How Course Platform Transaction Fees Really Work

There are two charges on every course sale and almost every article about course platform transaction fees discusses only one of them, usually without saying which. The confusion is not accidental — it is what makes "0% transaction fees" an effective slogan — and clearing it up changes which plan you should be paying for.

Charge one: the platform's cut

This is the platform taking a slice of your revenue for the privilege of hosting the sale. It is set by the platform, varies by plan, and is the number the marketing is talking about when it says "transaction fee".

As of 21 September 2026, among the platforms graded here:

• Teachable Starter takes 7.5%. Builder and Growth take nothing.
• Podia Mover takes 5%. Shaker and Earthquaker take nothing.
• Gumroad takes 10% plus 50 cents on direct sales and 30% on marketplace sales.
• Kajabi takes nothing through Kajabi Payments or PayPal.
• Thinkific takes nothing through Thinkific Payments.
• Sensei states no cut anywhere on its pricing page.

This charge is escapable. You escape it by paying more in subscription, and there is a sum below that tells you exactly when that trade is worth making.

Charge two: card processing

This is the card networks and the payment processor taking their cut for moving money. Roughly 2.9% plus 30 cents on a US card, and it is charged on every platform, on every plan, at every price point, including all the ones advertising zero.

Nobody is hiding it exactly. Podia states it plainly on its own pricing page. Kajabi publishes its per-tier processing rate. Teachable notes that standard processing applies separately. Thinkific documents it in support. But it sits below the headline, and the effect of that placement is that people read "0% transaction fees" and mentally book a hundred percent of the sale price.

On a $500 sale, processing is $14.80. It is $14.80 on Kajabi, on Thinkific, on Sensei, on a plan costing $29 and on a plan costing $499. It never goes away.

Why conflating them ruins the comparison

Because the two behave completely differently when you compare plans.

Card processing is effectively constant across every option, so it cancels out of any comparison. Whichever platform you pick, that money leaves. Including it in a "which is cheaper" calculation adds the same number to every total and changes nothing except your blood pressure.

The platform's cut is not constant. It is the single largest source of variance between options at any given sales volume, and it is the thing you are actually choosing between.

So: subtract processing from your thinking when choosing, and add it back when forecasting your margin. Those are two different exercises and they want two different numbers.

The one calculation worth doing

Every platform with a fee-bearing entry plan has a fee-free plan above it that costs more in subscription. There is a monthly sales figure where the two cost exactly the same. Above it, the expensive plan is cheaper. Below it, the cheap plan is.

The formula is one line:

Crossover monthly sales = (extra subscription per month) ÷ (fee rate you are removing)

Worked through for the two platforms here that charge one:

Teachable. Builder costs $69 a month billed annually; Starter costs $29. The difference is $40. Builder removes a 7.5% fee. $40 ÷ 0.075 = $533 a month in sales. Sell more than that and Starter is the expensive plan.

Podia. Shaker costs $84 a month billed annually; Mover costs $42. The difference is $42. Shaker removes a 5% fee. $42 ÷ 0.05 = $840 a month in sales.

That is it. Two divisions, and they settle a decision that people otherwise make on vibes and regret at the end of a good quarter.

The trap in the crossover

One caveat, and it is the reason to work this out before you launch rather than after.

You will not notice the crossing. A fee is deducted silently at the point of sale, so there is no invoice, no notification and no moment where your bank statement says "you should have upgraded four months ago". Subscriptions announce themselves monthly; percentage fees do not announce themselves at all.

The practical defence is to decide your crossover figure in advance and set a reminder against it. When your monthly sales pass $533 on Teachable Starter, move. Not when it feels expensive — it will never feel expensive, because you never see it leave.

"Zero percent" has conditions attached

Two of the platforms advertising 0% mean something more specific than it sounds.

Kajabi takes nothing through Kajabi Payments or PayPal. Connect a different third-party processor and Kajabi adds a surcharge — 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth, 0.5% on Pro. This is printed on the pricing page, to Kajabi's credit.

Thinkific takes nothing through Thinkific Payments. Use your own Stripe or PayPal instead and a third-party payment gateway fee applies, on your first million dollars of annual sales, with the Plus tier exempt. Thinkific documents that the fee exists; the per-plan percentages were not readable from its site when we checked, so if keeping your own processor matters, ask before assuming.

The pattern is consistent: zero percent is a statement about the platform's own checkout, not about the platform. If you have a reason to use a particular processor — an existing Stripe account with history, a regional gateway, a business requirement — price that reason in.

What this means per plan

Run the $500 sale through each entry plan and the spread is stark. On Thinkific Basic, Kajabi Basic or Sensei Pro you keep $485.20. On Podia Mover you keep $460.20. On Teachable Starter you keep $447.70. On Gumroad you keep somewhere between $434.70 and $449.50, because Gumroad declines to say whether processing is inside its cut.

Fifty dollars of difference on a single $500 sale does not sound like much. Across a hundred sales it is $5,000, which is more than any subscription on this site costs for a year.

That is the number the whole category is built on, and it is why the ranking on the best online course platforms shortlist is ordered on total cost rather than on sticker price. The plan-by-plan limits that sit alongside these fees are broken down in what each plan actually gates.