Table of Contents
- Introduction
- The Three Layers of Shopify Costs
- Breaking Down the Percentages by Plan
- Shopify Payments vs. External Gateways
- The Impact of Localized Pricing and Currency Conversion
- Hidden Costs: Apps and Their Effect on Per-Sale Profit
- Practical Scenario: The Specialty Coffee Roaster
- Why Digital Products are the Margin Savior
- Maximizing Profitability: The Tevello Way
- Strategies to Lower Your Total Fees
- The Role of Community in Reducing Acquisition Costs
- Native Integration vs. Redirection
- Planning for the Long Term
- Technical Advantages of a Unified Ecosystem
- Diversifying Revenue Streams for Stability
- Conclusion
- FAQ
Introduction
Did you know that many e-commerce merchants lose up to 10% of their gross revenue to a combination of fees and invisible costs before a single dollar of profit is realized? For a business doing $10,000 in monthly sales, that is a $1,000 leak that could have been reinvested into marketing or product development. When you are building an online presence, understanding the math behind your platform is just as important as the quality of the products you sell.
The question of how much do shopify take per sale is one of the most common concerns for new and scaling merchants alike. It is rarely a single, flat number. Instead, the cost of doing business on Shopify is a composite of subscription tiers, payment processing percentages, and transaction fees. While these costs represent the price of a robust, secure infrastructure, failing to account for them can lead to "margin creep," where your business grows in volume but stagnates in actual profit.
In this guide, we are going to peel back the layers of Shopify’s pricing model. We will explore the differences between processing and transaction fees, how your choice of payment gateway affects your bottom line, and why diversifying into digital products can be a game-changer for your margins. At Tevello, our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse, and a core part of that is helping you keep more of your hard-earned revenue.
By the end of this article, you will have a clear blueprint for calculating your net profit per order and a strategy for optimizing your store’s cost structure for long-term sustainability.
The Three Layers of Shopify Costs
To truly understand how much do shopify take per sale, you have to view the platform’s costs as a three-layered cake. Each layer serves a different purpose, and each is calculated differently.
1. The Subscription Fee (Fixed Cost)
The subscription is your "rent" for using the platform. It provides you with the website builder, hosting, security, and basic analytics. Whether you sell one item or one thousand, this price stays the same each month. For most merchants, this starts at the Basic plan ($39/month), the Shopify plan ($105/month), or the Advanced plan ($399/month).
2. Payment Processing Fees (Variable Cost)
This is the fee charged by the financial institutions to move money from the customer’s bank to yours. This is not unique to Shopify; any business that accepts credit cards—whether it is a local coffee shop or a global retailer—pays processing fees. On Shopify, these rates are determined by the plan you are on. The higher your subscription tier, the lower your processing percentage.
3. Transaction Fees (Conditional Cost)
This is the "penalty" fee Shopify charges if you choose not to use their native payment gateway, Shopify Payments. If you use an external provider like PayPal or a third-party credit card processor, Shopify takes an additional cut of the sale (ranging from 0.5% to 2.0%).
Breaking Down the Percentages by Plan
The plan you choose acts as a lever for your per-sale costs. As your volume increases, it often makes sense to pay a higher monthly subscription to "buy down" the percentage Shopify takes from every transaction.
Basic Shopify Plan
On the Basic plan, the processing fee is 2.9% + $0.30 for every online transaction. If you opt out of Shopify Payments, you are also hit with a 2.0% transaction fee. This means that for a $100 sale using an external gateway, you could be paying nearly $5.20 in fees alone before shipping or taxes.
The Shopify (Mid-Tier) Plan
Known for being the "growth" tier, this plan reduces the online processing fee to 2.6% + $0.30. The transaction fee for external gateways also drops to 1.0%. This might seem like a small difference, but for a merchant doing $15,000 in monthly sales, moving from Basic to this tier can save hundreds of dollars in processing costs, effectively paying for the subscription increase.
