Ko-fi fees: 0% on tips, 5% on everything else — and when Gold pays off

Quick answer

Ko-fi charges 0% on tips (free and Gold) and 5% on shop sales and memberships on the free plan. Ko-fi Gold ($12/month) drops all fees to 0% and breaks even at $240/month in non-tip sales.

Ko-fi's pitch is that it takes nothing from your tips, and that part is real: 0% platform fee on every tip you receive, forever, even on the free plan. But the moment you sell something — a product in your shop, a membership, a commission — the free plan takes 5%.

Ko-fi Gold removes that 5% for a flat $12/month. Whether that's a deal or a waste comes down to one number: how much you sell that isn't a tip.

Free plan vs Ko-fi Gold

The platform fee is the only thing that changes between the two plans. Payment processing is charged separately by Stripe or PayPal on both — Ko-fi never touches it.

On the free plan, tips are free but shop sales, memberships, and commissions cost 5%. On Gold, all of it drops to 0%. Note that even on Gold you still pay the card processor's ~2.9% + $0.30 — no platform can waive that, because it isn't theirs to waive.

What a sale actually nets you

Switch between a tip, a free-plan shop sale, and a Gold shop sale.

The Gold break-even, exactly

Gold costs $12/month and removes a 5% fee. So Gold pays for itself once your non-tip sales — shop, memberships, commissions — cross $240 a month (5% of $240 = $12). Below that, the free plan keeps more in your pocket. Above it, every extra dollar of shop revenue is 5% cheaper on Gold.

If you're a pure tip jar, you never need Gold — your tips are already at 0%. Gold is a seller's upgrade, not a tipper's.

The details worth knowing

Processing is always yours. Whether free or Gold, the Stripe/PayPal fee (~2.9% + $0.30) comes out of every non-tip transaction. "0% fees" on Gold means 0% platform fee — not 0% total.

PayPal payouts can differ. Depending on your region and whether fans pay via PayPal or Stripe, the exact processing cut varies slightly. The 2.9% + $0.30 figure is the common case, not a guarantee for every country.

No merchant-of-record coverage. Ko-fi doesn't handle sales tax or VAT on your shop sales the way Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy do. For physical or simple digital goods that's usually fine — but the tax liability is yours.

When Ko-fi stops making sense

Ko-fi is one of the cheapest places to take tips and small shop sales, especially on Gold. But once you're running a real digital-product business — subscriptions, licensing, tax across borders — a merchant-of-record platform like Lemon Squeezy or Gumroad can be worth its higher rate for handling compliance you'd otherwise carry yourself. For a direct comparison, see Ko-fi vs Buy Me a Coffee and Patreon vs Ko-fi.

What $5,000/month actually looks like on Ko-fi

Say you sell a $29 item in the Ko-fi Shop and hit $5,000 in gross revenue this month — about 172 transactions, on the free plan.

• Gross revenue: $5,000
• Platform fee (5%): $250
• Processing (2.9% + $0.30 per tx): 172 × $1.14 = $196.25
• Total fees: $446.25
• You keep: $4,553.75
• Effective rate: 8.9%

On Ko-fi Gold ($6/month) the 5% platform fee drops to 0%, bringing total fees down to $202.25 and your effective rate to 4.0%. At $5,000/month Gold saves you $244 — it pays for itself forty times over.

If Ko-fi is one of several income streams

A Ko-fi page usually sits beside a Patreon, a Gumroad shop, or a Stripe checkout. Each shows its own gross and its own fee logic — tips here, 5% there, processing everywhere — and none of them tell you your real blended net.

That's what Owelet does. Connect Ko-fi and the rest, and see your true take-home, fee drain per platform, and tax set-aside in one dashboard. Free to start at owelet.app.

See how Ko-fi's real effective rate compares to all 9 creator platforms →

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