How to sell e-books, planners and templates online in the UK: VAT, delivery and free samples

This guide is for UK authors, designers and small publishers selling e-books (PDFs and EPUBs), printable planners, spreadsheets and document templates online, on Payhip, Gumroad or Podia today or about to start. It covers VAT, today’s platform fees against a shop with its own card rate, consumer law and licences, and launching with a free sample and a printed edition. Disclosure: we build Orbit Commerce, a hosted platform with a digital product type, so weigh the Orbit parts accordingly. Every tax and legal fact was read on gov.uk, legislation.gov.uk or the European Commission’s VAT pages, and every fee on the platform’s own page, on 8 November 2026.

Do you charge VAT on e-books, planners and templates?

The zero rate for printed books was extended to e-publications on 1 May 2020, “potentially slashing the cost of a £12 e-book by £2” (gov.uk news story, 30 April 2020, checked 8 November 2026). HMRC’s VAT Notice 701/10 (section 9, last updated 31 July 2020, checked 8 November 2026) covers e-books, e-newspapers, e-magazines and e-journals.

Three exceptions matter. An e-publication more than half advertising, audio or video is standard-rated (paragraph 9.2), as are audiobooks in any format (9.5) and an e-publication “predominantly for completing (for example, an electronic diary)” (9.6). That is the planner rule: a dated planner you fill in is a diary to HMRC, on paper or as a PDF, and printed diaries and calendars are standard-rated stationery (section 8). Templates are not publications, so the zero rate never reaches them. A planner that is half guide, half pages to fill in sits on the line; have an accountant look at the file before you price it.

None of this applies until you are VAT registered: the threshold is £90,000 of taxable turnover in any rolling 12 months, zero-rated sales included, so an e-book at 0% still counts. You must also register if you expect to pass it in the next 30 days, and may register voluntarily below it (gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026). Our guide to UK VAT for online sellers has the detail.

What about customers in the EU?

Sell a download to a private customer in the EU and VAT is due where they live, at that country’s rate, from the first sale, with no threshold for a UK business (gov.uk, last updated 28 March 2022, checked 8 November 2026). Register in each country, or once under the EU’s non-Union One Stop Shop scheme (HMRC still calls it Non-Union VAT MOSS) and file one quarterly return (European Commission, checked 8 November 2026). Get a VAT agent before the first EU order.

What do Payhip, Gumroad and Podia charge today?

All three price in US dollars, so the sterling cost moves with the exchange rate. Read from Payhip’s, Gumroad’s and Podia’s own pricing pages on 8 November 2026:

Stripe’s standard UK rate is 1.5% + 20p (stripe.com, checked 8 November 2026), and Gumroad’s help centre says its fee excludes card processing, charged at 2.9% + $0.30 a sale, and PayPal fees. So, 100 sales of a £12 e-book in a month, £1,200, on UK personal cards, at Stripe’s UK rate where it applies:

• Payhip Free Forever: £60 in fees plus £38 to Stripe, £98, no plan.
• Payhip Plus: £24 plus £38, £62, plus the $29 plan.
• Gumroad: £120 plus $50 in fixed fees, plus card processing of £34.80 and $30: £154.80 and $80, no plan.
• Podia Mover: £60 plus £38, £98, plus the $42 plan.
• Orbit Solo: £24 plus £25 in fixed fees, £49, plus the £25 plan: £74.

The shape matters more than the pence: a percentage fee grows with every sale, while a plan fee is the same at ten sales and a thousand. At £12 a copy Orbit Solo and Payhip Free Forever cost the same at about 50 sales a month; from there Orbit Solo costs 49p less on every sale, and the saving grows with every copy. A marketplace earns its cut, though: Gumroad’s 30% Discover fee buys a customer you did not have to find, and your own shop is where the readers you already have buy at the lower rate.

How does the file reach the buyer on your own shop?

On Orbit a download is a Digital product, one of six types on the products page, and the editor shows only what a download needs: no weight, no stock, no delivery step at checkout. You attach the files (a PDF or EPUB, a spreadsheet, a zip of a pack), set how many days a download stays live, mark any file as a free sample, and give each file a version number so editions are told apart. Variants carry their own files, so A4 and A5 editions sit on one page, and templates can carry licence keys you generate or import.

When the order is paid, the buyer is emailed the download links and any licence key. The free sample sits on the product page under “Try before you buy”. Signed-in buyers also find their files under Downloads in their account, so a lost email is not a lost purchase. A set of three planners is one product with three files. The buyer receives the file itself, and the licence you write, covered below, sets what they may do with it.

A printed edition is a separate Physical product beside the download, with weight, dimensions and stock, and a Royal Mail or courier label bought from the order. Orbit’s bundle type is a fixed kit of physical products, switched on for your shop on request, so a boxed set of printed planners can be a bundle; a group of downloads is one product with several files. Our guide to selling digital products, subscriptions, services and gift cards has the wider catalogue.

What licence are you selling with the file?

A shop sells a file; your terms say what the buyer may do with it, and that is the licence, yours to write. Put it in one plain sentence on the product page and repeat it in your terms.

• Personal use, the e-book and printable default: read, print and use the file yourself; do not share, post or resell it, or print copies for others.
• Commercial use, what a template buyer needs: use the finished document or spreadsheet in your own business, client work included; do not sell or give away the template itself or a lightly edited copy. A team, or an agency using it across clients, needs an extended licence, priced separately.

