Gumroad Help Center

Gumroad Community

In this article:

What is Gumroad Community?

Gumroad Community is a free feature that allows you to create dedicated chat spaces for your products. By enabling Community, you can foster direct communication with your customers, answer questions, share updates, and build a community of users around your offerings.

Communities are product-specific, giving your customers a space to connect not just with you but with each other, enhancing the value of your products and reducing churn through increased engagement.

Enabling Community for your product

To enable the Community feature for one of your products:

  1. Go to your product's edit page
  2. Find the "Invite your customers to your Gumroad community chat" toggle in the product settings
  3. Switch the toggle ON and save the changes

Once enabled, a new "Community" link will appear in the main sidebar, and customers who purchase this product will gain access to its community.

Managing your Community

Accessing your Communities

As a seller, you can access all your product communities from the main navigation once you have enabled Community for at least one product. You'll see a list of your product communities by accessing the "Community" link in the main sidebar.

Product-specific chat spaces

Each product with Community enabled has its own dedicated chat space:

  • Messages are organized chronologically
  • An unread divider shows which messages are new since your last visit
  • Daily dividers help organize conversations by date
  • You can switch between different product communities using the community switcher

Community Switcher

The Community Switcher allows you to navigate between different communities:

  1. Click on the community name at the top of the chat
  2. A dropdown menu will show all available communities:
    • Your own product communities (if you're a seller)
    • Communities from sellers whose products you've purchased

Community as a buyer

When you purchase a product with Community enabled, you'll gain access to that product's community:

  1. On the product's content page, you'll see a "Community" button
  2. Clicking this button will take you directly to that product's community
  3. You can participate in discussions, ask questions, and connect with the creator and other customers

Notifications and emails

Stay updated on community activity with customizable notifications:

  1. Access notification settings from within any community
  2. Choose how you want to be notified about new messages
  3. Enable or disable daily and weekly recap emails summarizing community activity

Recap emails

Keep track of community discussions with optional recap emails:

  • Daily recap: Get a summary of all community activity from the previous day
  • Weekly recap: Receive a weekly roundup of the most active discussions

Editing and deleting messages

For all users

  • You can edit your own messages after posting them

For sellers

  • As a product owner, you can delete any message in your product's community
  • This moderation capability helps you maintain a positive community environment

Community best practices

To build an engaging and valuable community:

  • Regular engagement: Check in daily to answer questions and acknowledge comments
  • Value-added content: Share exclusive tips, updates, and behind-the-scenes information
  • Encourage participation: Ask questions and create discussion topics
  • Celebrate successes: Highlight customer achievements and use cases
  • Address concerns promptly: Respond to issues quickly to show responsiveness
  • Welcome new members: Create a pinned welcome post with community guidelines (coming soon!)

Restrictions and limitations

  • Communities are product-specific and cannot be merged
  • Access is limited to customers who have purchased the product
  • Only plain text messages are supported
  • Communities cannot be transferred between Gumroad accounts
  • Community messages are not searchable
  • Once a message is marked as read automatically, it cannot be marked as unread
  • No instant message notifications (daily and weekly recaps can be enabled though)