Advanced Shopify Plan
For high-volume merchants, the Advanced plan offers the most competitive rates at 2.4% + $0.30 per transaction. The transaction fee for third-party gateways is a mere 0.5%. At this level, the focus is on maximizing efficiency. When you are processing thousands of orders, a 0.2% reduction in fees represents significant capital that can be used to scale your community or improve your product line.
Shopify Payments vs. External Gateways
One of the most effective ways to lower the amount Shopify takes per sale is to use Shopify Payments. When you enable this native integration, Shopify waives the 0.5% to 2.0% transaction fee entirely.
However, there are reasons some merchants still use external gateways. Perhaps they sell products in a niche that Shopify Payments doesn't support, or they are in a country where the service isn't available yet. If you are in this position, you must be extremely diligent about your margins.
Using an external gateway means you are being charged twice: once by the gateway (like PayPal) and once by Shopify. This is often the primary reason why store owners feel like the platform is taking too large a cut. We always recommend that if Shopify Payments is available to you, it is the most logical choice for maintaining healthy margins.
The Impact of Localized Pricing and Currency Conversion
As you expand globally, "how much do shopify take per sale" becomes even more complex. When a customer pays in a currency different from your payout currency, Shopify applies a currency conversion fee. In the United States, this is typically 1.5%, though it varies by region.
If you are selling a $100 product to a customer in the UK, and they pay in GBP, you aren't just paying the standard processing fee. You are also paying for the convenience of the platform handling the exchange rate. For international brands, these conversion fees can eat into profits if the product isn't priced correctly for foreign markets.
Strategic merchants often use strategies for selling over 4,000 digital courses natively to offset these costs, as digital goods have virtually no overhead, making a 1.5% conversion fee much easier to absorb than it would be for a heavy physical product with high shipping costs.
Hidden Costs: Apps and Their Effect on Per-Sale Profit
While the core Shopify fees are predictable, the app ecosystem can introduce variable costs that impact your net profit. Many apps charge a percentage of sales generated through their service. For example, some loyalty programs or upsell apps might take 1% of the revenue they "influence."
If you have five different apps each taking a small slice of the pie, you might find that your $100 sale is suddenly paying out $7 or $8 in total software and transaction fees. This is why we are committed to providing an all-in-one ecosystem where physical products, digital courses, and community engagement live side-by-side without a tangled web of separate app subscriptions.
When you audit your store, look for apps that offer predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees. Fixed-cost apps allow you to scale your revenue without your expenses growing linearly alongside your success.
Practical Scenario: The Specialty Coffee Roaster
Consider a merchant selling high-end coffee beans. A single bag of beans sells for $25.
- Physical Sale: $25.00
- COGS (Beans, bag, roasting): $10.00
- Shipping: $6.00
- Shopify Basic Fee (2.9% + $0.30): $1.03
- Net Profit: $7.97
Now, imagine this same roaster uses Tevello to offer a "Home Barista Basics" video course for an additional $25. Because digital products have no shipping costs and no physical production cost:
- Digital Sale: $25.00
- COGS: $0.00
- Shipping: $0.00
- Shopify Basic Fee (2.9% + $0.30): $1.03
- Net Profit: $23.97
By adding a digital component, the merchant has more than tripled their profit on that second $25 spent by the customer. This is why we believe merchants should own their customer data and brand experience; by keeping the customer on your own URL, you build a relationship that leads to these high-margin digital upsells.
Why Digital Products are the Margin Savior
The beauty of digital products—such as courses, memberships, and digital downloads—is that they bypass many of the fees that plague physical retail. While you still pay the Shopify processing fee (the 2.4% to 2.9% layer), you eliminate the variables of shipping insurance, packaging, and physical returns.
At Tevello, our "Native Shopify Integration" ensures a seamless checkout experience using the payment gateways the merchant already trusts. This means your digital courses are treated exactly like your physical products in the Shopify checkout, but they carry a significantly higher profit margin.
If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.
