How to Migrate From Gumroad: A Step-by-Step Guide

To migrate from Gumroad, you export your sales and customer data, rebuild your products and checkout on the new platform, tell your buyers how to reach what they bought, test a real purchase, and only then retire the old storefront. Nothing about this is hard. The risk is in the order: creators who switch the checkout first and sort out customer access later are the ones who end up answering angry emails. This guide gives you the order, the checks at each stage, and the US tax and email rules that apply while you move.

TL;DR

• Back up first: export your sales CSV and download every product file before you change anything, and keep one untouched copy.
• Treat the move as an inventory exercise: list every product, every buyer and what each buyer is entitled to, then confirm each one exists in the new setup.
• Email your customers with the CAN-SPAM basics in place: honest subject line, postal address, working unsubscribe.
• Run both stores side by side, test a real purchase on the new one, then redirect and unpublish the old one rather than deleting it.
• Reconcile your Form 1099-K with your own records, because it reports gross payments and a switch mid-year means more than one source of figures.

Table of Contents

• Before you start: decide why you are moving
• Step 1: Back up everything and freeze a clean copy
• Step 2: Export your customer and order data
• Step 3: Rebuild your products, checkout and delivery
• Step 4: Keep existing customers' access
• Step 5: Handle subscriptions, refunds and support
• Step 6: Email your customers the right way
• Step 7: Get your US tax and payment settings right
• Step 8: Test the new store, then wind the old one down
• Where BibliOWLteca fits
• Our perspective: migrate the relationships, not just the files
• A realistic timeline
• Common mistakes to avoid
• FAQ
• Sources

Before you start: decide why you are moving

A migration costs a few days of focused work, so it should buy you something specific. The reasons we hear most from creators selling educational products are practical ones:

• Payment methods your buyers actually use. If part of your audience lives outside the US, a card-only checkout loses sales. Local methods such as Pix in Brazil or SEPA in Europe change conversion for those buyers.
• Tools built for teaching. E-books and files are one thing. Video lessons, quizzes, mentoring spaces and community areas are another, and they work better when the platform was designed for them.
• Tax handling when you sell into Europe. Selling to EU buyers brings VAT questions that a US-focused setup may leave to you.
• Fee structure. Some creators want no monthly charge and a cost that only appears when a sale happens.

Write your reasons down. They become your acceptance test later: if the new store does not do what made you leave, the migration is not finished.

Step 1: Back up everything and freeze a clean copy

Start with a rule from migration practice in general: keep one protected original backup that nobody edits, and do your work on a separate copy. An independent creator platform migration checklist recommends exactly this, along with limiting access to the people carrying out the move and keeping records for as long as applicable requirements demand.

In practice, that means:

1. Create a folder called something like gumroad-backup-original and a second one called migration-working.
2. Download every product file (PDFs, ZIPs, audio, video) from your Gumroad dashboard. Do not assume your own computer still has the final versions.
3. Save your product descriptions, cover images, pricing, variants and any custom thank-you messages as plain text or screenshots. These are the pieces most easily lost, because they live only inside the platform.
4. Export your sales and customer data (next section).
5. Make the original folder read-only, or copy it to a second location. Only touch the working folder from here on.

If you employ a virtual assistant or a developer, give them access to the working copy only. Fewer hands on the original means fewer ways to corrupt it.

Step 2: Export your customer and order data

Your customer list is the most valuable thing you take with you, and it is the part that cannot be rebuilt from memory. Gumroad lets you export sales as a CSV file. Three details from a guide to the Gumroad CSV columns save a lot of trouble:

• Timestamps are in UTC. The guide advises adding a one-day buffer to both ends of your date range, so orders near midnight at the boundaries are not left out. You can remove duplicates afterwards.
• The export may not arrive instantly. If it is not available at once, Gumroad emails it when it is ready, so start it early and do not wait on it the day you go live.
• A Totals row sits at the bottom. The same source warns that you must delete it before importing the file anywhere else, or it will be read as a customer.

