When it comes to selling your own digital products, there’s no tool more powerful than a creator store. Luckily, there are a number of creator store platforms out there for you to choose from.
In this article, we’re comparing The Leap and Stan Store, two popular creator monetization platforms. While Stan Store has been a creator go-to for a few years, The Leap has proven to be a great alternative, offering even more features for a $0 price tag.
While both platforms enable creators to build and sell digital products, there are some key differences between them that are worth unpacking. Let’s dive in.
Click here to start creating and selling digital products with The Leap. It’s free!The Leap vs. Stan Store: Key differences
| Platform | Digital product builder | Digital products you can build | Email marketing automations | Pricing |
| The Leap | Equipped with generative AI | Mini-courses, guides, tutorials, challenges | Free | Free, with zero transaction fees! |
| Stan Store | Standard course builder | Online courses only | Only on paid plan | Monthly subscription from $29 to $99 |
The key differences between The Leap and Stan Store come down to three things: their digital product builders, the cost of their email marketing features, and their overall pricing.
Digital product builder
First off, The Leap and Stan’s digital product builders are simply built different. The Leap’s authoring tool uses generative AI, which means it’s able to build polished digital products for you, very quickly. On the other hand, Stan Store’s course builder doesn’t have AI integration, which means you’ll need to put in all that time and effort creating products from scratch.
Another way the platforms’ digital product builders differ is in terms of which products they’re capable of creating. Compared to Stan, The Leap’s authoring tool is much more versatile, allowing you to create a breadth of engaging digital learning products, including mini-courses, guides, tutorials, and challenges. Stan’s tool, on the other hand, only allows you to build online courses.
Email marketing features
The Leap and Stan provide creators with a host of email marketing features they can harness to promote their content as well as their digital products and services. These include email broadcasts (i.e. regular newsletters) and automated email flows that promote your products (and earn you money) while you sleep.
With The Leap, users gain access to these features (plus email list building tools like lead magnets and opt-in forms) for free!
If you’re looking for the same features with Stan, however, you’ll need to pay a hefty fee. It’ll cost you $99/month to gain access to any of Stan’s email marketing features. And even if you only want to use the platform to build your email list, you’ll still need to subscribe to its starter plan for $29/month. Ouch!
Pricing
Secondly, the platforms have a massive difference in terms of pricing. In a nutshell: The Leap is free and Stan is not.
Once you sign up for a free Leap account, you gain access to all of the platform’s features free of change, like its supercharged digital product builder and automated email marketing, with zero transaction fees. The Leap’s free plan places a limit on just how many email contacts and live products you can host. So, if you want to boost your business with more contacts and products, you can simply upgrade to paid. That’s what we call a sweet deal.
Not so sweet? Stan charges users a monthly subscription fee to access even its most basic features. Bummer.
What is The Leap?
The Leap is the latest platform from creator tech company Thinkific. This all-in-one creator store features an AI-powered digital product builder, a mobile-optimized link-in-bio storefront, nnd powerful email marketing Features, enabling creators to create, promote, and sell their digital products all from one platform. Designed to help creators earn money online, The Leap allows you to transform your knowledge and expertise into digital products — and your audience into paying customers, quickly and easily.
Unlike other creator stores, The Leap provides a variety of features that give it a leg up on the competition.
- AI-powered digital product builder: The Leap’s digital product builder is the only of its kind powered by generative AI. Whether you want to create a mini-course, guide, tutorial, or challenge, The Leap’s authoring tool can create your digital product for you, speeding up the process exponentially.
- Free to use: The Leap is free. While many other platforms charge a monthly user fee or pocket a part of each sale, The Leap provides you with access to all of its features for free with 0 platform fees. Once you start making sales from your Leap store, all you need to pay is the standard 2.9% Stripe transaction fee.
- Creator analytics: The Leap offers a range of audience analytics including sales and leads reports, as well as traffic statistics, which give you the insight you need to build the products that will go flying off the (digital) shelves.
- Lead generation: The Leap’s authoring tool empowers you to turn your digital products into lead magnets, which help you grow your email list and, ultimately, boost your sales.
- Email marketing: Use The Leap’s pre-made email templates for setting up email flows and sending email broadcasts easily.
- Native calendar booking: The Leap’s Book My Time feature lets you earn bank for your time by selling one-on-one sessions with your clients. Simply set your availability in our calendar tool, publish your product, and watch the bookings (and cash) roll in.
- AI-generated landing pages: Putting your digital products up for sale just got easier. The Leap’s digital product builder is equipped with an AI writing assistant that creates your product’s landing pages for you in just a few seconds. Bonus: you can even use our AI assistant to edit your copy — by changing the tone, length, etc. — until you’re totally happy with it.
