Hey I’m Seth!

Founder, No Code MBA
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Gumroad vs Retool

An in-depth head to head comparison

In this article, read a side-by-side comparison between two no-code tools: Gumroad and Retool. We'll compare pricing, the benefits, the drawbacks, give examples of what you can and can't build, as well as our overall recommendation.

What is Gumroad?

Sell music, comics, software, books, and films directly to your audience.
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What is Retool?

Build internal tools, remarkably fast
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Pricing

Gumroad pricing

  • Free plan to list unlimited products has a 5% transaction fee with Gumroad branding
  • $10/month - $250/month based on number of customers ($10 plan includes up to 1,000 customers) to remove Gumroad branding, add your own CSS, use your own domain, HD streaming, and a lower fee (3.5% + 30 cents per transaction).

Retool pricing

  • Free plan with editor mode only and up to 5 modules
  • $10/month - $50/month per user enables user mode (people can use your app without the ability to edit your set up), version history, more modules, and more advanced features

Benefits

Gumroad benefits

  • Extremely easy to get started and use
  • Low fees
  • Active community

Retool benefits

  • Build internal apps connected to your company's data
  • Supports data from just about every database and data source
  • Lots of templates and components
  • Display, filter, and edit your company's data directly from retool
  • Allows businesses to create custom dashboards without developer resources

Drawbacks

Gumroad drawbacks

  • Less features and complexity than Shopify offers for e-commerce

Retool drawbacks

  • Somewhat high learning curve

What you can build

Gumroad use-cases

  • A simple landing page to collect emails
  • Sell digital products online, with lots of customization in how you can sell
  • Sell a membership
  • Sell physical products

Retool use-cases

  • Internal dashboards
  • Internal apps for your business such as a refund management system, data visualization, inventory management, content scheduler, promo code manager and more

What you can't build

What you can't build with Gumroad

  • A marketplace (check out ShareTribe)
  • A custom web app (check out Glide or Bubble)

What you can't build with Retool

  • Customer-facing apps (Retool apps are meant to be used internally)

Overall Recommendation

Gumroad recommendation

Gumroad is the best option for selling digital products online.

For selling physical products, Gumroad is a great simple option, but if you want a scalable e-commerce solution for physical products I'd recommend Shopify.

Squarespace and Webflow also have e-commerce functionality, but it’s more limited than Shopify.

Retool recommendation

Retool is a fantastic tool for building internal apps at your business.

Where Retool really shines is allowing non-technical people to build apps that interact with a live database without needing to use developers.

Retool is the best tool for this use-case.

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Unlock premium step-by-step tutorials building real apps and websites
Easy to follow tutorials broken down into lessons between 2 to 20 minutes
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Friendly Tip!
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Bring Your Ideas to Life with AI and No Code

Unlock premium step-by-step tutorials building real apps and websites
Easy to follow tutorials broken down into lessons between 2 to 20 minutes
Get access to the community to share what you're building, ask questions, and get support if you're stuck
Access all of this with No-Code MBA Unlimited
Unlock premium step-by-step tutorials building real apps and websites
Easy to follow tutorials broken down into lessons between 2 to 20 minutes
Get access to the community to share what you're building, ask questions, and get support if you're stuck
Friendly Tip!
Companies often reimburse No Code MBA memberships. Here's an email template to send to your manager.

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