The file can include purchase, buyer, product, price, tax, refund, recurring-charge, currency and custom-field information. Open it in a spreadsheet and check it against reality before trusting it:

Save the cleaned file as a new version in your working folder. Never overwrite the original export.

What does not move with a CSV

A spreadsheet moves information, not relationships. Buyer accounts, saved card details, and the permission a subscriber gave a payment provider to charge them again do not travel as a column of text. The migration checklist cited above makes the same point: importing a customer list is not proof that a payment mandate has moved. Plan on the assumption that active subscribers will need to opt in again on the new platform.

Step 3: Rebuild your products, checkout and delivery

This is the part where you move product pages, pricing, payment and file delivery to the new setup. Work from a simple inventory table with one row per product:

Fill it in from your backup, not from memory. Then build each product in the new store and tick it off.

Product pages

Copy your description, but re-read it. A migration is a free chance to fix the page that never converted: a clearer first line, a proper preview of what is inside, a plain statement of who the product is for. Keep the same product names where you can. Buyers who search their inbox for the old name should still find the new one, and any search traffic you earned for a title is easier to keep.

Pricing and currencies

Decide whether to keep your prices identical or to use the move to adjust them. If you sell internationally, set prices in the currencies your buyers use rather than letting every buyer see a converted US dollar figure. On BibliOWLteca, the storefront supports multiple currencies and international payments, so buyers in different countries can pay in the way that suits them. Our guide to payment processing for creators explains how those options differ.

Digital delivery

Upload the files, then buy the product yourself and open the delivery email on a phone as well as a laptop. Check that links work, that large files download fully and that the message tells the buyer where to find the purchase again later. For courses, check that video plays, quizzes score correctly and lessons unlock in the order you intended. If you are moving from file-only products to a full course, our piece on hosting educational content and selling it worldwide covers the structure.

Your first emails after purchase

The delivery message is the one email every buyer opens. Map what a new buyer should receive in the first minutes and days before you launch. Our walkthrough on mapping the first onboarding email after payment shows how to plan it.

Step 4: Keep existing customers' access

The test of a good migration is whether a person who bought from you last year can still get their files this year without writing to you. Think of it as mapping entitlements: for each buyer, what did they pay for, and where can they now reach it?

There are two honest ways to handle it, and you can mix them:

1. Leave the old purchases where they are. Keep the relevant Gumroad products published for existing buyers' library access, closed to new sales if you wish, until you are sure everyone has what they need. This is the safest option for older products with few buyers.
2. Re-issue access in the new store. Use your cleaned CSV to give each past buyer of a product access to its equivalent in the new platform, then tell them how to log in.

Whichever you choose, keep the reconciliation simple: one row per buyer per product, with a column for "access confirmed". Only mark it once you have checked, for a sample at least, that a buyer can really open the content. Refunded orders stay off the list.

A short note for buyers works better than a long one. Say where the product now lives, how to get in, and whom to contact if something fails. Link directly to the login or library page.

Step 5: Handle subscriptions, refunds and support

These three are where most migration complaints start, so give them their own plan.

Subscriptions and memberships

Because the payment permission does not move with a file, you have two options. Either let current subscribers finish their paid period on the old platform and invite them to subscribe on the new one afterwards, or ask them to re-subscribe on a set switch-over date. The first is gentler and avoids double charges. Whichever you choose, never create a new charge for someone who has not agreed to it, and say clearly when the old subscription will end.

Refunds

Promise your buyers that the refund terms they bought under still apply. Keep the old platform open long enough to process any refund requests on old orders there, since a refund generally has to be issued from the place where the payment was taken. Write the policy for the new store in the same place buyers will see it before paying.

Support

For the first weeks, add a short line to your support address auto-reply explaining the move. Keep a shared log of every problem and its fix. Patterns show up quickly: if five people cannot find their download, the delivery email needs a better link, not five individual answers.

