GumRoad.md — Operator Playbook (template)

This is a reusable playbook template. Fork it for your own digital-product launches. Replace [YOUR COMPANY], your-domain.com, yourstore.gumroad.com, etc. with your real values. Keep the section headers — the bundled QA runner reads this file and validates every section is present.

Original by Meerkat LLC · Anna, Texas. Sold via Gumroad as the Gumroad QA Kit.

A reusable reference for launching any [YOUR COMPANY] digital product on Gumroad. Walks through the same "set up to the legal-review gate, then pause for attorney sign-off" pattern that meerkat-llc-studio and your-product-permalink both use.

Last updated: 2026-05-06. Operator-only. Not deployed publicly.

When to use Gumroad vs. Stripe Payment Links

Rule of thumb: every new [your brand] product launches on Gumroad first. Move to Stripe per-product once monthly volume × Gumroad fee delta > $100/mo.

The reusable launch sequence

This is the order [your brand] products go through. It's the same for every release.

Phase 1 — Pre-listing prep (no Gumroad action yet)

1. Build the .zip. Whatever the product is, package it deliverable-ready. See your-product-permalink/ and meerkat-llc-studio/ for two reference packages.
2. Build the marketing pages. Mirror the studio pattern — index.html, getting-started.html, support.html, faq.html, thank-you.html, plus SEO files (robots.txt, sitemap.xml, _headers, _redirects, netlify.toml, vercel.json, wrangler.toml).
3. Stage the legal pages (terms.html, privacy.html, refunds.html, license.html, acceptable-use.html) as drafts based on gumroad-docs/01–05. STOP HERE. Hand to attorney for review.
4. Build the Gumroad listing pack in <product>/gumroad-listing/: - 01-product-description.md (paste into Gumroad listing) - 02-feature-bullets.md (top fold) - 03-faq.md (append below description) - 04-delivery-email.md (receipt customization) - 05-refund-policy.md (snippet for the listing) - 06-launch-checklist.md (your checklist) - 07-promo-pack.md (launch-week social copy)

Phase 2 — Attorney review (the gate)

Send the attorney:

• The drafted legal pages from Phase 1.3
• The matching central source docs in gumroad-docs/
• A one-paragraph description of what's new about this product (e.g., "voice data, prosody scoring, GDPR implications for emotion classification")

Common asks they'll come back with:

• Tighten the data processing language if the product handles voice/biometric/PII
• Confirm right-to-record / two-party consent disclosures (esp. for Twilio products)
• Check EU AI Act language if any "emotion classification" or "inference" is happening
• Confirm the EULA's AI training carve-out matches your stance

Phase 3 — Gumroad product setup (after legal sign-off)

Use the per-product gumroad-listing/06-launch-checklist.md for the full step-by-step. The high-level steps are below.

One-time account prep (skip if done once)

• Sign up at gumroad.com as [YOUR COMPANY]
• Settings → Profile: username meerkatllc (so URLs are yourstore.gumroad.com/l/<permalink>)
• Settings → Payments: connect bank or PayPal
• Settings → Tax info: submit W-9
• Settings → Taxes: enter business address (Anna, TX 75409)

Per-product setup

1. Products → New product → Digital
2. Title, permalink (matching the website folder name), price (USD, fixed)
3. Upload the .zip
4. Cover image: 1200×630 OG image
5. Description: paste from gumroad-listing/01-product-description.md
6. Append FAQ + refund snippet
7. Custom Receipt URL → set to https://your-domain.com/<product>/thank-you.html ⚠ silent failure mode — without this set, buyers stay on Gumroad's default download page and never see your post-purchase page. Every first-time Gumroad seller misses this.
8. Settings → Receipts: customize the receipt email using gumroad-listing/04-delivery-email.md
9. License keys: enable if desired (Settings → License key) — Gumroad will then append ?license_key=... to the redirect URL

After-purchase URL parameters (what Gumroad sends to the redirect)

Gumroad appends these query-string params to the Custom Receipt URL on a successful purchase:

The thank-you.html template in every product reads these params via inline JS (see the <script> block at the bottom of your-product-permalink/thank-you.html for the canonical pattern). It populates Order, Email, Amount, and License Key on the page so the buyer sees their actual purchase details — no server work required.

