Ko-fi Shop review: a 5% fee or $12 a month
Ko-fi Shop is the cheapest place to put a handful of digital products, and the only decision is a fee against a subscription. Our check of ko-fi.com on 15 June 2026, four months before this review was written, recorded a free plan taking 5% of shop sales and Ko-fi Gold at $12 a month taking nothing.
The short answer
Buy Ko-fi Shop Buy Ko-fi Gold once your shop sales, memberships and commissions together clear $240 in a month, because 5% of $240 is $12 and $12 a month is what Gold cost on our 15 June 2026 check of ko-fi.com. Below that line the free plan's percentage costs less than the subscription.
Skip it Skip Ko-fi Shop if selling digital products is your main income. There are no funnels, no upsells and no email sequences, and the storefront barely bends. Payhip's free plan carries the same 5% cut with far more selling machinery behind it, on Payhip's own check of 11 June 2026.
Where Ko-fi Shop fits
Ko-fi Shop fits the creator who already has a Ko-fi page and wants to sell something from it. The shop is one tab among tips, memberships and commissions rather than a storefront in its own right, which is the whole reason it costs so little and the whole reason it does so little. If you think of it as a product list bolted to a tip jar, you will price it correctly.
The free plan is the one most people use and it is not a trial. Our 15 June 2026 check recorded no monthly charge and a 5% Ko-fi service fee on shop sales, memberships and commissions, with tips taken at 0%. Nothing expires, no product count is capped and no feature wall forces an upgrade, so a shop can sit on the free plan for years.
Ko-fi Gold was $12 a month on that same check, and what it buys is the removal of the 5% fee on everything, plus custom branding, analytics and more file storage. Across a year $12 a month is $144. Our snapshot also records that annual billing is no longer offered to new Gold subscribers, so a monthly charge is the only route in.
The arithmetic that decides the plan is short enough to do in your head. The 5% fee reaches $12 at $240 of monthly sales, so $240 a month is the break-even point. On $1,200 of shop sales in a month the free plan's 5% fee is $60 against $12 for Gold, which is the point at which staying free is an expensive habit rather than a saving.
Payment processing sits outside both plans. Our 15 June 2026 snapshot records that Stripe and PayPal fees still apply on the free plan and on Gold, and it records no figures for them, so this page publishes none. Read the rate your own processor charges you before you treat Gold's 0% as a zero-cost checkout, because the processor's cut survives the upgrade.
Against the other platforms in this category Ko-fi is the low end of the price range and the low end of the capability range. Payhip has a free plan at the same 5% cut with paid tiers at $29 and $99 a month, verified 11 June 2026. Gumroad takes 10% plus $0.50 on a direct sale with no subscription at all, verified 1 October 2026, and Sellfy starts at $29 a month with no cut of sales, verified 12 June 2026.
All of the Ko-fi figures on this page come from one check on 15 June 2026 and have not been re-verified since. Four months is long enough for a fee percentage to move or a tier to be repriced, and the withdrawal of annual Gold billing is the kind of change that shows a rate card in motion. Read ko-fi.com/pricing before you commit, and the digital product platforms category for the alternatives.
Ko-fi Shop pricing
Ko-fi charges either a percentage of what you sell or a flat monthly fee, never both. The two figures below come from our check of ko-fi.com/pricing on 15 June 2026 and have not been re-verified in the four months since, so confirm them before you choose a plan.
| Plan | Price | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 5% Ko-fi service fee on shop sales, memberships and commissions. Tips taken at 0% |
| Gold | $12/mo | $144 across a year. 0% Ko-fi fees on everything, custom branding, analytics, more storage |
There are only two prices here, so the question is which one you land on. Four things decide it:
- Monthly sales volume through the shop, memberships and commissions, since the free plan's 5% applies to all three. At $240 a month that fee equals the $12 Gold charge recorded on 15 June 2026.
- How much of your income arrives as tips, which our June check recorded at 0% on both plans. A page that is mostly tips gains nothing from Gold on fees alone.
- Whether you want the branding, analytics and extra storage Gold adds. Those are the only feature differences our snapshot records, and they are worth $12 a month to some sellers at any volume.
- Your Stripe or PayPal processing rate, which applies on both plans. Our snapshot notes the charge without recording a figure, so it is the one number you have to fetch yourself.
