Does Shopify Charge Commission on Sales? Fees Explained

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Defining "Commission" in the Shopify Ecosystem
3. The Shopify Plan Breakdown: How Costs Change as You Scale
4. The Secret to 0% Platform Transaction Fees
5. Digital Products: A High-Margin Alternative
6. Why Tevello is the Choice for Profit-Minded Merchants
7. Managing "Hidden" Costs: Apps, Themes, and Domains
8. Real-World Success: Scaling Without the Surcharge
9. Comparing Shopify Fees to Other Platforms
10. Calculating Your Break-Even Point
11. How to Lower Your Shopify Sales Fees Today
12. The Technical Advantage of Native Shopify Apps
13. Building a Community to Increase Recurring Revenue
14. Setting Realistic Business Expectations
15. Final Thoughts on Shopify's Fee Structure
16. Frequently Asked Questions
17. Conclusion

Introduction

Did you know that by 2025, the global e-learning market is projected to surpass $325 billion? For Shopify merchants, this represents a massive opportunity to diversify revenue streams beyond physical inventory. However, as you scale your business, a fundamental question often stands between you and your profit goals: Does Shopify charge commission on sales? While the term "commission" is common in marketplaces like Amazon or Etsy, Shopify operates on a different model—one that involves a combination of subscription tiers, transaction fees, and payment processing rates.

In this comprehensive guide, we will break down exactly how Shopify’s fee structure works, why these costs exist, and how you can optimize your setup to keep more of your hard-earned revenue. We will explore the differences between platform transaction fees and payment processing fees, compare the various monthly plans, and highlight how digital products and courses can significantly improve your margins. At Tevello, our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse, and understanding your costs is the first step toward building a sustainable, high-margin business. The central message of this article is clear: While Shopify does take a percentage of your sales through various channels, choosing the right payment gateway and utilizing native tools for digital products can dramatically reduce your overhead and maximize your profitability.

Defining "Commission" in the Shopify Ecosystem

When merchants ask, "Does Shopify charge commission on sales?" they are usually trying to understand how much of their gross revenue stays in their pockets. In a traditional commission-based marketplace, the platform might take a flat 15% or 20% cut of every sale. Shopify is not a marketplace; it is a dedicated e-commerce platform. Because you are responsible for driving your own traffic and building your own brand, Shopify does not charge a "referral fee" or a traditional marketplace commission.

Instead, Shopify charges for the infrastructure that allows your business to function. This includes hosting, security, checkout technology, and support. The "cut" Shopify takes comes in two distinct forms: transaction fees and credit card processing fees. Understanding the distinction between these two is critical for accurate financial planning.

Platform Transaction Fees

A platform transaction fee is a charge levied by Shopify for the use of its checkout technology when you choose not to use Shopify’s own payment gateway (Shopify Payments). These fees are designed to cover the cost of maintaining integrations with hundreds of third-party providers. Depending on your plan, these fees range from 0.5% to 2.0%.

Payment Processing Fees

Regardless of which platform you use, banking institutions and credit card companies charge a fee to move money from the customer’s account to yours. These are known as payment processing fees. If you use Shopify Payments, you only pay the processing fee. If you use a third-party gateway like PayPal or Stripe, you pay the processor’s fee plus the Shopify transaction fee.

The Shopify Plan Breakdown: How Costs Change as You Scale

Shopify offers several tiers, and the "percentage" you pay decreases as your monthly subscription increases. This creates a break-even point where it becomes more profitable to pay a higher monthly fee in exchange for lower per-sale costs.

The Basic Plan

For those just starting out, the Basic plan is the most common entry point.

• Monthly Fee: Approximately $39 USD.
• Online Credit Card Rates: 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.
• Third-Party Transaction Fee: 2.0% (if not using Shopify Payments).

This plan is excellent for validation, but for a store doing $10,000 a month in volume, that 2.9% starts to represent a significant chunk of change.

The Shopify (Mid-Tier) Plan

As your volume increases, the "Shopify" plan offers a lower rate.

