Does Shopify Charge Per Sale? Understanding Your Fees

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Two Layers of Shopify Selling Costs
3. Breaking Down the Monthly Plans
4. How Digital Products Change the Margin Equation
5. Hidden Fees and External Costs
6. Why Native Integration Matters for Your Bottom Line
7. Setting Realistic Business Expectations
8. Reducing Costs as You Scale
9. The Tevello Advantage: Transparency and Power
10. Practical Advice for Your First Course
11. Analyzing the ROI of a Native Shopify Store
12. Conclusion
13. Frequently Asked Questions

Introduction

Imagine two merchants operating side-by-side in the same niche. One sells high-quality organic gardening kits, dealing with the constant logistics of seed sourcing, soil packaging, and rising shipping costs. For every sale, a significant chunk of their margin is swallowed by physical overhead before the platform even takes its cut. The second merchant sells those same kits but also offers an in-depth, premium video masterclass on biointensive gardening. For the second merchant, the "cost of goods sold" for that masterclass is effectively zero once the content is produced. However, both merchants are often kept awake by the same fundamental question: how much is the platform actually taking from my hard-earned revenue?

The answer to whether Shopify charges per sale is not a simple yes or no; it is a nuanced breakdown of subscription tiers, payment gateways, and processing rates. In the e-learning and creator economy, understanding these numbers is the difference between a hobby and a scalable business. At Tevello, our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse, and part of that mission involves helping you navigate the financial realities of the platform you call home.

This blog post will provide a deep dive into the Shopify fee structure for 2024 and beyond. We will explore the differences between transaction fees and payment processing fees, compare the various subscription plans, and identify strategies to protect your margins. Most importantly, we will discuss how integrating digital products and courses can help you offset these platform costs by increasing your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) and building a more stable, recurring revenue stream. By the end of this guide, you will have a clear, data-driven framework for choosing the right setup for your business.

The Two Layers of Shopify Selling Costs

When a customer clicks "buy" on your store, the money doesn't travel in a straight line from their bank to yours. It passes through several layers of technology, each of which requires maintenance and security. To understand if Shopify "takes a cut," you must first distinguish between the two types of fees you will encounter.

Payment Processing Fees (The Credit Card Toll)

Every time a customer uses a credit card or a digital wallet, a payment processor has to verify the funds, protect against fraud, and facilitate the transfer. This is a standard cost of doing business online, whether you use Shopify, a custom-built site, or a physical retail terminal.

Shopify provides its own gateway, Shopify Payments, which is the most streamlined way to handle these transactions. These fees are usually expressed as a percentage plus a small flat fee (e.g., 2.9% + 30¢). These rates are non-negotiable for smaller merchants, though they decrease as you move up to higher Shopify plans.

Platform Transaction Fees (The Third-Party Penalty)

This is the fee that merchants find most frustrating. If you choose not to use Shopify Payments and instead use a third-party gateway like PayPal or a regional provider, Shopify charges an additional "transaction fee." This is essentially a fee for using their infrastructure while bypassing their payment system. This fee ranges from 0.5% to 2% depending on your plan.

For a merchant selling digital courses, these percentages might seem small, but they compound quickly. If you are selling a $200 masterclass, a 2% transaction fee is $4. Multiply that by 1,000 students, and you’ve handed over $4,000 simply for using a different payment button. This is why we always emphasize that merchants should own their customer data and brand experience through the most cost-effective native tools available.

Breaking Down the Monthly Plans

Your choice of Shopify plan is the primary lever you have to control your "per sale" costs. It is a classic volume-based trade-off: you pay a higher monthly fixed cost to secure lower variable costs on every transaction.

Shopify Starter: For the Social Seller

At $5 per month, the Starter plan is designed for those who aren't quite ready for a full-blown website. It is popular among influencers who sell through "Link in Bio" tools or social media DMs. However, the trade-off is higher transaction fees. If you are starting a small community or selling a single digital download, this is a low-risk entry point, but it lacks the professional branding that a native Shopify store provides.

Basic Shopify: The Startup Standard

Priced at approximately $39 per month, the Basic plan is where most serious merchants begin.

• Online Credit Card Rate: 2.9% + 30¢.
• Third-party Transaction Fee: 2.0%.