Step 6: Email your customers the right way

An announcement to your list is a commercial email in the eyes of US law if it promotes your new store, and the rules in the FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide apply. In short, your message needs:

• Accurate header information and a subject line that does not mislead about the content.
• A clear indication that it is an advertisement where that is required.
• A valid physical postal address.
• A clear and easy way to unsubscribe.

The FTC also says opt-out requests must be honoured within 10 business days, and that people who have opted out must not have their addresses sold or transferred, apart from to a service provider helping you comply. For a migration, that means two practical things. Carry your unsubscribes across: anyone who opted out on the old platform must not be added back to the new list because they happen to be in your CSV. And check how your new platform records consent, so you can show later who agreed to what.

If you have buyers in Europe, data protection rules add their own requirements about moving personal data. Our GDPR checklist for course sellers is a good place to check you are covered.

A simple three-email sequence works well:

1. Heads-up, about two weeks before. What is changing, why it benefits the buyer, and that nothing they bought is lost.
2. Switch day. Where to log in, with a direct link and a plain explanation.
3. Follow-up a week later. For people who have not logged in yet, a reminder with the same link and a contact address.

Step 7: Get your US tax and payment settings right

A mid-year platform change means your income for the year is recorded in more than one place. Plan for that from day one.

The IRS advises reconciling any Form 1099-K with your other tax records, because it reports gross payments, before fees or refunds, and you must report taxable income even when it does not appear on a 1099-K. Those points come from the IRS's Form 1099-K FAQ update. The same document says payment-card transactions have no minimum reporting threshold, while third-party settlement organisations generally report when payments exceed $20,000 and transactions exceed 200. It also notes that states may apply lower thresholds, so check your own state's rule.

For your migration, that translates into a short checklist:

• Keep both platforms' year-end records. Download the full sales report from the old platform before you close or unpublish anything.
• Compare totals. Your own records should explain the difference between gross payments on any 1099-K and the income you report after fees and refunds.
• Record the switch date. A clear cut-off line makes it easy to see which sales belong to which platform.
• Check your payout details. Confirm the bank account or payment method on the new platform, and that your tax information is entered correctly before the first payout.
• Ask a CPA or enrolled agent if you have sales in several states, sell to buyers abroad, or are unsure what counts as income.

We go deeper on this in our guides on the 1099-K threshold for US creators and on avoiding 1099-K mismatches. If you sell to European customers, the new platform's European tax compliance tooling is meant to take over a share of that burden, but you still own your own US filings.

Step 8: Test the new store, then wind the old one down

Do not announce anything until you have run a proper test.

The test run

1. Buy your own product with a real payment method, and refund it afterwards if you like. A test that never touches a real checkout proves little.
2. Do it in each payment method you have enabled, and in each currency you sell in.
3. Open the delivery email, the download and the course on both desktop and mobile.
4. Try the unhappy paths: a declined card, a wrong email address, a buyer who loses their link.
5. Ask two or three loyal customers to try the store before the public announcement, and note anything that confuses them.
6. Check your analytics are recording the sale, so that you can compare conversion with the old store.

Running both stores in parallel

For two to four weeks, keep the old store live while the new one takes new sales. Update every link you control: your website, social bios, email signature, newsletter footer, YouTube descriptions and any affiliate or partner pages. Links you cannot edit, such as old guest posts, are the reason to keep the old pages up a while.

Retiring the Gumroad storefront

When traffic and sales on the old store have dropped off:

1. Update each old product page description with a line pointing to the new store.
2. Unpublish products from new sale rather than deleting them, so existing buyers retain access where you chose that option.
3. Cancel nothing that a customer is still paying for without telling them first.
4. Download a final set of sales reports and keep them with your tax records.
5. Only after the year's tax records are safely saved, and only if you have confirmed no one needs the old library, consider closing the account.