The same template also handles Stripe's ?session_id=cs_xxx flavor for Path B.

To test the page in isolation (any browser):

thank-you.html?sale_id=demo123&email=buyer@example.com&price=2500&license_key=ABCD-1234

If you change the per-product price, you do NOT need to edit the HTML — the JS reads price from the URL and renders it. The static $25.00 in the markup is just a fallback for direct visitors with no params.

Wire the website Buy buttons

Two places to update for every product:

• meerkat-llc-site/index.html — homepage product card
• meerkat-llc-site/<product>/index.html — product landing page

Both should point at https://yourstore.gumroad.com/l/<permalink> (or your real Gumroad URL once it's confirmed live).

Then deploy:

cd ~/Desktop/meerkat-llc-site
./deploy.sh

Test the full flow

1. Open the homepage product card in a private window → click Buy
2. Complete a real test purchase with your own card
3. Confirm receipt email body, .zip downloads + extracts cleanly, success redirect lands on thank-you.html
4. Refund yourself in Gumroad → Sales → Refund (so you don't keep the $25 from yourself)

Phase 4 — Launch + monitor (use gumroad-listing/07-promo-pack.md)

• Day 0: LinkedIn post ([Operator] + [your brand] company page), X / Twitter thread, email to existing list
• Day 1: community posts where allowed (n8n / Notion forums, Indiehackers — read forum rules first)
• Day 3: follow-up post with first sale screenshot or first happy buyer quote
• Week 2: ProductHunt launch only if there's a meaningful upgrade or real testimonial
• Week 4: retrospective post — what shipped, what broke, what's in v1.1

Phase 5 — Ongoing

• Reply to support emails within 4 hours during launch week, 24 hours steady-state
• Note recurring questions → fold into the FAQ for v1.1
• After 10 sales, replace placeholder testimonials in the description with real ones
• After 50 sales, consider raising the price (founder-pricing window closes)
• Monthly: review the Gumroad payouts vs. Stripe fee delta; switch to Stripe Payment Link once it pencils out

Worked example — Your Product Name ($25)

Where it currently sits in the sequence (May 2026):

• ✅ Phase 1.1 — your-product-permalink.zip packaged (1 MB, 56 files)
• ✅ Phase 1.2 — Marketing pages staged in your-product-permalink/ (mirroring studio's pattern)
• ✅ Phase 1.3 — SEO files (robots.txt, sitemap.xml, _headers, _redirects, netlify.toml, vercel.json, wrangler.toml)
• ✅ Phase 1.4 — Gumroad listing pack written in your-product-permalink/gumroad-listing/
• ⏸️ Phase 2 — PAUSED — legal pages need attorney update
• ⏳ Phase 3 — Gumroad listing creation (after Phase 2 sign-off)
• ⏳ Phase 4 — Launch
• ⏳ Phase 5 — Ongoing

Buy-button placeholders are wired in: - meerkat-llc-site/index.html (homepage card) - meerkat-llc-site/your-product-permalink/index.html (package landing)

Both currently point at https://yourstore.gumroad.com/l/your-product-permalink, which becomes live once Phase 3 publishes the listing.

Reference docs

Common gotchas (from prior launches)

• Custom Receipt URL not set → buyers never see your thank-you page. Easy to miss because Gumroad's default download page works fine. The redirect is opt-in per product, in Settings → Custom Receipt URL. Without it, your thank-you.html is unreachable except by direct link.
• file:// directory listing leaks the buyer's local path. When buyers unzip the package and drag the folder into Chrome, Chrome shows its own auto-generated directory listing — Index of /Users/<their-name>/Downloads/your-product-permalink/ — instead of opening index.html. Browsers do not auto-serve index.html for file:// URLs. Don't let this happen on your watch — see "Buyer entry-point checklist" below.
• Gumroad URL drift. The username in the URL must match what's in your Settings → Profile. If you change usernames after wiring buy buttons, every product page needs an update.
• Cover image cropping. Gumroad crops to its aspect ratio (~16:9). The [your brand] 1200×630 OG images survive this fine, but eyeballed-up text near the edges can clip.
• EU VAT receipts. Some buyers' AP teams want a VAT-compliant invoice. Gumroad provides one but it's emailed separately ~24 hours after purchase. Document this in gumroad-listing/03-faq.md for any new product.
• Receipt email Markdown. Gumroad's editor drops some Markdown features (notably backticks on a fresh line). Test before going live.
• Refund button. Buyers sometimes ask for a refund through email rather than Gumroad's dashboard refund flow. Process it via Sales → Refund anyway so the books match.

