Shopify Selling Fees: How Much Does Shopify Take Per Sale?

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Anatomy of a Shopify Sale: Understanding the Fee Layers
3. Decoding the Shopify Plan Tiers
4. The Hidden Costs: Beyond the Percentage
5. The Strategic Shift: High-Margin Digital Products
6. Practical Scenarios: Calculating Your True Profit
7. Managing the Math: When to Upgrade
8. Scaling with Confidence: Real-World Adoption
9. Setting Realistic Business Expectations
10. The Checklist: Minimizing Your Shopify Costs
11. Building a Future-Proof Brand
12. Conclusion
13. FAQ

Introduction

Did you know that the global e-learning market is on a trajectory to surpass $460 billion by 2026? For the modern merchant, this represents more than just a growing industry; it signals a fundamental shift in how value is delivered to customers. While physical products often come with the heavy baggage of manufacturing costs, storage logistics, and the constant stress of inventory management, digital products offer a path toward significantly higher margins. However, even the most successful business models can be undermined by a lack of clarity regarding platform fees. When a sale occurs on your storefront, the revenue you see isn't the amount that ultimately hits your bank account.

Understanding the mechanics of how much Shopify takes per sale is vital for any entrepreneur aiming to build a sustainable, profitable brand. This guide is designed to peel back the layers of Shopify’s pricing structure, from the monthly subscription tiers to the nuanced differences between payment processing fees and third-party transaction penalties. We will explore the financial implications of each Shopify plan and demonstrate how a strategic move toward digital offerings—such as courses and memberships—can help you retain more of your hard-earned money.

Our purpose here is to provide a transparent, comprehensive breakdown of every fee you might encounter. We will look at real-world scenarios, compare gateway options, and highlight how we at Tevello help you transform your store into a digital learning powerhouse without adding unnecessary financial strain. By the end of this article, you will have a clear blueprint for navigating Shopify’s costs and a strategy for increasing your customer lifetime value (LTV) through the power of native digital products.

The Anatomy of a Shopify Sale: Understanding the Fee Layers

To truly grasp how much Shopify takes per sale, we must first distinguish between the various types of charges. A single transaction usually involves multiple "slices" of the pie being taken by different entities. Merchants often confuse subscription fees with transaction fees, but they serve very different purposes in your business's ledger.

Subscription Fees vs. Transaction Fees

Your subscription fee is a fixed monthly or annual cost. This is what you pay for the "real estate" on the internet—the platform itself, the hosting, the security, and the dashboard tools. Whether you sell one item or a thousand, your base subscription remains the same (unless you choose to upgrade your plan).

Transaction fees, on the other hand, are variable. These are the fees triggered by the act of selling. Shopify categorizes these into two main buckets: payment processing fees (also known as credit card rates) and third-party transaction fees. If you use Shopify’s internal payment processor, Shopify Payments, the platform waives the additional transaction fee, leaving you only with the standard credit card processing rates. However, if you opt for an external gateway like PayPal or a regional provider, Shopify adds an extra percentage on top of what that provider already charges you.

Credit Card Processing Rates

This is a fee that exists across almost every e-commerce platform, not just Shopify. It is the cost of moving money from the customer's credit card to your account. This fee is typically a percentage of the total transaction plus a small fixed cents-per-order charge (e.g., 2.9% + $0.30).

It is important to note that these rates are not arbitrary. They cover the risks of fraud, the cost of the banking networks, and the convenience of instant payment. As you move up Shopify’s plan tiers, these percentages decrease. For a high-volume store, a reduction of even 0.2% can result in thousands of dollars saved annually. If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.

Decoding the Shopify Plan Tiers

Shopify offers several tiers designed to grow with your business. Each tier has its own subscription cost and its own associated fee structure per sale.

The Basic Plan

Priced at $39 per month (or $29 if billed annually), the Basic plan is the entry point for most serious merchants. It provides everything needed to launch a full online store.

• Online Credit Card Rates: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
• In-Person (POS) Rates: 2.6% + $0.10.
• Third-Party Transaction Fee: 2.0% (if not using Shopify Payments).

