Tipping
Gumroad · 2024
Gumroad asked creators a simple question on Twitter: tipping, yes or no? Yes received the largest share of 377 votes. Less than three days later, tipping was live.
You said yes. Tipping is here! https://t.co/tkmxVFUrMb
— Gumroad (@gumroad) August 10, 2024
The context
Tipping was proposed by Sahil, Gumroad’s CEO. Gumroad was looking for new ways to increase GMV, and this was one of the features we decided to build. At that point, success mainly meant increasing GMV.
I was the designer responsible for the experience. Gumroad was a small team, so I worked very closely with Sahil throughout. I explored possible approaches with another designer, then created the prototype and designed the UI.
The first release
I designed the tipping flow as part of the existing checkout, adding preset options and a custom amount directly before the pay button. The first version offered no tip, 10%, 20%, and a custom amount.
My initial recommendation was not to make tipping feel like an obligation. I come from a culture where tipping isn’t really part of everyday transactions, and a default 20% tip felt like it could put some pressure on customers. Sahil, coming from a US context where tipping is much more common, preferred 20% as the default. Since the main goal was to increase GMV, we went with it for the first release.
What changed
With 20% selected by default, tips increased GMV by around 4.5%. But after the launch, we started hearing from some creators who weren’t happy with the way tipping was presented. That led to a conversation with Sahil, and we agreed that while increasing GMV was important, listening to creators was more important than maximizing the lift.
We changed the default to “No tip”, which reduced the lift to around 0.7%.
I also suggested changing the tip amounts from 10% and 20% to 15%, 20%, and 25%, with “No tip” as the default. The idea was to make tipping feel less aggressive. I also thought that moving the lowest option from 10% to 15% might slightly increase the average tip, although we didn’t have evidence for that.
Creators began finding unexpected tips in their Gumroad account balances; some even thought there was a bug. Soon, a user shared their experience on Medium.
Looks like I am getting tipped at Gumroad! 💸
— Josef Strzibny (@strzibnyj) August 25, 2024
First I noticed I am getting sales for $17.99 and not $14.99. I thought something is wrong.
But it's just people giving me $3 tips😅
And just today I got a $5 dollar tip on my $50 book.
Nice little feature to help creators. Thanks…
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