← Creator Platform Fee Comparator
Percentage fees scale with your price; flat fees don't care. That indifference is why the same platform can be a bargain for a $100 course and a margin-shredder for a $2 sticker sheet — and why "what should I charge?" and "which platform?" are secretly the same question at the low end.
Take Lemon Squeezy's 5% + $0.50. On a $100 sale that's $5.50 — 5.5%, basically the headline rate. On a $2 sale it's $0.60 — 30%. Same platform, same pricing page, wildly different deal. Stripe's $0.30 does the same thing underneath any platform that charges processing separately: percentage-plus-flat structures quietly define a minimum viable price.
| Price | 5% + $0.50 | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|
| $2 | $0.60 | 30.0% |
| $5 | $0.75 | 15.0% |
| $10 | $1.00 | 10.0% |
| $20 | $1.50 | 7.5% |
| $100 | $5.50 | 5.5% |
Prefer percentage-only structures: Payhip's free plan (5%, plus processing) and Ko-fi (5% or 0% Gold, plus processing) have no platform flat fee, which is precisely why they suit low price points — though Stripe's $0.30 still lurks. Bundle: three $3 products as an $8 pack turns three flat fees into one and raises the price into saner effective-rate territory. Or raise the price: the difference between $2 and $4 is invisible to most buyers of digital goods and halves the flat fee's bite. The worst move is ignoring it — at $2 a sale, a $0.80 combined flat fee means you're working two-fifths of every sale for the fee stack.
Above roughly $15–20, flat fees fade into noise and the decision shifts to the percentage, the subscription plans, and the merchant-of-record question. That's why no single platform "is cheapest" — the fee structures are shaped differently, and your price point decides which shape fits.
Fees verified August 2026. Not financial advice. Not affiliated with any platform mentioned.