Ko-fi Shop pricing against the other digital product platforms
Ko-fi Gold at $12 a month was the cheapest flat subscription we recorded in this category on our June checks. Payhip charges $29 a month on Plus and $99 on Pro to cut its transaction fee, verified 11 June 2026. Sellfy starts at $29 a month and SendOwl at $39 a month on Launch, both verified 12 June 2026. On the percentage side Lemon Squeezy takes 5% plus 50 cents per transaction, verified 1 October 2026, and acts as merchant of record for tax, which Ko-fi does not. Note that Ko-fi's figures are the older ones in that set.
Ko-fi Shop billing terms worth knowing
Two facts settle most Ko-fi pricing questions: the fee covers more than the shop, and the subscription has no annual route for new buyers.
- Free plan
- $0 a month with a 5% Ko-fi service fee on shop sales, memberships and commissions, as of 15 June 2026.
- Tips
- Taken at 0% on both plans on our 15 June 2026 check.
- Ko-fi Gold
- $12 per month, which is $144 across a year.
- Gold fees
- 0% on everything our snapshot lists, which is the reason to buy it.
- Break-even
- $240 of monthly sales, where the 5% fee equals the $12 charge.
- Annual billing
- No longer available to new Gold subscribers, as recorded on 15 June 2026.
- Processing fees
- Stripe or PayPal charges apply on both plans. Our snapshot records no figure for them.
Ko-fi has two tiers: Free and Gold. The Free plan costs nothing per month but charges a 5% service fee on shop sales, memberships, and commissions (tips are always 0%). Ko-fi Gold costs $12/month, drops the service fee to 0% on everything, and adds extras like custom branding, analytics, and more storage.
If a Ko-fi charge does not match these two numbers, the rate card is right and this page is four months out of date. We publish no processing-fee figure because our 15 June 2026 check recorded none, and an estimate dressed as a price is worse than a gap. Our creator tool cost calculators will set a year of Gold against a year of the 5% fee once you put your own sales figure in.
What Ko-fi Shop gives up
There is no marketing apparatus. No funnels, no upsells, no order bumps and no email sequences, so every sale has to be driven from somewhere else. A seller who expected a platform to help sell will find a payment page with a file attached.
Storefront control is thin. You get a Ko-fi page with Ko-fi's structure and Gold's branding options on top, which is enough for a product list and not enough for a brand. If the shop is meant to look like your business rather than your Ko-fi account, this is the wrong tool.
Nothing here finds buyers for you. There is no marketplace and no discovery surface, so traffic is entirely your problem. Gumroad at least sells a route to browsers, charging 30% on a Discover marketplace sale against 10% plus $0.50 direct, verified 1 October 2026, and that is a trade Ko-fi does not offer at any price.
The 5% fee stops being small quickly. On $1,200 of monthly sales it is $60 where Gold is $12, and the free plan's appeal rests on never doing that sum. The fix is cheap, which is the good news, but the default is the expensive one.
You are the seller of record, so tax is yours. Ko-fi collects and pays out, and our snapshot records nothing about VAT or sales tax handling. Lemon Squeezy takes 5% plus 50 cents per transaction and acts as merchant of record, verified 1 October 2026, which is what that job costs when someone else does it.
Our pricing evidence is four months old, and that is the weakest part of this page. The withdrawal of annual Gold billing recorded in June shows the rate card was being changed around the time we looked, so the chance that something else has moved since is not small.
The shop inherits the Ko-fi frame whether you want it or not. Buyers land somewhere that looks like a tip page, which helps a creator audience and hurts a business selling to strangers, and no plan changes that positioning.
How Ko-fi Shop compares
The three platforms below are the ones a Ko-fi Shop decision usually comes down to, and the axis is a percentage of sales against a monthly subscription. Each price is that vendor's own published figure with the date we checked it, and the dates differ, so read them with that in mind. The wider field sits in the digital product platforms category.
| Tool | Best for | Price | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ko-fi Shop | A few products sold from an existing Ko-fi page | Free at 5%, $12/mo Gold (June 2026) | No funnels, upsells or email, and no discovery |
| Payhip | A first real storefront with every feature on the free plan | Free at 5%, $29/mo Plus, $99/mo Pro (June 2026) | Basic analytics and almost no SEO tooling |
| Gumroad | Selling with no subscription and a marketplace behind it | 10% + $0.50 per direct sale (October 2026) | 30% per sale through the Discover marketplace |
| Sellfy | A branded shop with merch alongside the downloads | $29/mo Starter, $22/mo billed annually (June 2026) | Annual revenue caps per tier and no free plan |
What to test on the Ko-fi free plan
The free plan has no time limit, so this is a test rather than a trial. Check the current fee and the Gold price on ko-fi.com/pricing first, because our figures are from 15 June 2026 and are four months old.