When you look at success stories from brands using native courses, you see a recurring theme: they use digital content to increase the Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Instead of a customer buying one physical item and never returning, they join a community or buy a course, providing the merchant with recurring revenue stability and a much higher return on their initial customer acquisition cost.
Maximizing Profitability: The Tevello Way
We believe that as you grow, your platform shouldn't punish you for your success. Many third-party course platforms charge "success fees" or take a percentage of every student you enroll. We find that model to be counter-productive to the merchant's growth.
This is why we offer a flat-rate plan that supports unlimited members. Our model is built on The Unlimited Plan at $29.99 per month. We charge 0% transaction fees. Whether you sell 10 courses or 10,000, Tevello will never take a cut of your sales. You keep 100% of what you earn (minus the standard Shopify processing fees that apply to any sale on the platform).
By using a tool that lives directly inside your Shopify admin, you also reduce the overhead of managing multiple logins and customer support inquiries. We have seen examples of successful content monetization on Shopify where merchants have successfully migrated from fragmented systems to our unified platform, drastically reducing their technical debt.
Strategies to Lower Your Total Fees
If you find that the answer to "how much do shopify take per sale" is currently too high for your comfort, here are four actionable steps to bring those numbers down:
1. Consolidate Your App Stack
Look for apps that handle multiple functions. Instead of having a separate app for community, another for courses, and another for digital downloads, use an all-in-one solution. This reduces your fixed monthly costs and simplifies your financial reporting.
2. Move to Annual Billing
Shopify often offers a significant discount (sometimes up to 25%) if you pay for your subscription annually rather than monthly. While this requires an upfront investment, it immediately improves your monthly net margin.
3. Incentivize Lower-Fee Payment Methods
While you can't always control how a customer pays, ensuring Shopify Payments is the default option is crucial. Some merchants also offer small discounts for "direct" payment methods if they are in regions where credit card fees are exceptionally high, though this should be checked against Shopify’s Terms of Service in your specific area.
4. Focus on High-Margin Add-ons
As demonstrated with the coffee roaster scenario, the best way to lower the percentage of your revenue that goes to fees is to increase the value of the transaction without increasing the cost of the fulfillment. Digital products are the ultimate tool for this. We've seen merchants generating revenue from both physical and digital goods in a way that makes the standard Shopify fees feel like a negligible part of their successful business model.
The Role of Community in Reducing Acquisition Costs
When we talk about how much Shopify takes per sale, we often forget to factor in how much it cost to get that sale in the first place (CAC). If you are paying $20 in ads to get a $50 sale, the 2.9% Shopify fee is the least of your worries.
By building a community directly on your store, you create an environment where customers return organically. Tevello’s Unlimited plan includes community features like profiles, member directories, and social feeds. This keeps customers engaged with your brand on your own URL.
When you look at retention strategies that drive repeat digital purchases, you see that community-led growth is the most effective way to lower your long-term costs. A customer who is part of your community doesn't need to be "re-bought" via Facebook or Google ads for their next purchase. This significantly increases your profit per sale over the lifetime of that customer.
Native Integration vs. Redirection
A common mistake merchants make is using a third-party course platform that redirects the customer away from Shopify to a different URL (e.g., yourstore.thirdpartyplatform.com). Not only does this hurt your SEO, but it also creates friction. Friction is the enemy of conversion.
When a customer has to create a second account or enter their credit card information on a different-looking checkout page, they are more likely to abandon the purchase. Our "Native Shopify Integration" keeps them in your ecosystem. They use their existing Shopify account, their saved addresses, and the payment methods they already trust.
This seamlessness is why some brands are driving 50% of sales from repeat course purchasers. When the experience is easy, customers buy more often. And when they buy more often, the fixed cost of your apps and subscriptions is spread across a larger volume of sales, lowering your effective cost per order.
Planning for the Long Term
As you scale, you should periodically audit your Shopify plan. If your monthly sales are consistently hitting a certain threshold, the savings from the lower processing fees on the Advanced plan will outweigh the higher monthly subscription cost.