This plan is excellent for validating your product-market fit. For example, a merchant selling handmade pottery might use the Basic plan to sell their physical stock. As they grow, they might realize that their customers are constantly asking for tips on "How to Throw Clay." This is the perfect moment to introduce a digital course. While the 2.9% fee still applies to the course sale, the merchant no longer has to worry about the shipping and breakage costs associated with the physical pottery, significantly improving their net margin.

Shopify (The "Grow" Plan): The Scaling Sweet Spot

At $105 per month, this plan is designed for businesses that have found their rhythm.

• Online Credit Card Rate: 2.6% + 30¢.
• Third-party Transaction Fee: 1.0%.

At this level, you gain access to more professional reporting. You can start to see exactly where your customers are coming from and which digital products are driving the most repeat business. The lower 2.6% processing rate starts to make a massive difference once your monthly revenue crosses the $5,000 mark.

Advanced Shopify: For High-Volume Success

For established brands doing significant volume, the $399 per month Advanced plan offers the most competitive rates.

• Online Credit Card Rate: 2.4% + 30¢.
• Third-party Transaction Fee: 0.5%.

This plan is for merchants who have successfully scaled their digital learning powerhouse. At this stage, you aren't just selling products; you are managing a community. If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.

How Digital Products Change the Margin Equation

When merchants ask "does Shopify charge per sale," they are usually worried about their profit margins. In the world of physical retail, margins are often razor-thin. Between manufacturing, storage, shipping, and Shopify fees, a merchant might only keep 10-15% of a sale.

Digital products—specifically courses and memberships—flip this equation on its head. When you sell a digital course through a native integration, your overhead is almost entirely fixed. Once you pay your Shopify subscription and your Tevello subscription, your "per sale" cost is limited to the payment processing fee.

A Practical Scenario: The Coffee Roaster

Consider a specialty coffee roaster. They sell bags of beans for $25. After the cost of the beans, the bag, the shipping, and the 2.9% Shopify fee, they might only profit $8.

Now, imagine that same roaster adds a "Home Barista Masterclass" for $50. There is no shipping, no bag, and no bean cost. Even after the Shopify processing fee, they keep nearly $48 of that $50. By generating revenue from both physical and digital goods, the merchant isn't just surviving the platform fees; they are using them to power a high-margin engine. This strategy is exactly how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses alongside their traditional offerings.

Hidden Fees and External Costs

While Shopify is transparent about its core fees, there are other costs that can creep up on a merchant.

Currency Conversion Fees

If you are a US-based merchant selling a course to a student in the UK, Shopify charges a currency conversion fee (usually around 1.5% in the US). This is often overlooked but can be significant for global communities. Tevello supports global learning by keeping customers at home on the brand website, ensuring that even as you scale internationally, the user experience remains seamless and on-brand.

App Subscriptions

Most Shopify stores require apps for email marketing, SEO, and, of course, digital learning. Many course platforms outside the Shopify ecosystem charge "success fees," taking 5% to 10% of every course you sell.

We believe this is fundamentally unfair to the creator. At Tevello, we offer predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees. Our Unlimited Plan is a flat $29.99 per month with 0% transaction fees. This allows you to scale from 10 students to 10,000 students without your app costs ballooning. When you are comparing plan costs against total course revenue, a flat-fee model will almost always outperform a percentage-based model as you grow.

Why Native Integration Matters for Your Bottom Line

One of the biggest "hidden costs" in e-commerce is customer friction. If a customer has to leave your Shopify store to log into a third-party platform like Teachable or Thinkific to access their course, several things happen:

1. Support Tickets Increase: Customers get confused about where their login is.
2. Brand Dilution: The customer feels like they are dealing with a tech platform, not your brand.
3. Loss of Data: You lose the ability to easily track how a course purchase influences future physical product purchases.

By using a native Shopify integration, you solve these problems. We are committed to providing an all-in-one ecosystem where physical products, digital courses, and community engagement live side-by-side. This is the exact strategy used by high-volume creators for solving login issues by moving to a native platform. When everything lives under one URL, you reduce the friction that leads to refunds and customer churn.

Setting Realistic Business Expectations

It is important to approach your Shopify store with a long-term mindset. We do not promise that you will make six figures in your first week. E-commerce success is about diversifying revenue streams and increasing your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

A robust tool like Tevello amplifies your existing efforts. If you have a passion for teaching and a product people love, adding a digital component provides recurring revenue stability. Instead of relying on one-off sales that are heavily impacted by Shopify's "per sale" cut, a membership model allows you to build a community of loyal fans who pay you month after month. This creates a predictable business model where you can accurately forecast your growth.

