles make products a simple buy
• You can go too low in price which then makes the buyer wary. 
• You have to be careful though. If you are going to discount a high priced product it is going to annoy the people who bought at the higher price which can lead to negative reviews and refunds.

For Daniel the AWS ebook started its pre-orders from Oct–Dec. Daniel started at $24, raised price to $28 then $38, later dropped to $15 during COVID. The price drop gave second sales boost. Now we are at $10.

The Twitter course had no pre-orders. Launched at higher price (~$100), sales dipped, then reduced by $10 and then this unlocked demand.

All this is helpful because?

• If you have a ton of sales initially then your ebook goes up the charts quicker
• You gain lots of testimonials and reviews which fuels more sales and positioning
• The important thing that Daniel did notice is that overall, volume at accessible price beats high-ticket scarcity for consumer info products
• You gain fans- some of the people who bought also signed up for newsletters or became followers

Any additional advertising?

Yes there was. 

Daniel tried a few methods and here are the results:

• He created a post discussing the lead up to each product being sold and then uploaded that to various social websites with that niche audience
• Ran a “pay what you want” promo ($1 minimum). This lead to 150k impressions, $8k revenue, 2,559 sales. What this promotion did was to boost reach and increase word of mouth.
• Reddit ads in niche subreddits: At $0.50/click Daniel barely broke even. During COVID, CPC dropped to $0.10 this then made the PPC profitable. However when the CPC started to rise the campaign became unprofitable.

Unfortunately we don't know the click through rates or the prices of the products when these ads were done. Reddit is also a very community based platform. When Noah Kagan used Reddit to promote Imgur it was a specific product that Rediit was using and he offered it at a steep discount which worked.

Remember what wasn't said

it is important to consider what also is present when you look at Gumroad. This isnt actually mentioned within Daniels posts  but it is highly effective.

The actual Gumroad sales page.

We have:

• A colourful title that is straight to the point (this is for the AWS ebook)

• Under the picture title we have the title of the book and then by the side of it, how many reviews
• We have the main part of the page discussing the product
• A link to a book sample
• Contents listed
• FAQ
• Praise from others

Then on the right we have how many sales, and again the review amount with "add to cart" and a guarantee.

All these add to the sales process. If you are funnelling people to the product you need to make them feel "safe" and that the product is targeted to them. Just by looking at this you can see people liked it and it sold in large quantities.

How to sell on Gumroad case study takeaways?

The main round up is that:

• Followers what like what you say and are following you are highly likely to buy or at least be interested in products that you may have. So the quality of the follower is generally better than the amount of followers.
• Price should be flexible- low price to get the sales going and then start to increase the price. Warn at the start that this is what is going to happen. Adding bonuses is a smart move. Ebooks top out at $28 but can go much higher if the audience demands it.
• Daniel posted about his ebook to his list of followers multiple times depending when something changed (price, discount).

The main take away is the audience. Always has been. Trying to get an audience that likes what you say to follow you. Unsure how long this section took for Daniel but it was simpler to sell to them a product that they was looking for rather than finding an audience for your product.

Check out ebook marketing 101 here

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