Here is a quick rule of thumb: If you are doing more than $5,000 in monthly sales, the "Shopify" plan is almost always better than the "Basic" plan. If you are doing more than $20,000 in monthly sales, it is time to look at the "Advanced" plan.
By staying on top of these numbers, you ensure that you aren't leaving money on the table. Your Shopify store should be a "digital learning powerhouse," but it should also be a lean, efficient financial machine.
Technical Advantages of a Unified Ecosystem
Beyond the direct costs, there is the "time cost." Managing a store where digital and physical products are separated across different platforms is a logistical nightmare. You have to sync inventory, manage two different sets of customer data, and deal with disparate analytics.
At Tevello, we believe in a unified ecosystem. When you install Tevello from the Shopify App Store today, you are adding a layer of functionality to your existing store, not building a second one. You can use Shopify's built-in tools for drip content scheduling and quizzes, and your video hosting and bandwidth are included in the Unlimited Plan.
This technical unity reduces the "hidden" cost of manual labor. Instead of spending hours troubleshooting why a customer can't access their course, you can spend that time creating new content or engaging with your community.
Diversifying Revenue Streams for Stability
The e-commerce world is volatile. Ad costs fluctuate, shipping rates rise, and supply chains break. Diversifying your revenue streams by adding digital products provides a safety net.
If your physical stock is delayed at a port, your digital courses can keep the revenue flowing. Because Shopify takes the same percentage of a digital sale as it does a physical one, but the digital sale has zero fulfillment cost, your business remains healthy even during physical retail slumps.
Building brand loyalty through these digital offerings is what turns a "one-hit-wonder" product into a long-term brand. We are proud to provide the tools that help merchants achieve this level of recurring revenue stability.
Conclusion
Understanding how much do shopify take per sale is about more than just reading a pricing table. It is about understanding the relationship between your subscription, your payment gateway, and your product margins. While Shopify does take a percentage of every sale to maintain its world-class infrastructure, you have significant control over how much you ultimately pay.
By using Shopify Payments, selecting the right plan for your volume, and diversifying into high-margin digital products, you can maximize your profitability. Tevello is here to help you amplify those efforts. Our Unlimited plan provides everything you need—unlimited courses, students, and video hosting—for a transparent $29.99 per month with 0% transaction fees.
We invite you to seeing how the app natively integrates with Shopify by starting your 14-day free trial. You can build your entire curriculum and set up your community before paying a cent, ensuring the platform is the right fit for your brand's growth.
To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.
FAQ
Does Shopify take a percentage of every sale?
Yes, Shopify takes a payment processing fee on every sale, which typically ranges from 2.4% + $0.30 to 2.9% + $0.30 depending on your plan. Additionally, if you do not use Shopify Payments, they charge a transaction fee of 0.5% to 2.0%. However, apps like Tevello do not add any additional success fees or transaction percentages on top of these standard Shopify costs.
How can I avoid the extra 2% transaction fee on Shopify?
The most effective way to avoid the additional transaction fee is to use Shopify Payments as your primary payment gateway. When Shopify Payments is enabled, Shopify waives the 0.5% - 2.0% fee that they normally charge for using third-party processors like PayPal or Stripe.
Are the fees different for digital products versus physical products?
Shopify’s core processing and transaction fees are the same regardless of whether you are selling a physical or digital product. However, the "effective" cost of a digital sale is much lower because you eliminate expenses like shipping, packaging, and physical inventory costs, allowing you to keep a much larger portion of the sale as net profit.
Does Tevello charge a fee for every student enrolled or course sold?
No. Unlike many other digital course platforms, Tevello charges 0% transaction fees. We believe in simple, transparent pricing, which is why we offer our Unlimited Plan for a flat fee of $29.99 per month. This includes unlimited courses, students, and bandwidth, so your costs remain predictable as your business scales.