Reducing Costs as You Scale

As your business matures, you should periodically audit your Shopify setup to ensure you aren't overpaying.

1. Review Your Gateway: Are you using Shopify Payments? If not, the extra 0.5%–2% transaction fee is likely costing you thousands.
2. Calculate the Upgrade Break-even: If you are on the Basic plan and doing more than $5,000/month in sales, the savings from the lower credit card rates on the "Shopify" plan often pay for the higher monthly subscription.
3. Consolidate Your Apps: Are you paying for three different apps for memberships, courses, and community? Tevello offers all the key features for courses and communities in one place. By migrating over 14,000 members and reducing support tickets, large-scale merchants have proven that a unified system is both more efficient and more profitable.

The Tevello Advantage: Transparency and Power

We built Tevello because we saw merchants struggling with fragmented systems and unpredictable costs. Our Unlimited Plan at $29.99 per month is designed to be the last course platform you ever need to install.

When you install Tevello from the Shopify App Store today, you get access to:

• Unlimited courses and students.
• Unlimited video hosting and bandwidth.
• Native community features (profiles, directories, social feeds).
• Drip content and quizzes to keep students engaged.

Because we charge 0% transaction fees, your only variable cost remains the standard Shopify payment processing. This transparency allows you to reinvest your profits into marketing or new product development rather than losing them to "success fees."

Practical Advice for Your First Course

If you are currently a physical-goods-only merchant, the idea of adding a course might feel daunting. However, the data shows that digital products are the most effective way to increase profit margins on a platform that charges per sale.

Start small. For a merchant selling fitness gear, a "14-Day Jumpstart Program" is a perfect entry-level digital product. You can start your 14-day free trial and build your first course now to see how easily it integrates with your existing products. You can build out your entire curriculum and community structure before you ever pay a cent for the app.

Analyzing the ROI of a Native Shopify Store

When you look at the total cost of ownership (TCO) for an e-commerce store, Shopify is often more affordable than the "free" alternatives like WordPress/WooCommerce once you factor in hosting, security, and developer time. Shopify’s fees provide you with a world-class checkout experience and PCI compliance that would cost thousands to maintain independently.

The goal isn't necessarily to find the platform with the absolute zero fees—it’s to find the platform that provides the highest return on investment. Shopify provides the sales engine, and Tevello provides the high-margin fuel. Together, they allow you to keep your customers on your own URL, maintaining full control over your brand and your data.

Conclusion

So, does Shopify charge per sale? Yes, they do, but these fees are the price of admission for using the world’s most powerful and secure e-commerce ecosystem. By choosing the right plan, using Shopify Payments, and diversifying your store with high-margin digital products, you can minimize the impact of these fees and maximize your take-home profit.

At Tevello, we are here to help you turn your expertise into a sustainable business. Our simple, flat-rate pricing ensures that as your sales go up, your app costs stay down. We believe that you should keep 100% of what you earn from your courses, which is why we never charge transaction fees.

To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from. Take advantage of our 14-day free trial and discover how easy it is to add a digital learning powerhouse to your existing Shopify store. Whether you are selling coffee beans, crochet patterns, or gardening tools, there is an audience waiting to learn from you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Shopify charge a fee if I sell a digital course?

Shopify treats digital products just like physical ones in terms of fees. You will pay the standard credit card processing fee associated with your plan (e.g., 2.9% + 30¢ on the Basic plan). If you use a third-party course app that charges its own transaction fees, you might pay more, but Tevello charges 0% transaction fees, keeping your costs predictable.

How can I avoid the 2% third-party transaction fee?

The easiest way to avoid this fee is to enable Shopify Payments. This is Shopify's native gateway. When you use Shopify Payments, the additional platform transaction fee is waived, and you only pay the standard credit card processing rate.

Is it cheaper to sell courses on Shopify or a platform like Teachable?

While platforms like Teachable or Kajabi may seem simpler at first, they often involve "success fees" or high monthly tiers that increase as you grow. By using Shopify + Tevello, you get a more powerful e-commerce engine (Shopify) and a flat-rate course platform (Tevello), which is almost always more cost-effective as you scale your student base.

Do I need a separate Shopify plan for my digital products?

No. You can sell physical products, digital downloads, memberships, and courses all on a single Shopify subscription. This unified approach is one of the biggest advantages of the Shopify ecosystem, as it allows you to manage all your inventory and customer data in one dashboard.