A template licence usually adds that the buyer may edit freely for their own use, may not claim authorship, and may not upload the file to a stock site or shared drive. For commercial licences, an hour with an intellectual property solicitor is money well spent.

What does consumer law require when you sell a download?

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026) gives digital content its own chapter: satisfactory quality (section 34), fit for any purpose the buyer made known to you (35), as described (36). If not, the buyer has a right to repair or replacement (43), then a price reduction (44). The government’s summary names e-books and describes “a clear right to repair or replacement” (gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026). So describe the file exactly (format, pages, paper size, dated or undated, which apps open it); gov.uk tells online sellers to “include as much information as you can” (gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026). If a file is corrupt, send the buyer a working copy.

The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give consumers 14 days to cancel most online purchases. For digital content not on a disc, regulation 37 (legislation.gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026) says you must not start the download inside the 14 days unless the buyer has given express consent and acknowledged that the right to cancel will be lost. Do both and the right ends when the download begins; miss either, or fail to send the contract confirmation, and a buyer who cancels pays nothing (37(4)). Gov.uk puts it as three steps: get the customer to agree to an instant download before it starts, get them to confirm they know they lose their 14-day right, and include this in your confirmation of the contract. On Orbit the order confirmation email is a template you edit in your own words, so the wording goes in once.

How do you price and launch a download?

The handmade pricing formula still applies to a file: materials are near zero, but the hours you spent writing or designing are real, so spread them over the copies you expect to sell and add a share of overheads. Three things are specific to downloads.

1. The fixed part of a card fee bites on small prices. 25p on a £3 download is over 8%; on a £30 set it is under 1%. Sell small things in sets, or set a floor price.
2. VAT changes what you keep, not the price the buyer sees. Registered, a £12 e-book and a £12 planner sell at the same price, but the planner hands £2 to HMRC. Price it higher or accept the margin, knowingly.
3. A set is one product. Three planners as one product with three files, priced below the three apart, pays one card fee instead of three.

For the launch, a free sample on the product page does what a browse in a bookshop does: a chapter, a planner page or a template sheet with the formulas showing, and it proves the file opens in the buyer’s app. A blog on your own domain carries extracts and launch news, with product links straight to the book; on Orbit it is on every plan with no post limit, and an About the author page is built in the page builder. A discount code with start and end dates and a cap on uses runs the launch week and closes itself; checkout takes one code per order. Gift cards in set amounts let people give your planners as a Christmas present: the card is emailed to the recipient when paid for and redeemed at checkout. Launch newsletters run through the Mailchimp or Omnisend sync plugin.

Where Orbit fits

Orbit Commerce is a hosted shop with a Digital product type on every plan, so selling and delivering a download needs no plugin. Solo is £25 a month, or £19 a month billed yearly, ex VAT, with unlimited products, 100GB of storage, the blog, discount codes, gift cards and the page builder, on AWS in London with SSL. Card payments cost one published rate per plan with nothing added on top: 2% + 25p for UK personal Visa and Mastercard on Solo, 3% + 25p for European cards and 3.65% + 25p outside Europe. Team (£85) and Pro (£249) take the UK rate to 1.7% + 25p and 1.5% + 25p. The theme store lists free and premium themes by industry; pick one for a small publisher and change its colours, fonts and logo in the dashboard.

Moving in is a spreadsheet job: products import from a CSV, you attach the files, and a redirect map imported from a CSV keeps the links on your own domain working.

Read next: Patreon and Gumroad fees against your own shop, selling software with licence keys from your own website and memberships for creators on your own site.

Questions people ask about selling e-books, planners and templates online

Is there VAT on e-books in the UK?

E-books, e-magazines and e-journals have been zero-rated for UK VAT since 1 May 2020, so a registered seller charges 0% on them. Audiobooks, and e-publications more than half audio, video or advertising, are standard-rated at 20% (HMRC VAT Notice 701/10, checked 8 November 2026). An unregistered seller charges no VAT on anything.

Do digital planners and templates have VAT on them?

Yes, once you are registered. HMRC treats an e-publication predominantly for completing (its example is an electronic diary) as standard-rated at 20%, and templates are not publications, so they are standard-rated too (VAT Notice 701/10, paragraph 9.6, checked 8 November 2026). A planner that is mostly guidance may qualify for the zero rate; ask an accountant.

Can a customer get a refund after downloading an e-book?

Under regulation 37 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, the 14-day right to cancel ends when the download starts, provided the customer expressly agreed to start it, acknowledged losing the right, and you confirmed this in writing (legislation.gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026). Without those steps they can cancel and pay nothing. A faulty file is different: the Consumer Rights Act 2015 entitles the buyer to a repair or replacement.

What does Gumroad charge compared with my own shop?

Gumroad charges 10% + 50 cents on each direct sale, with card processing of 2.9% + 30 cents on top, and 30% including processing through its Discover marketplace; it has no monthly fee (gumroad.com, checked 8 November 2026). A shop on Orbit Solo is £25 a month and 2% + 25p on a UK personal card, nothing on top.

How do I offer a free sample chapter?

On Orbit, mark one of the files on the digital product as a free sample and it appears on the product page under “Try before you buy”. It is a file on the paid product’s own page, so the shopper samples and buys from the same page.

Run the table with your own sales, then test what a table cannot show: put a PDF on a product, mark a chapter as a sample, place an order with an offline payment method, mark it paid and read the email that lands. The 14-day free trial, no card required, is long enough to do that while your current shop keeps selling.