- Flexible payment options: Incentivize your followers to smash that “Buy Now” button, like, right now, with flexible payment options, like buy now, pay later plans; one-click payments; and coupon codes.
Overall, The Leap is a powerful all-in-one creator store designed to help creators kickstart their monetization journey. Its robust and one-of-a-kind features and its $0 price tag make it a great alternative to other creator stores on the market. Create your free Leap account today.
Build, market, and sell digital products all in one spot with The Leap!
What is Stan Store?
Stan is a creator store that enables creators to sell their digital products to their audience through a link-in-bio storefront. Stan was launched back in 2020 and has since become a popular tool among creators.
In addition to its storefront functionality, Stan provides users with an online course builder. Like many of its competitors, Stan also offers features like email marketing, audience analytics, and native calendar booking.
Stan offers several pricing options, including its Creator Plan for $29/month and Creator Pro plan for $99/month, both with no transaction fees. Unfortunately, Stan doesn’t offer a free plan, which means that all of its features come with a hefty price tag.
The Leap vs. Stan Store: Comparison
Now that you know the basics about The Leap and Stan Store, let’s dive into the specifics. Read on for a side-by-side comparison of the two platforms that breaks down important aspects like features and pricing.
| The Leap | Stan | |
| Price | Free! – $59/month | $29 – $99/month |
| Digital product builder | ✅ AI-powered digital product builder 🪄 | ✅ Standard course builder |
| Types of digital products you can build | Mini-courses, guides, tutorials, challenges | Online courses only |
| Creator store | ✅ | ✅ |
| Generative AI | ✅ | ❌ |
| Email marketing | ✅ Free plan | ✅ Only available on paid plans |
| Email list builder | ✅ Free plan | ✅ Only available on paid plans |
| Native booking calendar | ✅ Free plan | ✅ Only available on paid plans |
1. Pricing
When it comes to price, The Leap can’t be beat — especially by Stan.
That’s because The Leap is the only all-in-one creator store that provides creators with everything they need to build, sell, and market their digital products all for free.
While Stan charges users a monthly fee ($29 for its starter plan and $99 for its pro plan) to access even its most basic features, The Leap provides you with the same set of features plus a better digital product builder, all for $0 with no platform fees.
The Leap’s free plan places limits on how many email contacts and products you can host at once, so if you want to grow your business with more contacts and products, you can simply upgrade to paid. The Leap’s starter plan (which includes up to 5,000 contacts and 25 live products) is $29/month, while its highest tier plan is $59/month (for up to 25,000 contacts and 100 live products), which is much more affordable than Stan’s premium plan.
2. Digital product builder
The key difference between The Leap and Stan Store comes down to their digital product builders.
It’s simple: The Leap’s digital product builder is powered by generative AI, while Stan’s isn’t. What’s so special about generative AI? Well, it means that The Leap’s authoring tool can brainstorm and create your digital products for you, speeding up the process and minimizing effort on your end.
While Stan’s online course builder is user-friendly, it’s just not supercharged with AI. This means if you’re using Stan’s course builder, you’ll need to create your digital products yourself, from scratch. And that takes time and brain power.
In other words: Stan’s course builder won’t have you pumping out products fast, while The Leap’s AI-powered tool enables you to create polished products in a snap.
Take The Leap user Dawn Richardson for example, who said it only took her 30 minutes to customize her mini-course, and 30 minutes to record videos for it. Easy peasy!
Want to build digital products in 1, 2, 3? Try The Leap for free now.
Create and sell digital products in minutes using The Leap!
3. Types of digital products you can build
Another key difference between The Leap and Stan’s digital product builders are the kinds of digital products they’re capable of creating.
While The Leap’s AI-powered authoring tool allows you to create mini-courses, guides, tutorials, and challenges (you know, all the best digital learning products!), Stan’s tool is designed to create only one kind of product, online courses.
Stan’s tool might suit some creators, however, its limited functionality leaves the rest (i.e. creators who want to offer other kinds of educational digital products) in the dust.
4. Creator store functionality
Both The Leap and Stan come equipped with mobile-optimized, link-in-bio storefront tools, which are pretty similar in terms of ease-of-use and functionality.
What’s more is that both platforms’ storefront builders enable you to set up shop in just a few minutes, so you can get selling faster.
5. AI tools
Another difference between The Leap and Stan Store is the types of AI tools each platform offers.
The Leap uses generative AI in its digital product builder. Generative AI focuses on creating new content and data — and generative AI tools do this at hyper-speed. This is how The Leap’s authoring tool is able to create brand new digital products for you in literally minutes.
On top of its beloved authoring tool, The Leap offers a whole suite of generative AI tools that help you save time and start earning faster. These include an AI-powered landing page generator that helps you create product pages in just a few seconds, AI-powered email drafts that help you create and send newsletters in nearly no time, and an AI Assistant that can help you brainstorm product ideas and create, well, pretty much anything, from email flows to value ladders in minutes.
