Answer first: A 10% transaction fee is not a small convenience charge - it is a tax that scales with your success. At $1,000/month in sales, 10% costs $1,200 a year. At $5,000/month, it is $6,000 a year. LinkShop charges 0% transaction fees on every plan (Free, Pro $29/mo, Enterprise $199/mo), so the store costs the same whether you sell $100 or $100,000.
Gumroad popularized selling digital downloads and takes a 10% cut of each sale. Marketplaces like Udemy take even more. Flat-plan stores take none. Here is why the gap widens every month you grow.
The math that matters
| Monthly sales | 10% fee / year | LinkShop Pro / year | You keep extra |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | $600 | $348 | $252 |
| $1,000 | $1,200 | $348 | $852 |
| $3,000 | $3,600 | $348 | $3,252 |
| $5,000 | $6,000 | $348 | $5,652 |
(Payment processing fees from the payment provider itself apply on any platform and are not included here - the comparison is the platform's own cut.)
Why percentage fees are worse than they look
- They tax your growth. Every pricing test, every ad that works, every viral post raises the platform's revenue before yours.
- They hit recurring revenue hardest. A 10% cut on memberships compounds every month, forever - the membership math gets ugly fast.
- They distort decisions. Creators on fee platforms avoid raising prices or running discounts because the platform take grows too.
What a flat plan actually buys
LinkShop Pro is $29/month for the full storefront: unlimited-feeling product space, automatic delivery, bookable appointments, memberships, and per-product analytics. Whether that costs you $0 or $348 a year, your margin is identical at every sales level.
But marketplaces bring discovery, right?
Sometimes - and for pure discovery, marketplaces have a role. But your bio link is not discovery; it is your audience arriving to buy. Charging a marketplace tax on sales that came from your own followers is paying rent on a house you already own.
Run your own number
Multiply last month's sales by 10%. If that figure exceeds $29, a 0% flat-plan store already pays for itself. If you have not started selling yet, starting on 0% means you never renegotiate with anyone.
Start free on a 0% store - and see the Stan Store comparison for how fee-based creator storefronts stack up.