• Monthly Fee: Approximately $105 USD.
• Online Credit Card Rates: 2.6% + 30¢ per transaction.
• Third-Party Transaction Fee: 1.0% (if not using Shopify Payments).

The Advanced Plan

For high-volume merchants, the Advanced plan offers the most competitive rates.

• Monthly Fee: Approximately $399 USD.
• Online Credit Card Rates: 2.4% + 30¢ per transaction.
• Third-Party Transaction Fee: 0.5% (if not using Shopify Payments).

By moving from Basic to Advanced, you save 0.5% on every credit card transaction. While half a percent sounds small, on $50,000 of monthly sales, that is an extra $250 in profit every single month—nearly covering the cost of the plan upgrade itself.

The Secret to 0% Platform Transaction Fees

One of the most effective ways to reduce the "commission" feel of Shopify is to enable Shopify Payments. When you use this native gateway, Shopify waives the platform transaction fee entirely. This means you only pay the standard credit card processing fee.

We always recommend this to our merchants because it simplifies bookkeeping and maximizes margins. At Tevello, we share this philosophy of transparency and efficiency. That is why we offer predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees. Just as Shopify Payments removes the extra layer of platform fees, we believe your software tools should offer a fixed cost structure so you can scale without being "taxed" on your success.

Digital Products: A High-Margin Alternative

One of the biggest expenses for any physical goods merchant is the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). When you sell a physical t-shirt for $30, you might pay $10 for the shirt, $5 for shipping, and $1 for Shopify’s "cut." Your actual profit is thin.

Digital products—such as online courses, memberships, and digital downloads—change the math entirely. Because there is no manufacturing or shipping cost, your margins are significantly higher. If you sell a $100 digital course, Shopify still takes its 2.4% to 2.9% processing fee, but you aren’t losing 50% of the sale to inventory.

For a merchant selling coffee beans, creating a "Barista Basics" video course is a high-margin upsell that requires no shipping boxes, no storage fees, and no inventory risk. This allows you to increase your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) without increasing your logistical complexity. By seeing how the app natively integrates with Shopify, you can begin offering these high-margin assets alongside your physical catalog.

Why Tevello is the Choice for Profit-Minded Merchants

When you decide to sell courses or memberships on Shopify, you have a choice. You can use a third-party platform that redirects your customers away from your store, or you can use a native Shopify integration like Tevello.

The danger of third-party platforms is twofold:

1. Customer Friction: Sending a customer to a different URL (e.g., yourcourse.teachable.com) causes confusion and reduces trust, which can lower conversion rates.
2. Hidden "Success Fees": Many course platforms charge a "per-student" fee or a "percentage of revenue" fee. This is effectively a double commission—one to Shopify and one to the course platform.

At Tevello, we reject this model. Our mission is to "turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse" by keeping the experience entirely on your domain. We believe merchants should own their customer data and brand experience. This is why we created a solution that features a unified login that reduces customer support friction. Your customers use the same account to buy a physical product and access their digital course.

Transparent Pricing with the Unlimited Plan

To help you scale without fear of rising costs, we offer The Unlimited Plan at $29.99 per month. This is a flat rate regardless of how much you sell. We charge 0% transaction fees, meaning you keep 100% of your earnings (after Shopify's standard processing fees).

The Unlimited Plan includes:

• Unlimited courses and students.
• Unlimited video hosting and bandwidth.
• Community features (profiles, member directories, social feeds).
• Drip content scheduling and quizzes.
• A 14-day free trial.

If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.

Managing "Hidden" Costs: Apps, Themes, and Domains

Beyond the "commission" of sales, there are other recurring costs that can impact your Shopify store's profitability.

App Subscriptions

The Shopify App Store is a goldmine of functionality, but "app creep" is real. Each $10 or $20 monthly fee adds up. It is important to choose apps that offer an "all-in-one" ecosystem rather than paying for five different tools that do five different things. For example, Tevello includes all the key features for courses and communities in one plan, so you don’t need separate apps for video hosting, member directories, or quizzes.