On the other hand, Stan Store uses an AI chatbot (named Stanley) which employs AI to simply spit out content and topic suggestions, and answer questions users might have about using Stan.
In the end, The Leap’s AI tools help you create brand new, polished digital products and marketing assets, while Stan’s don’t.
6. Native calendar booking
Native calendar booking tools allow creators to earn money for their time by selling one-on-one sessions with their followers.
While The Leap and Stan both offer tools that allow creators to set their availability and customers to book sessions directly in-app, only The Leap offers this feature to users for free.
Want to harness the power of generative AI? Try The Leap’s digital product builder for free today.
Create and sell digital products in minutes using The Leap!
The Leap vs. Stan Store: Which one should you use?
So, which platform should you choose? Ultimately, creators should consider their needs, goals, and budget when choosing the creator store platform that’s right for them.
That being said, The Leap is a great option for creators looking for a free, all-in-one creator store that will help them kickstart their monetization journey.
The Leap’s AI-powered product builder has a leg up on Stan’s, creating digital products in no time and with minimal effort required on your end. Plus, you can start marketing your products with powerful email automations for free (because you shouldn’t have to spend money to make money.) Compared to Stan, The Leap’s price is also right. In other words, The Leap provides you with Stan’s features plus a superior digital product builder without the price tag.
On the other hand, Stan might be for you if you’re willing to splash out on basic and premium features, and would like some auxiliary functionality like the ability to sell subscriptions and webinars.
Build, market, and sell your digital products with The Leap
Now that you know all about the key features and differences between The Leap and Stan, you’ll be able to decide which platform suits you best.
Still unsure? Why not try The Leap for free?
The Leap is an all-in-one creator store that provides you with all the tools and features you need to start selling digital products and earning money now for free.
With The Leap, it really is that easy to get your income machine up and running, right now. Our user-friendly storefront builder lets you set up your link-in-bio store in just a few minutes, so you can start selling your digital products ASAP. Because it’s powered by generative AI, our authoring tool allows you to create engaging digital products in just minutes, saving you time and empowering you to create lead magnets just like that.
Plus, our powerful email marketing features allow you to promote your products like a pro (for free!) Email broadcasts let you keep in touch with your audience through regular newsletters, while email flows let you put lead generation on autopilot, earning you sales (and money!) while you sleep.
On top of it all, our AI tools save you tons of time running your business, creating high-converting landing pages and engaging email newsletter copy, along with email flows and value ladders for you, in just a few minutes.
The best part? The Leap is free to use. Once you sign up for free, you’ll gain access to all of our creator features, from our link-in-bio storefront to our supercharged digital product builder. If you want to level up your business with more email contacts and live products, you can simply upgrade to paid. Sweet, right?
Want to kickstart your monetization journey? Try The Leap for free now.
Start monetizing your audience with The Leap, your all-in-one creator store.
The Leap vs. Stan Store FAQ
How is The Leap better than Stan Store?
There are three main reasons The Leap is better than Stan Store.
First, The Leap’s digital product builder is powered by generative AI, whereas Stan’s isn’t. This means The Leap’s authoring tool is able to build your digital products for you, saving you time and effort. With Stan, you’ll need to build your products from scratch, yourself.
Secondly, The Leap’s digital product builder is much more versatile than Stan’s. With The Leap’s authoring tool, you can create a range of digital products, including mini-courses, guides, tutorials, and challenges. With Stan’s tool, you’re limited to creating online courses only.
Lastly, The Leap is free, whereas Stan Store isn’t. The Leap is free to use, providing users with all of its features — including its supercharged digital product builder — completely free of charge. On the other hand, Stan charges a monthly subscription fee for even its most basic features.
What is The Leap?
Brought to you by creator tech company Thinkific, The Leap is an all-in-one creator store designed to help creators jumpstart their monetization journey. This platform provides creators with everything they need to start earning money by selling digital products, including an AI-powered digital product builder, a link-in-bio storefront, email marketing automations, nad a host of time-saving AI tools.
How does The Leap work?
The Leap is an all-in-one creator store with a digital product builder powered by generative AI. The Leap enables you to set up your link-in-bio storefront quickly and easily with its user-friendly builder tool.
From there, you can upload your digital products to your storefront or create your own using the platform’s AI-powered authoring tool. Simply answer a few questions, like what your niche is and what type of product you’d like to build, and The Leap’s powerful authoring tool will generate digital product ideas in seconds and build out comprehensive drafts that you can customize to your taste.
Follow The Leap on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for more creator tool and platform reviews. We also make a newsletter.