Where BibliOWLteca fits

If you are looking for a home for educational products, BibliOWLteca is a platform built specifically for educational creators. You can publish e-books, courses, templates and other digital downloads, run course hosting with video and quizzes, and set up mentorship and community spaces. Delivery is instant, storefronts are customisable, and checkout supports multiple currencies with options including Pix, SEPA, crypto and Klarna. There is no monthly fee: transaction fees start from €0.99 and are charged only when a sale completes. See the pricing page for the Creator Plan and the full fee details, or browse the product categories to see how storefronts are organised.

Our perspective: migrate the relationships, not just the files

Most migration guides are about files and spreadsheets. We think that is the smaller half of the job. A product is replaceable; the trust of the person who bought it is not. The creators who move well treat every past buyer as someone who has been promised something and must still be able to collect it.

That is why we built BibliOWLteca around educational content rather than generic downloads. Teaching products need delivery that works the moment someone pays, a place for learners to come back to, tools for mentors, and checkout that suits learners wherever they live. It is also why we charge only when you earn: a creator who is rebuilding a store should not also be carrying a monthly bill during the weeks the new store is still ramping up.

Our advice is to move slowly where customers are concerned and quickly where only you are affected. Rebuild pages fast, but give your buyers time, clear instructions and a second chance to find their files. Our overview of how a digital marketplace helps global educators explains the thinking behind the platform, and our guide to publishing and selling digital products worldwide covers the next step once you are live.

— BibliOWLteca

A realistic timeline

A small catalogue of up to ten products and a few hundred customers is usually a matter of days of work, spread over a few weeks of calendar time:

If you have courses with long video libraries, add time for uploads. If you have active subscribers, add time for the opt-in period.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Skipping the Totals row. One stray line in your CSV can become a fake customer in your new system.
• Moving everything in one night. A parallel period costs you nothing and catches problems before buyers do.
• Sending the announcement before testing checkout. The people most eager to buy are the ones who click first.
• Re-adding unsubscribed people. Honour opt-outs across platforms.
• Deleting the old account too soon. You may need its reports for tax records and refunds.
• Forgetting your own links. Old bio links and pinned posts keep sending buyers to a store you no longer use.

FAQ

Can I export my customers from Gumroad?

Yes. Gumroad provides a sales export as a CSV file, which can include buyer, product, price, tax, refund, recurring-charge, currency and custom-field details. Add a day's buffer to both ends of your date range because timestamps are in UTC, and delete the Totals row before importing the file anywhere.

Will my customers lose access to what they bought?

Not if you plan for it. You can keep the old products published for existing buyers' library access while you stop new sales, or re-issue access in the new store from your customer list. Confirm for a sample of buyers that the content really opens before you retire anything.

Can I move my subscribers automatically?

Treat it as unlikely. A customer list shows who subscribed, but it does not move the permission to charge their card again. Let current subscribers finish their paid period and invite them to subscribe on the new platform, with a clear date for when the old subscription ends.

Do I have to tell my customers by email, and are there rules?

Telling them is good practice, and if the message promotes your new store, it is a commercial email under US law. The FTC's CAN-SPAM guidance asks for accurate headers, a non-misleading subject line, a physical postal address and a clear unsubscribe method, and says opt-outs must be honoured within 10 business days.

What should I do about taxes when I switch platforms mid-year?

Keep the year-end reports from both platforms and record your switch date. The IRS says a Form 1099-K reports gross payments without fees or refunds, so reconcile it with your own records and report your taxable income regardless. For your own situation, ask a CPA or enrolled agent.

Sources

• Creator Platform Migration Checklist
• Export Gumroad Customers to CSV: Every Column and Field
• CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business, Federal Trade Commission
• IRS Form 1099-K frequently asked questions update

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• Payment processing for creators: a guide to global sales
• Abandoned Cart Recovery for Digital Products: A Practical Guide
• Digital products: How to publish, sell, and thrive worldwide
• How to License Your Course Content: A Creator's Guide