How I am using Notion, Gumroad, and Squarespace

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I’ve used WordPress, Squarespace, and Podia over the last decade to host my websites and courses. Podia has been a fantastic resource for growing my business, but it’s time to simplify into a system I’m already using (and seem to be using more and more). I’m switching all my courses and websites to Notion.

UPDATE

I am using Notion for some pages, but I’ve moved everything to Squarespace since writing this in early December.

Biggest Concerns

I want to start off by saying this is in no way a recommendation that you do the same setup for your business or websites. This is an unconventional method that I’m using for my own personal sanity and finances and to streamline my process. That said, I am sharing this setup for anyone wanting to do something similar.

Tools I’ll Use

Google Domains ➡️ Cloudflare

I’ve used Google Domains for years, and I was sad to see that they are no longer offering new registrations through their platform, so now you have to use their Squarespace partner. I decided to switch everything to Cloudflare.

I’ll be able to access and edit all my domains from Cloudflare instead of logging into multiple Google accounts, and it’s a much cheaper hosting platform with much better functionality.

Note: I will likely switch away from Cloudflare. I find it a little complex to use, and I can’t get a couple of settings to work the way I want, so I’ll be on the hunt for a new host after the 60 days are up.

Podia ➡️ Gumroad*

Gumroad is not as feature-rich as Podia (nowhere close, actually), but I’m barely using the features on Podia right now, so I am opting for simplicity for now. My main goal is to sell my templates and courses. While I plan to list many of them on Etsy, I don’t have the most confidence in the Etsy platform; I want to list my products in more than one place, so Gumoad is the best option.

I also used Podia as my newsletter platform, but I was neglecting this. I’ve transferred over the content that makes the most sense for my brand now, and I’m going to send out a final email blast before making the switch so anyone who wants to resubscribe will have the chance to do so. This will keep my biggest fans on my list and let go of the people who likely will not purchase from me anyway.

Note: I am really enjoying this so far, and I’ll be writing an update on it soon.

Podia & Squarespace ➡️ Bullet.so

Note: This didn’t go well. The domain name kept breaking (Bullet’s fault), the pages kept loading in wrong, and it wasn’t tracking any visitors for the three weeks I had it. I ended up combining all my sites on Squarespace.

Instead of having three separate websites to log in to and edit, everything can be edited directly from Notion once it’s set up initially in Bullet.

Bullet allows you to add navigation, custom CSS, and features to your Notion pages. Most of my website pages were minimal to begin with, so copying them to Notion wasn’t that difficult.

The hardest part about this process is ensuring my site looks good on all devices. This is where Podia and Squarespace shine, and it is much harder to do with Notion. Again, the simplicity of my websites helps; hosting my shop on Gumroad and my blog on Medium also helps because both websites look much nicer on mobile.

There’s a reason my previous web hosts were more expensive, however I am willing to sacrifice some of that for the sake of simplicity.

Migration Process

Migrating all of my content to these new hosts was a bit time-consuming. I decided to track my time every time I worked on this project; the entire migration took 17 hours. Most of that time was spent copying and pasting my course content into Gumroad. This also makes me realize the importance of saving my content in easy-to-export files.

Here is a quick checklist of what process I followed:

• Create a new site on Bullet
• Using Bullet’s templates to design my site
• Copying my website data into notion pages
• Tweaking and making my site look good with Notion + Bullet + custom code
• Redirecting my domain names and transferring them to Cloudflare to host
• Setting up my Gumroad account
• Adding all my existing products to Gumroad
• Copying my welcome sequences and emails to Gumroad
• Making all of the sites live and checking for bugs

There are still some features and additions to my website that I will work on over the coming months, but those were already on my to-do list before I started to make this migration, so I’m keeping them separate from this project.

Price Comparison

Besides the simplicity, price was one of my main motivations for this change. I wanted to see how much I’d save with this setup.

OLD CONFIGURATION:

Podia courses and hosting: $396/yr
Podia emails for 5k subscribers: $408/yr
Squarespace website 1: $192/yr
Squarespace website 2: $276/yr
Google Domain 1: $12/yr
Google Domain 2: $12/yr
Squarespace Domain: $20/yr
Yearly TOTAL: $1143

NEW CONFIGURATION:

Notion: $96/yr — I was paying for this anyway, but we’re counting it here just to be fair
Squarespace: $276/yr – I got a student discount for the first year on a business plan.
Gumroad: $0/yr (there are high fees, but no upfront costs)
Cloudflare: $9.77 transfer fee with 1-year renewal (x3)
Yearly TOTAL: $401

Saving over $800 a year may not seem like a ton when my goal is to earn $90k, but logging into two main accounts to manage all three branches of my business is a massive time saver and a huge relief on my mental load. While saving money on the tools wasn’t the primary goal here, there’s no doubt that my previous setup was not the cheapest option.

Having to rebuild my websites and re-do my email funnels was a great opportunity to improve my existing content and simplify my websites. While Gumroad may not be my long-term solution, it’s the best option as I work toward growing my business and simplifying my expenses. I’m excited to see what comes from this year and test out new ways of managing my business thanks to this new setup.