Hotmart was founded in 2011 by entrepreneurs João Pedro Resende and Mateus Bicalho. They wanted to create a platform that monetized content creation. Their platform has served over 200k content creators, with over 500k products, and sales from over 188 countries.
What is Hotmart?
Hotmart is an ecommerce platform that helps content creators sell digital products, such as online courses, ebooks, subscriptions, and membership sites. The platform is primarily used by those living in Latin America. It offers built-in tools for payment processing, marketing, and more.
How does Hotmart work?
Hotmart works by enabling creators to create products that they can then add to the platform. Hotmart acts as a host for its products and helps deliver them to buyers upon sale. Affiliates on the platform earn commissions on product sales but aren’t the creators or owners of the products. The buyers are those who purchase and benefit from the digital product.
Both creators and affiliates make money on Hotmart. Creators earn money from the sale of their product that they’ve invested time into designing. However, they benefit from only having to create the product once and from being able to sell it an unlimited number of times. Affiliates market products from the Hotmart marketplace and promote them on their own websites, social media, or email lists. They get paid once a customer buys from their tracked link.
What you need to know about selling on Hotmart
Hotmart is a platform with high fees. They only take a commission when you make a sale. However, that commission comes at a steep 9.90% plus $0.50. Plus, they also take withdrawal fees. When you withdraw higher volumes of money, you’ll have a lower fee. If you withdraw up to $50, you’ll need to pay $9. Overall, this can eat into your profitability quite quickly.
Hotmart is the Merchant of Record and the legal seller for your product. As a result, they have delayed payout schedules. Plus, their payouts have additional fees for advanced payouts. You can choose between a 2-day and a 14-day payout schedule, each with different fees; the 14-day payout has the lower fee.
As a Merchant of Record, Hotmart also has strict design guidelines for its checkout experience to ensure compliance. As a result, you’ll be limited by their templates, as you’ll need to match the checkout process of their other customers. Plus, buyers will see that the purchase is made from Hotmart, which may make your brand less visible. For instance, Hotmart’s company name will appear on their credit card billing information.
Hotmart is known to have a steep learning curve. It can be an overwhelming process for a beginner to set up a storefront, as some of its features are a bit too complex. Other platforms still offer the features you need while letting you set up your store in minutes.
On Hotmart, the platform offers an affiliate program for its marketplace. If you sell on the marketplace, you could get more sales from affiliates, though you would earn less income due to their fees. Some sellers may feel pressured to offer higher commissions to get more sales, though this dilutes your profits. You also can’t build your own native affiliate program on the platform you manage, which could give you more control over how you’re positioned in the market.
Is Hotmart the best platform to sell products?
No, Hotmart isn’t the best platform to sell products. Payhip is a great Hotmart alternative because it handles global taxes automatically. Plus, it has lower fees at 5% per transaction. Plus, Payhip doesn’t charge withdrawal fees on its platform, allowing you to keep more of your funds. Payhip also has a marketplace where you can sell your products to a wider audience. Plus, you can build your own affiliate program to maximize your sales. To start selling your products online, sign up for free.