Domain and Email Fees

Your domain (e.g., www.yourbrand.com) typically costs between $14 and $30 per year. Shopify also offers email marketing (Shopify Email), which allows a certain number of free emails before charging a small fee per 1,000 sends. While these aren't "commissions" on sales, they are essential operating expenses to track.

Currency Conversion Fees

If you sell internationally, Shopify charges a currency conversion fee (usually around 1.5% to 2.0%). This covers the risk and cost of converting foreign currency back into your payouts. To minimize this, some high-volume merchants use local bank accounts in their primary selling regions, though this requires a Shopify Plus setup.

Real-World Success: Scaling Without the Surcharge

Understanding fees is easier when you see how other brands have navigated them. Consider the story of Crochetmilie, a brand that successfully bridged the gap between physical crafts and digital education. By learning how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses, merchants can see the power of a single, unified checkout. They didn't have to pay a separate platform a percentage of that $112,000; they used a native Shopify approach to keep their costs fixed.

Similarly, look at the case of Charles Dowding, who faced the challenge of managing a massive audience across fragmented systems. By migrating over 14,000 members and reducing support tickets, they were able to consolidate their costs into a predictable monthly subscription. This move eliminated the technical debt of trying to sync multiple platforms, which often leads to "leaking" money through lost sales and high support costs.

For these brands, the focus was on strategies for selling over 4,000 digital courses natively while solving login issues by moving to a native platform. They understood that while Shopify takes a small cut for processing, the real way to win is to eliminate all other "middleman" fees.

Comparing Shopify Fees to Other Platforms

It is helpful to look at how Shopify’s "commission" stacks up against the competition.

1. Amazon: Charges a referral fee (usually 15%) plus fulfillment fees. You do not own the customer data.
2. Etsy: Charges a 6.5% transaction fee plus a listing fee and payment processing.
3. Standalone Course Platforms (e.g., Kajabi/Teachable): Often charge high monthly fees (up to $150–$400/mo) and sometimes take a percentage of sales on their lower tiers.

Shopify’s model is often the most cost-effective for serious brands because it allows you to consolidate your physical and digital sales into one dashboard with one set of processing fees. By using a flat-rate plan that supports unlimited members, you ensure that as your course popularity explodes, your software costs stay exactly the same.

Calculating Your Break-Even Point

If you are currently on the Basic Shopify plan and your sales are growing, you need to know when to upgrade.

Scenario: Imagine you are processing $15,000 per month in sales.

• On the Basic Plan (2.9%): You pay $435 in processing fees + $39 subscription = $474.
• On the Shopify Plan (2.6%): You pay $390 in processing fees + $105 subscription = $495.

In this scenario, you are very close to the break-even point. Once you hit $20,000 in monthly sales, the "Shopify" plan becomes significantly cheaper than the Basic plan. This constant auditing of your "Shopify commission" is what separates hobbyists from professional e-commerce operators.

How to Lower Your Shopify Sales Fees Today

If you feel like Shopify is taking too much of a cut, here is a checklist to regain control of your margins:

1. Switch to Shopify Payments: Eliminate the 0.5%–2% transaction fee immediately.
2. Audit Your Apps: Are you paying for features you don’t use? Consolidate into all-in-one solutions.
3. Introduce High-Margin Digital Goods: Offset the cost of physical shipping and processing by selling digital value.
4. Upgrade Your Plan: If your volume justifies it, the 0.2%–0.5% savings on credit card rates will more than pay for the higher monthly subscription.
5. Use Native Integrations: Avoid third-party "success fees" by using tools like Tevello that don't take a cut of your course sales.

When you start your 14-day free trial and build your first course now, you can begin testing these high-margin strategies without any upfront software cost.

The Technical Advantage of Native Shopify Apps

Why does it matter if an app is "native"? When an app is built specifically for Shopify's ecosystem, it uses Shopify's own checkout and customer database. This isn't just about saving on "commissions"; it’s about the user experience.