Brand assets — canonical (use these for every product)

For every new product, in the package's assets/ folder copy this single file as meerkat-llc-logo.jpg and reference it from every HTML page's header and OG meta. Don't generate a new mascot, don't use a CSS-gradient placeholder, don't crop the face out. Same Professor [your brand] across every [your brand]-LLC product.

If a square-cropped version is needed for app icons / favicons / social squares, derive it from the same source file.

Buyer entry-point checklist (handle the file:// gotcha)

When a buyer unzips a [your brand] product, they have to navigate into the folder to get anywhere. Most browsers will show Chrome's Index of /Users/.../<product>/ directory listing instead of the proper landing page. Every [your brand] product zip should ship with all of these to handle that:

Acceptance test before launch:

# In Terminal, cd to your unzipped product folder, then run:
open "."   # macOS — opens in Finder
# Then drag the folder window into Chrome and confirm the URL bar
# shows file:///… and the page is one of:
#   ✅ START-HERE.html (auto-redirecting)
#   ✅ index.html (the styled landing)
# NOT:
#   ❌ "Index of /Users/…/<product>/" (Chrome's raw directory listing)

If you see the raw directory listing, the package is missing one of the entry-point files above. Add it and re-zip before listing.

Automated check — REQUIRED before publishing:

The gumroad-qa/ folder ships an automated runner that validates every item on this checklist against the live Gumroad product and the deployed website folder. Two equivalent runners:

• gumroad-qa/run-qa.py <permalink> — offline Python, exit code 0/1, ~10 sec per product
• gumroad-qa/n8n-gumroad-qa-workflow.json — n8n workflow that posts results to Slack + logs to Notion

Both read this GumRoad.md as the spec source of truth, validate every required section is present, and cross-check that the runner's required-file list still matches what's documented here. If GumRoad.md drifts from the runner config, the spec-validation step fails loudly — you'll know to update either the spec or the runner before the real product checks run.

export GUMROAD_TOKEN=...
cd ~/Desktop/meerkat-llc-site/gumroad-qa
python3 run-qa.py your-product-permalink      # must show PASS before you click "Publish" on Gumroad

See gumroad-qa/README.md for the full check list mapped to GumRoad.md sections.

The receipt email should explicitly tell buyers what to double-click, since "open the folder" doesn't take them anywhere useful. Use this line in gumroad-listing/04-delivery-email.md:

After unzipping, double-click index.html (or Open-Suite.command on Mac / Open-Suite.bat on Windows) to open the landing page. Don't just open the folder — your browser will show a raw file listing.

Per-product fee math

To know whether to stay on Gumroad or move to Stripe Payment Links:

gumroad_fee_per_sale  = price × 0.10 + 0.30        (free plan)
stripe_fee_per_sale   = price × 0.029 + 0.30
delta_per_sale        = gumroad_fee_per_sale − stripe_fee_per_sale

monthly_loss_on_gumroad = sales_per_month × delta_per_sale

Move to Stripe per-product when monthly_loss_on_gumroad > $100.

Glossary

• Permalink — the slug at the end of the Gumroad URL (yourstore.gumroad.com/l/<permalink>). Set per-product, immutable once you have buyers.
• License key — Gumroad's optional per-buyer activation token. Useful for software you want to gate, optional for static .zip downloads.
• MOSS — Mini One-Stop Shop, the EU VAT scheme Gumroad handles for you.
• Founder pricing — a deliberately low launch price to gather testimonials/reviews. Raise after 10–50 sales.

"[YOUR COMPANY]" and the Professor [your brand] mascot are marks of [YOUR COMPANY].

© 2026 [YOUR COMPANY] · your-domain.com · support@your-domain.com · built with care in [your city]