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Payhip Fee Calculator
Payhip prices like a utility: a free tier that takes 5%, and two subscriptions that buy the percentage down. That turns "which plan?" into an arithmetic problem with exact answers — and this page does the arithmetic on your numbers, not a marketing table's.
Quick answer
Payhip's free plan charges 5% per sale plus Stripe or PayPal processing of about 2.9% + $0.30, so a $29 sale nets $26.41. The Plus plan ($29/mo, 2% fee) pays for itself at $967 in monthly sales; Pro ($99/mo, 0% fee) beats Plus from $3,500 a month.
Calculator
| Payhip platform fee5% on the free plan | −$1.45 |
| Payment processing (Stripe/PayPal)≈2.9% + $0.30 — paid to the processor, not Payhip | −$1.14 |
| Total fees (8.9% of price) | −$2.59 |
Fully self-hosted Stripe (no platform, no storefront): you would keep $27.86 on the same sale — $1.45 more. Self-hosting also means you run checkout, taxes, and delivery yourself.
Fees verified 2026-06-10 against the official pricing page. Spot an outdated number? Email support@toolgenx.com.
// plans as math
The three plans, as arithmetic instead of marketing
Each upgrade swaps a percentage for a subscription, so each has a hard break-even. Free to Plus saves 3 points and costs $29/month: break-even $966.67 of monthly revenue. Plus to Pro saves 2 more points for $70 extra: break-even $3,500. Jumping Free straight to Pro nets 5 points for $99: break-even $1,980. Below the line, stay put — paying $29/month to save $15 of fees is a donation, not an optimization.
One subtlety the headline rates hide: the processor's fixed $0.30 hits every plan equally, so cheap products stay expensive to sell even on Pro. A $4.99 sticker sheet on Pro still loses about 8.9% to processing. The plans optimize the percentage; nothing on Payhip optimizes away the fixed fee except a higher price.
// where payhip sits
The quiet overachiever of the budget tier
Payhip's free tier does two things competitors gate behind money: unlimited products, and EU + UK VAT collection and remittance at 0% monthly cost. That second one matters more than it sounds — VAT-on-digital-goods is the compliance trap that pushes sellers toward 5%-plus merchant-of-record platforms in the first place. Run the Lemon Squeezy calculator next to this one and notice the fee gap buys substantially overlapping tax coverage.
What you give up is gravity: Payhip brings no marketplace traffic. Like raw Stripe, every buyer is one you found yourself — there is no equivalent of Gumroad Discover paying 30% for a stranger. If your audience already exists (newsletter, YouTube, client base), that trade is free money. If you are counting on the platform to supply buyers, no fee table fixes that. The full platform comparison shows who actually charges for traffic versus tooling.
// all three plans
Payhip net payout at $9, $29, $119 by plan
Every plan at three price points, with fully self-hosted Stripe as the benchmark. Subscription costs are not in the per-sale numbers — apply the break-evens from the section above to your monthly volume.
| Sale price | Free Forever plan | Plus plan ($29/mo) | Pro plan ($99/mo) | Self-hosted Stripe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $9.00 | $7.99 | $8.26 | $8.44 | $8.44 |
| $29.00 | $26.41 | $27.28 | $27.86 | $27.86 |
| $119.00 | $109.30 | $112.87 | $115.25 | $115.25 |
Remember the monthly subscriptions sit outside this table: Plus costs $29/month and Pro $99/month regardless of sales. A quiet month on Pro is a $99 fee on zero revenue — the one scenario where the free plan is unbeatable.
// common questions
Payhip fees — common questions
- What are Payhip’s fees on the free plan?
- The Free Forever plan charges 5% per sale, and Stripe or PayPal processing (about 2.9% + $0.30) is billed separately by the processor. A $29 sale costs $1.45 to Payhip and roughly $1.14 to the processor, netting you $26.41 — an effective rate near 8.9%.
- When is the Plus plan ($29/month) worth it?
- Plus drops the platform fee from 5% to 2%, saving 3% of revenue. The break-even is $29 ÷ 0.03 ≈ $967 in monthly sales. Below that, the subscription costs more than it saves; above it, every extra dollar of revenue widens the win.
- When does the Pro plan ($99/month) beat Plus?
- Pro removes the platform fee entirely, saving a further 2% over Plus. The incremental cost is $70/month, so the break-even between them is $70 ÷ 0.02 = $3,500 in monthly sales. Coming straight from Free, Pro pays for itself at $99 ÷ 0.05 = $1,980 a month.
- Does Payhip handle EU VAT?
- Yes — Payhip collects and remits EU and UK VAT on digital product sales on all plans, including Free. That is unusual at the free tier and a genuine differentiator: on most processor-direct setups, VAT is entirely your problem.
- How does Payhip compare with Gumroad on fees?
- Payhip Free is meaningfully cheaper: about 7.9% + $0.30 all-in versus Gumroad direct’s roughly 12.9% + $0.80. On a $29 product that is $26.41 versus $24.46 in your pocket. Gumroad answers with Discover marketplace traffic; Payhip’s counterpart is the paid plans that scale the fee toward zero.
- What does this calculator assume?
- Published plan pricing — 5% / 2% / 0% by plan, plus approximately 2.9% + $0.30 processor fees — verified 2026-06-10 against payhip.com/pricing. PayPal’s commercial rate differs slightly from Stripe’s; the itemized lines make swapping rates straightforward.
// your audience, your traffic
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