When a customer buys a course through a non-native app, the money often flows through a different processor, or they are forced to create a second account. This fragmentation leads to:

• Higher cart abandonment.
• Increased "lost password" support tickets.
• Difficulty in tracking total Customer Lifetime Value.

By choosing a native solution, you ensure that every sale—whether it's a physical book or an online masterclass—is tracked in one place. This allows you to use Shopify's powerful analytics to see exactly where your profit is coming from.

Building a Community to Increase Recurring Revenue

One way to mitigate the sting of transaction fees is to increase the stability of your income. Selling one-off products requires constant marketing spend. Selling a membership or a community subscription creates recurring revenue.

Shopify handles the recurring billing through its subscription APIs, and Tevello provides the "home" for that community. By offering a space for your customers to interact, you build brand loyalty that makes the platform fees feel like a small price to pay for such a robust infrastructure. Our community features, including member directories and social feeds, are designed to keep users coming back to your site, not a Facebook group or a third-party forum.

Setting Realistic Business Expectations

We often see "gurus" claiming you can make six figures in a week with zero effort. At Tevello, we prefer to set realistic expectations. Building a successful Shopify store takes work, strategy, and a deep understanding of your numbers.

Shopify’s fees are a cost of doing business, much like rent for a physical storefront. However, unlike a physical landlord who might take a percentage of your sales regardless of your profit, Shopify provides the tools to help you increase that profit. By diversifying into digital products, you are effectively lowering your overall "cost of sales" percentage because your COGS drops to nearly zero.

Final Thoughts on Shopify's Fee Structure

The question isn't just "Does Shopify charge commission on sales?" but rather, "Is the value Shopify provides worth the cost?" For the vast majority of merchants, the answer is a resounding yes. The security, scalability, and ease of use provided by Shopify allow you to focus on marketing and product development instead of server maintenance and PCI compliance.

By being proactive about your choice of payment gateways and plan levels, you can minimize the "cut" that Shopify takes. Furthermore, by embracing the digital revolution and adding courses or memberships to your store, you can build a business that is not only more profitable but also more resilient.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Does Shopify take a cut if I sell a digital course?

Shopify treats a digital course sale just like any other product sale. You will pay the standard credit card processing fee (e.g., 2.9% + 30¢ on the Basic plan). However, if you use a native app like Tevello, you do not pay any additional transaction fees to the app creator. You keep 100% of the revenue after Shopify's processing.

2. Can I use PayPal and still avoid the transaction fee?

No. To avoid the 0.5%–2% platform transaction fee, you must use Shopify Payments as your primary gateway. If you offer PayPal as an alternative alongside Shopify Payments, you will typically not be charged the extra platform fee on the PayPal transactions, but you will still pay PayPal's own processing fees.

3. Is the $29.99 Tevello plan really unlimited?

Yes. At Tevello, we believe in simple, transparent pricing. Our Unlimited Plan allows for an unlimited number of courses, lessons, students, and video hosting. We do not charge "success fees" or per-user fees, which helps you maintain a fixed cost structure as your community scales.

4. What happens to the fees if a customer requests a refund?

When you issue a refund on Shopify, the platform transaction fee (if applicable) is usually credited back to you. However, the credit card processing fees (the 2.9% + 30¢) are typically not refunded by the banks. This is a standard practice across almost all payment processors, including Stripe and PayPal.

Conclusion

Understanding the financial nuances of your e-commerce platform is the difference between a struggling store and a thriving brand. While Shopify does charge fees for every sale, these costs are manageable and can be optimized through smart plan selection and the use of Shopify Payments. By adding high-margin digital products to your catalog, you can effectively "dilute" your overhead and build a more profitable business model.

At Tevello, we are committed to helping you turn your expertise into a "digital learning powerhouse." We provide the tools for communities, courses, and memberships—all within the Shopify ecosystem you already know and trust. With our 0% transaction fee policy and a flat-rate Unlimited Plan, we ensure that your growth is rewarded, not penalized.

To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from. Install Tevello today to start your 14-day free trial and experience the power of a truly native, commission-free digital product solution.