For a merchant just starting out, these fees are manageable. However, as sales volume increases, the 2.9% rate begins to take a noticeable bite out of the margins.

The Shopify (Grow) Plan

Often referred to as the "mid-tier" or "Grow" plan, this costs $105 per month (or $79 annually). It is designed for businesses that have found their product-market fit and are beginning to scale.

• Online Credit Card Rates: 2.6% + $0.30 per transaction.
• In-Person (POS) Rates: 2.5% + $0.10.
• Third-Party Transaction Fee: 1.0% (if not using Shopify Payments).

At this level, the reduction in credit card fees often justifies the jump in monthly subscription costs. If your store is processing more than $5,000 in monthly sales, the math usually favors upgrading to this tier.

The Advanced Plan

At $399 per month (or $299 annually), the Advanced plan is for high-volume retailers who require deeper reporting and lower transaction costs.

• Online Credit Card Rates: 2.4% + $0.30 per transaction.
• In-Person (POS) Rates: 2.4% + $0.10.
• Third-Party Transaction Fee: 0.6% (if not using Shopify Payments).

This plan offers the best rates for standard Shopify users. It also unlocks features like third-party calculated shipping rates, which can further reduce operational overhead.

Shopify Plus and Enterprise Solutions

For the largest brands, Shopify Plus starts at roughly $2,300 per month. These fees are often negotiated based on volume, and the transaction rates are the lowest available on the platform. This tier is less about the per-sale fee and more about the advanced automation and customization capabilities required by enterprise-level operations.

The Hidden Costs: Beyond the Percentage

When calculating how much Shopify takes per sale, many merchants forget to include the secondary costs that facilitate those sales. While not always a direct percentage of the checkout total, they are essential to your "cost of goods sold" (COGS) analysis.

App Subscriptions and Usage Fees

Most Shopify stores rely on apps to handle everything from email marketing to product reviews. Many of these apps charge a flat monthly fee, but some also take a percentage of the sales they generate. This is particularly common with "upsell" apps or certain marketing tools. At Tevello, we believe in predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees. Our Unlimited Plan is a flat $29.99 per month, regardless of whether you make one sale or a million.

International and Currency Conversion Fees

If you sell to customers outside your home country, Shopify and your payment processor may charge additional fees. For US-based stores, an international credit card often carries an extra 1% fee. If you allow customers to pay in their local currency, Shopify also charges a currency conversion fee (typically around 1.5% to 2.0%). This is a critical factor for global brands to monitor, as it can push your total per-sale cost significantly higher.

Domain and Email Marketing Costs

While Shopify provides a platform, your custom domain (e.g., yourbrand.com) and your email marketing volume can add up. While the first 2,500 emails on Shopify Email are free each month, scaling your list will incur costs of $0.001 per additional email. These are small amounts individually, but in a high-volume business, they must be accounted for in your profitability models.

The Strategic Shift: High-Margin Digital Products

One of the most effective ways to offset the costs of selling on Shopify is to diversify your catalog with digital products. This is where Tevello’s mission truly shines. Our goal is to "turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse."

Consider a merchant selling premium coffee beans. They face fluctuating shipping costs, potential spoilage, and the inherent fees of physical commerce. By adding a "Home Barista Masterclass" video course using our app, they create a product with zero shipping costs and 100% digital fulfillment. Once the course is created, every sale is pure profit minus the Shopify processing fee. Because Tevello integrates natively, that coffee brand can offer the course as a post-purchase upsell right in the Shopify checkout their customers already trust.

By using all the key features for courses and communities, you can build a recurring revenue model that stabilizes your business. Instead of relying solely on one-off physical sales, you can offer a monthly membership. This creates predictable income that makes the Shopify subscription and transaction fees feel like a much smaller investment in your brand’s infrastructure.

Why Native Integration Matters

Many merchants make the mistake of using third-party platforms for their courses, which redirects customers to a different URL (e.g., yourcourse.teachable.com). This fragments the brand experience and often results in higher customer support tickets due to login confusion.

