Gumroad checkout not working: which step fails

A buy button on your own site often does not hold the checkout itself. When a buy button opens the checkout inside your page, the checkout often loads as a frame from the seller's system. Browsers and ad blockers can refuse to load that frame, and a privacy setting can block the cookies it needs. The buyer sees a button that spins, a blank box or nothing at all, and no error appears on your page. The same product at its direct link may work, so the failure looks random when it is really about the path. Check both paths in the same browser before you change any product setting.

• Press your buy button in a private window with no extensions. Does the checkout open?
• Open the product's direct link in the same window. Does it reach the payment step?
• Turn on your usual ad blocker and press the button again. Does the checkout still appear?
• Choose each option the product offers. Does any option fail to show a price?
• Confirm the product is published and that no limit you set on sales has been reached.

A buyer can reach your product through the direct link, which opens the seller's own page, or through a buy button on your site. The two paths share the product and the price, but they do not share the page around them. The button path runs through your page's scripts, your cookie settings and any frame that your site loads. A buyer on a phone, a buyer with a blocker, and a buyer who has blocked third-party cookies all meet the button path differently from the direct one. That is why a team can test the product from its own logged-in browser, see it work, and still lose buyers who arrive through the button.

A spinning button or a blank box after pressing it points at the frame: something blocked it, or it never finished loading. An error that appears only after an option is chosen points at that option, which may have no price or be set up wrongly. A button that does nothing at all, while the direct link works, usually means a script on your page is stopping the click. A product page that shows but whose link returns a missing page means the product is unpublished, or the link changed after you copied the button. Each one can be told apart in the same browser without changing a setting.

The option matters as much as the path. A product sold in more than one version, such as a standard and an extended license, gives each version its own price and its own way to payment. A walk that always picks the first option only proves that one price works. Run the walk once per option, and compare the price the checkout shows with the price on the product page each time. A broken option shows up as a missing price, or a total that differs from the one the buyer saw.

A simulated buyer chooses the option you tell it to, presses the button, and follows the checkout to the payment step. The walk stops there because a buyer cannot pay with a real card in a test. A card decline, a bank check or the receipt email come after that step, so check them yourself with your own payment setup. The walk tells you which path and which option reached the payment step, and which did not. It does not tell you how many buyers would finish paying.

Testing a checkout flow

A product that is renamed, unpublished or given a new link can leave a copied buy button pointing at nothing. Each change to the product, its options or its price needs a fresh walk through both paths. Send visitors from your newsletter link and from the site button, since a buyer may use either one. If the product sits behind a membership, give the visitors a test account to sign in with.