Teachable transaction fees: when the 7.5% is worth paying

Teachable has four plans (prices verified June 2, 2026). Starter is $29 a month and takes a 7.5% transaction fee on each sale. Builder is $69 a month, Growth is $139 a month and Advanced is $309 a month, and all three take 0%. Every plan is billed annually, and there is no free plan.

Separately from Teachable's fee, Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction on every plan. Upgrading removes Teachable's 7.5%; it never removes Stripe's processing. When people say Builder has "no transaction fees", they mean no Teachable fee.

The monthly prices are what each plan works out to when you pay for a year up front. Starter is $348 a year and Builder is $828 a year. You are not choosing a plan for this month; you are choosing it for the next twelve.

That matters because the right plan depends on what you will sell over the year, not in your best month. A creator who launches in March and sells little until autumn should model the whole year before deciding that Starter is cheaper.

Here is how that plays out. A creator who sells $4,000 in a launch month and $1,000 across the rest of the year has $5,000 in annual sales. Starter costs $348 plus $375 in fees, $723 for the year. Builder costs $828. Starter wins, even though in the launch month alone its 7.5% fee of $300 looked painful next to Builder's $69. Math example, not a customer outcome.

Builder costs $40 a month more than Starter and saves 7.5% on every sale. Divide $40 by 7.5% and the break-even is about $533 a month in sales, or about $6,400 over a year. Below that, Starter is cheaper. Above it, Builder is. Math example, not a customer outcome.

The decision rule worth screenshotting: if you expect more than about $6,400 in course sales over the next twelve months, start on Builder. If you are not sure you will sell that much, Starter is the cheaper way to find out.

Put differently, at $533 a month the 7.5% fee is costing you $40, the same as the upgrade. Every dollar of sales above that line costs you 7.5 cents more on Starter than it would on Builder. Math example, not a customer outcome.

Say you sell ten copies of a $199 course in a month, $1,990 in sales. On Starter, Teachable's 7.5% is $149.25, plus the $29 plan cost, for $178.25. On Builder there is no Teachable fee, just the $69 plan cost. Builder saves $109.25 that month. Math example, not a customer outcome.

On both plans Stripe takes 2.9% + $0.30 per sale: $57.71 + $3.00 = $60.71. So the full cost of the month is about $238.96 on Starter and about $129.71 on Builder, or 12% versus 6.5% of sales. Math example, not a customer outcome.

At one sale a month the picture flips. One $199 sale on Starter costs $14.93 in Teachable fees plus $29, about $43.93, against $69 on Builder. Small and irregular sellers are who Starter is for. Math example, not a customer outcome.

No. Builder, Growth and Advanced all charge 0% in Teachable fees, so moving above Builder does not lower your per-sale cost at all. The higher plans are about features and scale, not fees.

That also means a big sales year is never a reason on its own to move past Builder. Whether you sell $10,000 or $100,000 a year in courses, Builder's Teachable fee is the same 0%, and only Stripe's processing grows with your sales.

That gives a clean rule: upgrade from Starter to Builder for fees, and upgrade beyond Builder only for a feature you need. Check Teachable's plan comparison for which features sit on which plan before you pay for one.

Teachable is a focused course platform, built to sell and deliver courses, and for a creator whose product is a course that focus is a strength. The fee comparison above is the whole story only if courses are the whole business.

If you also run a community, live events or paid workshops, list the other tools you pay for alongside Teachable. A low per-sale fee on courses does not help if the rest of your stack charges its own monthly fees and percentages.

Three questions to settle before choosing a plan: what will I sell in the next twelve months, will I sell anything other than courses, and which Teachable features do I actually need? The first answers Starter versus Builder. The other two tell you whether Teachable alone is enough.

HiveLearn puts courses, community, events and payments in one place. On the course side it has drip lessons, quizzes graded on the server, assignments with a gradebook, bundles, learning tracks and verifiable certificates. Its pricing is a revenue share that stops at a monthly cap on paid plans, with monthly or annual billing.

Starter is $0 a month with a 6% rev share and no cap, so there is no monthly fee until you monetize. Growth is $39 a month at 4%, rev share capped at $2,000/month. Pro is $99 a month at 2%, rev share capped at $3,000/month. Scale is $249 a month at 1%, rev share capped at $4,000/month. Enterprise is $499 a month at 0.25%, rev share capped at $5,000/month. Stripe processing (2.9% + $0.30) is charged on top. Annual billing saves 17%, and Growth, Pro and Scale come with a 14-day free trial, no credit card.

When to stay on Teachable: if you sell courses only, sell steadily above the break-even, and like Teachable's tools, Builder at 0% is a good deal. HiveLearn makes more sense when the community and events around the course matter as much as the course.