We built Tevello to ensure a unified login that reduces customer support friction. Your customers stay on your domain, see your branding, and use their existing Shopify account to access their digital content. This keeps the "power" in your hands and ensures you own your customer data entirely.

Practical Scenarios: Calculating Your True Profit

To visualize how much Shopify takes per sale, let's look at two different business models.

Scenario A: The Physical Goods Specialist

• Product: Handmade Ceramic Mug ($40)
• Plan: Shopify Basic ($39/mo)
• Payment Method: Shopify Payments (2.9% + $0.30)
• Math: $40 x 0.029 = $1.16 + $0.30 = $1.46 per sale.
• Remaining: $38.54. (Now subtract shipping, materials, and labor).

Scenario B: The Hybrid Merchant (Physical + Tevello)

• Product: Ceramic Mug ($40) + "Pottery for Beginners" Course ($60)
• Plan: Shopify Basic + Tevello Unlimited ($29.99/mo)
• Payment Method: Shopify Payments
• Math: $100 x 0.029 = $2.90 + $0.30 = $3.20 per sale.
• Remaining: $96.80.
• Advantage: While the fee is higher in dollars, the profit margin on the $60 course is nearly 100% because there is no shipping or material cost for that portion of the bundle.

This hybrid approach is how modern brands are thriving. They use physical products to acquire customers and digital products to maximize the value of those customers. You can see how merchants are earning six figures by adopting this very model.

Managing the Math: When to Upgrade

A common question among merchants is: "When should I move from the Basic plan to the Shopify plan?"

The answer lies in the point where the savings in transaction fees exceed the increase in the monthly subscription price.

• Basic to Shopify (Grow): The difference in subscription cost is roughly $66 per month. The difference in credit card fees is 0.3% (2.9% vs. 2.6%).
• Break-even Point: $66 / 0.003 = $22,000.

If your store is processing more than $22,000 per month in credit card sales, you are actually losing money by staying on the Basic plan. Once you cross that threshold, the lower percentage on the higher tier more than pays for the increased subscription cost.

This same logic applies to choosing your digital course platform. If you use a platform that takes a "success fee" (often 5-10% per sale), your costs skyrocket as you grow. By choosing a flat-rate plan that supports unlimited members, you ensure that your costs remain fixed while your revenue has no ceiling. We believe you should keep 100% of what you earn, which is why we charge 0% transaction fees.

Scaling with Confidence: Real-World Adoption

Real-world results prove that the native Shopify ecosystem is the most robust way to grow. Consider the success of Crochetmilie, a brand that perfectly illustrates the power of combining Shopify with native digital products. By offering both physical kits and instructional content, they managed to build a massive community.

By learning how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses, you can see that the Shopify transaction fee becomes a negligible cost of doing business when your margins are protected by digital scalability. Their use of strategies for selling over 4,000 digital courses natively showcases that you don't need a separate, expensive platform to manage thousands of students. Everything lives inside Shopify, utilizing the payment gateways and checkout flows you already have in place.

Other brands have found similar success by shifting their focus toward retention. Selling to an existing customer is significantly cheaper than acquiring a new one. When you provide a digital community or a course, you give customers a reason to log back into your store every day. This increased engagement leads to higher brand loyalty and, ultimately, more sales of both digital and physical goods. You can read more success stories from brands using native courses to understand how this strategy applies across different niches, from gardening to professional photography.

Setting Realistic Business Expectations

It is important to approach these numbers with a balanced perspective. While it is tempting to focus solely on minimizing fees, the cheapest option isn't always the best for your long-term growth. A platform that charges 0% transaction fees but provides a poor user experience will cost you more in lost sales than a platform with a 2.9% fee that offers a seamless, high-converting checkout.

Shopify’s fees are an investment in a world-class infrastructure. They provide the security that prevents chargebacks, the speed that keeps bounce rates low, and the integrations that allow you to scale. Similarly, adding a tool like Tevello shouldn't be seen as an added cost, but as a revenue amplifier. By diversifying your income through digital courses and memberships, you are building recurring revenue stability and increasing your brand's overall value.

