BUILT FOR CREATORS AND STUDIOS
Digital publishing,
live on your own website
Drive and keep customers on your website, not another platform.
Own the relationship directly.
Rich Digital Publishing
Sell Individually or Bundle with Physicals
Entirely on Your Shopify Site
PUBLICATIONS
✦
WEBTOONS
✦
INFINITE SCROLL
✦
MUSIC
✦
DIGITAL ART
✦
LAYERED EDITIONS
✦
ZINES
✦
no edition sold fee
per edition sold, from 101st sale
per month covers maintenance
Editions publish as products in the store you already run. Checkout, customers and payouts stay in Shopify, and the buyer record is yours.
HOW IT COMPOUNDS
Built around owning the reader,
not renting them
Stop fighting for attention on marketplaces and driving them your traffic. Own the relationship, and the majority of the revenue, on your own website.
Create Editions
Layered art, guided reading, scroll, music and files in one object.
Publish to Your Store
A real Shopify product on your own domain, priced how you choose.
Drive via Social & Ads
Integrate with your marketing and drive customers to your store.
Users Build Collection
Their entitlement unlocks the edition in a library on your store.
Know Your Power Fans
No algorithm in the middle, and no reach to buy back each time.
STEP ONE · MAKE IT
An edition you compose,
not a file you upload
A Masterfile edition is composed from capsules. Each is a different kind of reading, and they ship inside the same edition the reader owns.
Anatomy of a Masterfile
A rich digital publishing format made of composable capsules. Combine pages, scrolls, music, layered art, and attachments into a single, immersive edition.
CH. 01
GUIDED VIEW
Pages with Guided View
Panel-by-panel, beautifully guided
Reader-paced navigation through traditional pages with panel-level guided view , purpose-built for comics, manga, and art books on every screen size.
CH. 02
SCROLLS
Scrolls
Vertical, infinite, native to mobile
Continuous-scroll reading for webtoons, manhwa, infinite comics, and mobile-first episodic content.
CH. 03
MUSIC
Music
Sound, embedded in the edition
Albums, EPs, soundtracks, and ambient scores delivered alongside the visual work , playable directly inside the Masterfile.
CH. 04
LAYERED ART
Layered Art
Pull apart the artwork itself
Toggle the transparent layers of cover and key art to reveal how a piece was composed , from sketch to ink to color to final.
CH. 05
ATTACHMENTS
Attachments
Bonus content beyond the media
Behind-the-scenes images, downloadable files, scripts, sketches, and special attachments that turn an edition into a real collectors experience.
Publications
Webtoon & Infinite Scroll
Music
Digital Art
Built for every kind of creator
Masterfile DCE is positioned to support creators and publishers across important categories in art & entertainment.
A REAL EDITION, NOT A MOCKUP
The reel above is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a published Masterfile Collector Edition with layered artwork and bonus attachments. Six formats ship the same way: comics, mobile comics, zines, tracks, digital art and collector cards.
STEP TWO · SHIP IT
Publishing syncs the edition to your store as a Shopify product. Access is an entitlement against the customer record, so you can replace what you shipped and the people who already bought it get the new version.
It syncs as a product
Publishing creates the Shopify product on your store, priced and merchandised by you.
Replace what you shipped
Fix a page or add a chapter, republish, and the edition your readers own updates with it.
A library they keep
Access attaches to the customer record, so everything they own sits in one place on your store, ready to reopen.
THE REAL ARGUMENT
Every platform takes a cut. Only some of them take the customer as well, and that difference is written into their terms, not their pricing page.
Their terms, their words
GlobalComix and Zoop both reserve it in their terms: “We are under no obligation to share any customer data with you.”
Borrowed, with a deadline
Backer emails arrive only after a successful campaign, and expire two years after delivery.
Yours, on your own store
A sale is an ordinary Shopify customer record. Email, order history, tags, exportable.
THE LANDSCAPE
Everyone here can take a payment. What separates them is what the reader receives, and who keeps that reader afterwards.
Your Domain
Browser
Downloads
Bundle w/Physicals
Sell on Social
Take Rate
Composable
Masterfile
✅
✅
✅
✅
Native
60¢
✅
Gumroad
Paid plans
✅
✅
✅
Links only
10% + 50¢
❌
Payhip
✅
❌
Files only
✅
Links only
0-5%
❌
GlobalComix
❌
✅
PDF only
❌
Links only
30-35%
❌
Amazon KDP
❌
App or device
❌
❌
Links only
30-65%
❌
Patreon
❌
❌
✅
Limited
Links only
10%
❌
Substack
✅
❌
✅
❌
Links only
10%
❌
Kickstarter
❌
❌
✅
✅
Links only
5%
❌
BackerKit
❌
❌
✅
✅
Links only
5%
❌
Zoop
❌
❌
✅
✅
Links only
7-22%
❌
Rates and terms as published, August 2026. Take rates are headline fees and exclude card processing.
What it costs to sell from your own store
Every cost is in here, including the Shopify fees. None of it is a percentage of your work.
Cost is only half the question.
Talk it through with these numbersTWO WAYS TO START
You do not need a new website to start, and you do not need to build one yourself either.
Install it yourself, today
Install from the Shopify App Store and compose your first edition.
Or we build it for you
We launch the store and your first editions, from $999 in a week.
Build pricing depends on scope.
See your own editions, your own store and your own customer list running on Masterfile before you decide anything.
Before you commit
The questions that decide this either way. Better answered now than on your third invoice.
Will readers buy from me instead of a marketplace?
Some won’t. A marketplace is where browsing happens. The ones who buy direct are the people who already follow you, and they’re worth more than a browse: you get their email, their order history, and the ability to sell them the next thing without paying to reach them again.
I already sell on Gumroad. Do I have to stop?
No. Plenty of publishers run both, a marketplace for discovery, their own store for the people who already know them. The calculator above is about where your direct sales are better served here, not about moving everything at once.
Do I need a big catalogue for this to work?
You need volume more than breadth. One series selling steadily clears the crossover sooner than a dozen titles selling occasionally, because the cost is flat rather than per-title.
What do readers actually get?
A designed digital edition that opens in the browser, not a zip file, and not a PDF they have to find an app for. That difference is the whole reason a flat fee is worth paying.
There’s a volume where this starts to pay
At a $4.99 edition the crossover against a 10% platform lands near 570 sales a month, once the first 100 each month are free. Below that a percentage costs you less, and the table above shows what you give up for it.
Digital editions are part of Retailer Ops
There’s no creator-only tier today, so digital editions come in on the $249 plan alongside distributor tooling a studio won’t use. If that’s the sticking point, say so, it’s the feedback we most want.
This runs on Shopify
It’s a Shopify app, not a separate platform. If you don’t want a Shopify store behind your publishing, this isn’t the right fit.
Six formats. One publishing stack.
Digital Comic
Guided view, panel by panel — the flagship Masterfile format.
Mobile Comic
Infinite vertical scroll for webtoons and mobile-first episodes.
Track
Albums and soundtracks, playable inside the edition.
Zine
Small-press publishing that outlives the print run.
Digital Art
Layered artwork collectors can pull apart.
Digital Card
Card drops and reveals, straight to the collection.