Stan Store was founded in 2020 by John Hu and Vitalii Dodonov as a link-in-bio service for social media content creators.
What is Stan Store?
Stan Store is a link-in-bio ecommerce platform that allows creators to sell digital products, host online courses, and manage bookings all in one place. The tool is more of a mobile-optimized storefront rather than a traditional website. It serves as a link for customers to purchase products without leaving their social media app, such as Instagram or TikTok.
Stan store allows you to sell digital products, courses, memberships, or subscriptions, and even includes a built-in calendar feature for coaching services or meetings.
How does Stan Store work?
Stan works by allowing you to add your products to a backend. Stan store hosts the files on its platform. Then, from there, you’ll have a minimalist storefront without any advanced features. You get charged a monthly subscription fee ranging from $29 to $99 to keep it live. You then add this link to your bio link on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X, Pinterest, and so on.
Customers who check out your profile will find the link and can look for your products. For example, when you launch a course, you can tell your followers to check out your link in bio to buy it. Then, your followers will check out your bio link to buy the content if it’s relevant to them. However, you do need to still promote your bio link, as most people won’t be casually checking out your profile on its own.
What you need to know about selling on Stan store
One thing to know about selling on the Stan store is that there are no free plans. If you’re a new creator with few followers, or if you try to sell a product but end up with no sales, you’ll still be on the hook for a monthly subscription.
Stan store only has two plans on the platform: Creator and Creator Pro. Unfortunately, most features are gated behind the Creator Pro plan. For example, on traditional tools, you’ll find some of these features even on the free plan. However, on the Stan store, these features are gated, such as email marketing, discount codes, upsell offers, payment plans, affiliate payments, and pixel tracking.
Stan store is only a link-in-bio tool. It doesn’t give you a website; it only provides a very basic storefront. There aren’t many customization options for your storefront, so it’s hard to make it look and feel like an official brand asset. The design is rather minimalist, and if you plan to sell many products, this might not be the best option.
It is also not built for organic search traffic. It’s only a link that converts social media followers into buyers. Other tools, like website builders, let you put your website in your bio link and build a blog to drive organic traffic to it.
Stan store doesn’t have its own marketplace where you can sell your products to reach a new or bigger audience. You’ll have to bring in all your customers to the platform yourself through social media.
It isn’t designed for selling physical products. If you want to sell both physical and digital products, you’ll need to look at Stan store alternatives. For example, if you’re a mindset coach and you sell a custom journal you designed that needs to be shipped out, you’ll be better off choosing another platform.
Is Stan store the best platform for selling products?
No, Stan store isn’t the best platform for selling products; Payhip is. Payhip offers a beginner-friendly, free forever plan that lets you sell products on your very own website, with a 5% transaction fee per sale. That way, you don’t pay fees until you’ve made money yourself. Plus, you’ll be able to sell more than just digital products on your website; you’ll also be able to sell physical ones. In addition, you can drive traffic to your website via social media, organic traffic, LLMs, and more based on the platform’s features. To start selling products, sign up for free today.