Social media platforms are a great way for influencers to build an audience, but they're walled gardens that don't make it easy to sell products online.
Services like Stan Store help influencers and content creators turn their followers into customers. Stan Store's easy-to-use link-in-bio offering is certainly appealing, but unlike some of its rivals, there's a substantial subscription fee.
Is it worth the money? Let's take a look.
What is Stan Store?
Stan Store is link-in-bio tool with a twist. It offers a full suite of ecommerce and marketing tools for creators, and enables them to build a professional-looking link-in-bio store that provides a seamless shopping experience for their followers. Stan Store aims to be a one-stop-shop, providing access to all the services you need to run a successful content business in one place, and for one subscription fee.
With Stan Store, you can sell coaching calls, digital downloads and even online courses. You can also collect mailing list signups and provide your customers with links to other third-party sites via your link-in-bio.
Who Uses Stan Store?
The core audience for Stan Store is social media influencers who want to sell courses or digital downloads to their fan base. The link-in-bio store is designed to encourage TikTok, Instagram or Facebook users to make purchases.
In theory, the store page could be used in other ways, such as by podcasters or bloggers, but that's not the main goal of the platform. The look and feel of the store pages makes it clear they're designed with a mobile device in mind.
Stan Store Pricing: How Much Does Stan Store Cost?
Stan Store does not offer a free tier. To use the platform at all (outside of the free trial), users must purchase a membership. There are two core plans, at $29 per month and $99 per month.
Creator Plan
The Creator plan is the lowest tier. It costs $29 per month for those on a month-to-month membership, with a 20% discount if you pay for a year in advance.
This plan includes all of the basic features, such as the link-in-bio store and the ability to sell courses, digital downloads, and calendar bookings. The Creator plan even includes some email marketing options (although they're quite limited) and basic analytics features so you can see how well your store is performing.
Creator Pro
Creator Pro costs $99 per month, with the same 20% discount offered to those who opt for an annual membership. Creator Pro members have access to the same features as the standard Creator plan, along with more sophisticated analytics, affiliate links and email flows. This tier also unlocks payment plans and other advanced pricing options which may appeal to influencers who are selling premium products.
Both tiers offer a selection of templates so you can tailor your Stan Store page to match your brand. The pages are designed to look like they're a part of the platform the user came from, helping increase conversion rates.
In addition to these membership fees, sellers should also factor in any additional fees their chosen payment processor might take. The platform supports Stripe and PayPal. The fees charged by these platforms can vary depending on the exact payment method chosen.
Each Plan Allows for One Store Only
One thing to consider when evaluating Stan Store is that the prices above are for one store, and the company themselves recommends that you list no more than 4-6 products in your store. You can add more if you really want to, but doing so is likely to reduce your conversion rate.
Let's imagine you're a personal trainer and you have a few different demographics you want to reach. If you wanted to have a store for bodybuilders, a more casual 'beach body' profile, and one for your sports-focused training. Each demographic has their own course, downloadables, and calendar bookings. In this case, you'd have to pay for a subscription for each store. There's no bulk discount for running multiple accounts, so those subscription fees could mount up pretty quickly.
What Does Stan Store Include?
The list of features offered by Stan Store is quite impressive. The thing that attracts most creators to the platform is the link-in-bio store creator, which is a drag-and-drop tool that makes building visually appealing, high-converting stores a quick and simple task. However, the platform has many other useful features, including:
- A built-in course creator
- Everything you need to sell digital downloads
- Calendar booking integration
- Analytics
- Email marketing
- Sales funnel builders
- A referral program tool
- Third-party integrations for other marketing and analytics software
If you sell coaching calls, courses or other online services, having access to all of these features in one place could be handy. Not only does it save you time by putting all the features you rely on in one place, it could save you money too.
Let's consider how much it might cost to replicate the core technical features of Stan Store:
- A Link-in-Bio Store: Up to $29 for Linktree/Squarespace
- Calendar Bookings: $15 a month for a service such as Calendly
- Online Courses: $99 for Mighty Networks
- Mailing Lists: From $13 a month for the basic Mailchimp tier
That's $156 a month for those services, before taking into account the cost of purchasing attractive mobile-friendly themes for your store or paying a coach to help you learn how to make the most of your link-in-bio and improve your marketing efforts.
