Teachable Fees 2026: What You Actually Keep After Every Sale

Teachable looks simple on the surface. Pick a plan, build your course, sell it. But the fee structure has three separate layers that stack on top of each other — and most creators only discover the full picture after their first payout lands short.

Here's every fee, every hidden cost, and the exact math on what you actually keep.

The three fee layers nobody mentions together

Most articles about Teachable fees talk about the platform transaction fee and stop there. But there are actually three separate costs hitting every sale.

Layer one is the Teachable platform fee — only applies on the Starter plan at 7.5% of every sale. Builder, Growth and Advanced have zero platform fees.

Layer two is payment processing — Stripe charges 2.9% plus $0.30 on every transaction regardless of which plan you're on. PayPal charges 3.49% plus a fixed fee. These go directly to the payment processor, not Teachable, but they come out of your payout either way.

Layer three is the hidden fees nobody puts on the pricing page — a 1% international card surcharge on top of standard processing for cards issued outside the US, a $15 chargeback fee per dispute regardless of outcome, and a 2% integration fee if you connect your own Stripe account instead of using Teachable's built-in teachable:pay system.

On Starter, all three layers stack. On Builder and above, only layers two and three apply.

The breakeven Teachable doesn't advertise

This is the number that actually matters. Starter costs $39 per month on monthly billing, $29 on annual. Builder costs $89 per month on monthly billing, $69 on annual. The difference on annual billing is $40 per month.

At 7.5% platform fee, you hit that $40 threshold at roughly $533 in monthly revenue. Every dollar above $533 per month means Starter is costing you more than Builder would.

At $1,000 per month you're paying $75 in Teachable fees on Starter. Builder would cost $40 more in subscription but save you $75 in fees — a net saving of $35 every single month.

At $2,000 per month the Starter fee alone is $150. You're paying $110 more than Builder costs. At $5,000 per month you're losing $375 in fees that Builder eliminates entirely.

Use the calculator below to see your exact numbers.

The hidden international fee most creators miss

If any of your students pay with a card issued outside the US, you're paying an extra 1% processing fee on that transaction. That's 3.9% plus $0.30 instead of 2.9% plus $0.30.

This isn't on Teachable's pricing page. It's buried in the payment processing documentation.

For creators with global audiences — UK students, Australian buyers, Canadian customers — this adds up silently. A course doing $3,000 per month with 40% international buyers is losing an extra $12 per month in fees nobody warned you about.

The custom gateway trap

Teachable lets you connect your own Stripe account instead of using their built-in teachable:pay system. Sounds appealing — full control, your own Stripe dashboard. But it costs you a 2% integration fee per transaction on top of everything else. US creators only.

What you also lose by going custom gateway: automatic tax handling, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Buy Now Pay Later. For most creators the teachable:pay system is the better deal unless you have a very specific reason to need your own Stripe account.

How Teachable's refund policy actually works

Unlike Gumroad, which keeps all platform fees when you issue a refund, Teachable explicitly returns transaction fees to you on refunds. A fully refunded sale costs you nothing in fees.

This is one of the genuinely creator-friendly policies in the space and worth knowing before you compare platforms.

If you sell on Teachable and other platforms too

Most Teachable creators also sell on Stripe, Gumroad, or Patreon. Each platform shows you its own revenue number. None of them show you your combined net across everything after all fees are subtracted.

That's what Owelet does. Connect all your platforms and see your real net income, fee breakdown per platform, and monthly burn in one place. Free to start at owelet.app.