Creators on Gumroad had no way to receive tips. Every sale was a fixed transaction, no room for a buyer to say 'hey, I loved this, here's a little extra.' For a platform built around supporting creators, that felt like a missed opportunity.
Approach
I designed the tipping flow as part of the existing checkout, adding preset options plus a custom amount, right before the pay button. The goal was to make it feel natural, not pushy.
We shipped a first version with 0%, 10%, 20% and custom tip, defaulting to 20%, which drove a 4.5% increase in GMV from tips. But some creators weren't happy with it being pre-selected, feeling it put pressure on their customers. So we listened and iterated. The second version replaced 0% with 'No tip', shifted the options to 15%, 20%, 25% to anchor people around the middle, and changed the default to 'No tip'. GMV from tips dropped to around 0.7%, but creators felt better about it, and that mattered too.
Custom tip
Outcome
Creators began finding unexpected tips in their Gumroad account balances, some even thought there was a bug. Soon, users were sharing their experiences in Medium. It quickly became one of Gumroad’s most appreciated and talked-about features that year.
Looks like I am getting tipped at Gumroad! 💸
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.