Stan Store offers all of the above features, and more, for just $29 a month. If you really were going to be using all of the above tools and you only want to run one store to monetize your (already popular) social media accounts, Stan Store's Creator tier is great value for small creators.
Is Stan Store Worth it?
If you're a creators with only a few products to sell, then Stan Store offers great value for money. The platform has a polished UX and a lot of features. However, if you want to sell more than 4-6 products then this is not the best option for you.
Benefits of Stan Store
- Incredibly easy to use
- Provides a seamless, social-media-friendly user experience
- A one-stop-shop for your marketing and ecommerce needs
- Mobile-friendly course builder
Downsides of Stan Store
- High fees if you don't need all the features
- The store works best if you're only selling a handful of products
- Limited to one store per account
- Not ideal for sellers whose traffic comes from sources other than social media
If you're an influencer or content creator running your business as a small side gig, you might not sell enough products every month to make the fee worthwhile. The same applies if you don't plan on using the course creator or calendar booking features. It doesn't make sense to pay for an all-singing, all-dancing ecommerce and digital marketing platform if all you want to do is sell the occasional ebook or instructional video.
So, there's no clear answer to whether Stan Store is worth it. On the one hand, Linktree offers a flexible link-in-bio page that's free forever and provides a decent subset of Stan Store's features. On the other hand, as your needs grow you might find attempting to "grow your own" tech stack to replicate Stan Store ends up costing more than it would to just subscribe to the platform in the first place.
Before you make a decision, take a moment to list the tools you're currently using and consider what you're going to sell in the next few months. If that list includes coaching calls or online courses, Stan Store could be a practical solution, if you have only a couple of products to sell.
Another thing to consider is where your traffic comes from. If you're a blogger or podcaster with a strong traditional web presence you might prefer to sell via your own website. If you're a relatively new creator and you don't have a huge social media following yet, you might not want to spend a lot of money on a platform like Stan Store when you can test the waters with something less expensive.
Whop: A Platform That Offers More For Less
When most people go looking for alternatives to Stan Store, they focus on rival link-in-bio platforms, but other approaches to selling online are worth considering. One such example is Whop.
Whop is a social commerce platform that aims to level the playing field for entrepreneurs. It provides accessible, easy-to-use tools that anyone can take advantage of. You can sell almost anything via Whop, including:
- Telegram and Discord group memberships
- Calendar appointments
- Online courses
- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Community access
- Digital downloads
- Trading signals
Getting started with Whop is a quick and simple process, just like selling on Stan Store. Instead of creating a single-column bio page, you create a Hub, which you can then add content to. You can choose whether to sell access to the Hub or let people join for free, and you can also set prices and access levels for products within the Hub. Once your Hub is ready, just copy the link and post it in your bio!
Your Hub is the home for your followers. It's a great way to identify your super fans, engage with them on a deeper level, and monetize your content. Plus, the Hub is totally customizable, so you can add as many or few Whop native apps as you like. Add the chat app for community engagement, the files app to sell ebooks, the courses app for courses, the forums app for Q&A, the video app for webinars or coaching - the list goes on and on!
Whop offers all of these features, and more, for no monthly fee. You can set up a Whop Hub and list your products and you won't be charged a cent until you start making sales. The pricing structure is designed in a way that helps you succeed:
- No monthly fees
- No limits on the number of hubs, products or courses you can create
- Low commission on sales (just 3%)
- Accept payment via credit or debit cards, or cryptocurrencies
Another benefit of Whop is that there's no vendor lock-in. You don't have to worry about having all your eggs in one basket. If you decide you want to use a different platform for some of your marketing efforts, you can easily export your data either by hand or using one of the powerful API integrations.
Start Creating and Selling With Whop
If you're a content creator or social media influencer who wants to start selling products online, or you're already selling digital products but feel like the platform you're working with now is too restrictive or too expensive, why not try Whop? Getting started is easy and risk-free, since we only make money when you make money.
Whop is a platform that grows with you. The pricing structure removes any barriers to entry and the flexibility of the platform means you can sell almost anything you can imagine, and integrate the store with your existing way of doing things, whether that's social media marketing or blogging. Get started selling online now. Sign up and create your first Whop Hub today!
