Polar setup (digital products)

Polar is for selling digital products — ebooks, courses, software downloads, license keys. If you're selling physical goods, skip this and use a regular gateway like Stripe or PayHere instead. Polar also handles international tax (VAT, sales tax) for you, which is a big deal if you're selling worldwide.

How the sync works (read this first)

Here's the part that confuses most merchants. With Polar, you create the digital product inside Gannako first, and we push it to Polar automatically. After it syncs, you can open the product on Polar and edit Polar-specific things (like upsells or country-specific tax categories) without breaking the sync.

• You create a digital product in Gannako and mark it as a digital product.
• Gannako sends it to Polar in the background — Polar creates the matching product on their side.
• You can edit it again on either side later. Sync stays in step.
• When a customer buys, they pay through Polar's checkout. Polar handles the receipt, the digital file delivery, and the tax paperwork.

What you'll need

• A Polar account (free).
• Bank account or Stripe Connect for payouts.

Step 1 — Create your Polar account

1. Go to polar.sh and sign up.
2. Create your Organization. This is what your customers see on receipts.
3. Verify your email and add bank/payout details when prompted.

Step 2 — Generate an API token

1. In Polar, click your organization, then Settings → Developers.
2. Click New Access Token.
3. Name it something like “Gannako sync” and tick the products and orders permissions.
4. Copy the token immediately — Polar only shows it once.

Step 3 — Add credentials in Gannako

1. Open Settings → Payments → Polar → API Credentials.
2. Paste the API token.
3. Pick Sandbox if you're testing, or Production if you're going live.
4. Save.
5. Toggle Polar Enabled on the main payments page.

Step 4 — How sync happens after this

The moment you enable Polar, two things happen automatically:

1. Backfill: every existing digital product in your Gannako store gets sent to Polar in the background. You'll see a sync indicator in your admin.
2. Live sync: every digital product you create or edit from now on syncs to Polar in real time.

To create a new digital product:

1. Go to Products → New product in Gannako.
2. Fill in name, description, price.
3. Set the type to Digital. Upload the file (PDF, ZIP, video) or paste a license-key generation URL.
4. Save. Once the sync indicator turns green, the product is live on Polar. From there you can open it in Polar to add anything Polar-specific.

Step 5 — Test, then switch to live

1. With Sandbox selected, place a test order. Polar provides sandbox card numbers in their docs.
2. Confirm the digital file or license key is delivered to the customer's email.
3. Generate a fresh production token, paste it into Gannako, switch environment to Production, and you're live.