Do not expect to make six figures in your first week. Building a successful Shopify store takes time, consistent marketing, and a deep understanding of your customer's needs. However, by keeping your fixed costs predictable and choosing tools that don't penalize your success with transaction fees, you give yourself the best possible chance at long-term profitability.

The Checklist: Minimizing Your Shopify Costs

To ensure you are keeping as much of your revenue as possible, follow this checklist:

1. Use Shopify Payments: Whenever possible, enable Shopify's native payment gateway to avoid the 0.5% to 2.0% third-party transaction penalty.
2. Audit Your Apps: Regularly review your installed apps. Are you paying for "revenue-share" apps that are eating your margins? Switch to flat-rate alternatives where available.
3. Optimize Your Plan: Perform the "break-even" calculation every quarter. If your sales have grown, you might be ready for a higher Shopify tier that offers lower rates.
4. Introduce Digital Upsells: Use Tevello to create high-margin digital products that require no shipping or inventory costs, effectively raising your average order value (AOV) without increasing your overhead.
5. Pay Annually: Most Shopify plans and apps (including Tevello) offer a discount if you pay for the year upfront. This is an easy 10-25% saving on your fixed costs.

Building a Future-Proof Brand

The e-commerce landscape is constantly evolving, but the fundamentals of profitability remain the same: maximize your margins and minimize your friction. By understanding exactly how much Shopify takes per sale, you can price your products more accurately and choose the right plan for your current stage of growth.

Integrating digital education and community features is no longer a "luxury" for Shopify merchants—it is a competitive necessity. Whether you are teaching people how to use the physical products you sell or offering standalone expertise, digital products provide the financial cushion needed to offset platform fees and advertising costs.

We invite you to install Tevello from the Shopify App Store today and explore how a native course platform can change the math of your business. With our Unlimited Plan, you get unlimited courses, students, and video hosting for one transparent price. You can start your 14-day free trial and build your first course now, allowing you to see the value before you ever pay a cent.

Conclusion

In summary, Shopify’s fee structure is a multi-layered system that rewards growth. While the initial percentages might seem daunting, the ability to lower those rates as you scale provides a clear path to increased profitability. By utilizing Shopify Payments and choosing the correct subscription tier for your volume, you can significantly reduce the amount the platform takes from each sale.

More importantly, the move toward digital products offers the most potent solution for protecting your margins. By turning your store into a destination for both products and knowledge, you increase the lifetime value of every customer you acquire. At Tevello, we are proud to provide the tools that make this transition possible, offering a robust, all-in-one ecosystem where physical and digital goods thrive side-by-side. Our commitment to 0% transaction fees ensures that as your community grows, your profits grow with it.

To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.

FAQ

1. Does Shopify take a percentage of my shipping costs?

Yes. When Shopify calculates its payment processing fee (e.g., 2.9% + $0.30), it applies that percentage to the total transaction amount, which includes the product price, taxes, and shipping fees. This is why many merchants choose to offer "free shipping" and build the cost into the product price, or use digital products to avoid shipping-related fees entirely.

2. Is there a way to avoid the 2% third-party transaction fee?

The only way to avoid the additional transaction fee (which ranges from 0.5% to 2.0% depending on your plan) is to use Shopify Payments as your primary gateway. If you are in a country where Shopify Payments is not available, you will unfortunately have to factor this extra cost into your pricing strategy.

3. If I sell a course using Tevello, does Shopify still take a transaction fee?

Shopify will still charge its standard credit card processing fee (the rate associated with your plan tier) because the payment is still being processed through the Shopify checkout. However, Tevello itself charges 0% transaction fees, meaning we don't take an additional cut of your digital sales. You only pay your flat monthly subscription to us.

4. Can I sell digital courses and physical products in the same cart?

Absolutely. One of the primary advantages of our native Shopify integration is that customers can add a physical item (like a yoga mat) and a digital item (like a yoga video series) to the same cart. They check out once, and while the physical item triggers a shipping workflow, the digital item is instantly delivered to their member area within your store.