- Confirm the 5% service fee and the $12 Gold price on ko-fi.com/pricing. Our numbers are from June 2026 and this is the step not to take on trust.
- List one real product and buy it yourself from a logged-out browser. The checkout a stranger sees is the thing you are shipping.
- Read what Stripe or PayPal took on that test sale. Our snapshot records that the processing fee applies on both plans without recording a rate, so this is how you find yours.
- Add up your last three months of shop sales, memberships and commissions. If the total averages over $240 a month, the 5% fee already costs more than Gold.
- Check how much of your income is tips, since our June check recorded those at 0% on both plans. A tip-heavy page gains little from Gold on fees alone.
- Try to build the thing you would normally sell with: an upsell, a sequence, a landing page. Finding that you cannot is the real test, and it is better found now.
- Price Payhip against the result, since its free plan carries the same 5% cut with more behind it on its own 11 June 2026 check, and let the cost calculators total the year.
Ko-fi Shop questions buyers ask
How much does Ko-fi Shop cost?
Ko-fi Shop is free to use. There is no monthly fee and no listing fee. The free plan charges a 5% service fee on shop sales, memberships, and commissions. Ko-fi Gold ($12/month) removes the 5% fee entirely. Both plans still incur Stripe or PayPal processing fees (typically 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction). Tips are always 0% platform fee on both plans.
Does Ko-fi Shop have a free plan?
Yes. Ko-fi's free plan is not a trial. It is a permanent free tier with no time limit. You can list up to 600 products, store up to 25GB of files, and sell digital and physical products. The only cost is the 5% service fee on sales. You also get tips (0% fee), memberships, commissions, and basic page customization at no charge.
Who is Ko-fi Shop best for?
Ko-fi Shop is best for creators who sell a small catalog of digital products alongside other monetization methods like tips and memberships. Artists selling prints and digital downloads, writers offering ebooks, and streamers selling emote packs or overlays get the most value. It is less suited for creators whose primary income comes from a large digital product catalog requiring marketing tools and a branded storefront.
Ko-fi Shop vs Gumroad: which is better for digital products?
Ko-fi is cheaper: 5% (or 0% with Gold) against Gumroad's 10% plus $0.50 per sale. Ko-fi's fees were verified 15 June 2026 and Gumroad's on 1 October 2026, so the two checks are about three and a half months apart. Gumroad offers a built-in marketplace (Discover) for organic traffic and handles global tax compliance as merchant of record. Ko-fi offers tips and memberships alongside your shop. Choose Ko-fi if you want an all-in-one creator page with low fees. Choose Gumroad if you want marketplace discovery and tax handling.
What payment methods does Ko-fi Shop accept?
Ko-fi Shop accepts payments through Stripe and PayPal. This covers credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Payments go directly to your connected account. Ko-fi does not hold your money. You can have both Stripe and PayPal connected simultaneously, giving buyers a choice at checkout.
Can I sell physical products on Ko-fi Shop?
Yes. Ko-fi Shop supports both digital and physical products. For physical products, you can collect shipping addresses and set shipping costs. However, Ko-fi does not offer print-on-demand integration, shipping label generation, or inventory management. If you sell physical products at any meaningful volume, a dedicated platform like Sellfy or Shopify will serve you better.
What are Ko-fi Shop's storage and product limits?
The free plan includes 25GB of asset storage and supports up to 600 items in your shop. Ko-fi Gold raises that to 200GB of storage and 1,500 items. For most digital product creators selling ebooks, templates, presets, or art files, the free plan's 25GB is plenty. If you sell large files like video courses or software, you may hit the limit faster.
Does Ko-fi handle sales tax or VAT?
No. Ko-fi does not act as a merchant of record and does not calculate, collect, or remit sales tax, VAT, or GST on your behalf. You are responsible for your own tax compliance. If you sell internationally, especially to EU or UK customers, this is a significant limitation. Gumroad and Lemon Squeezy both handle global tax compliance automatically.
Is Ko-fi Gold worth the $12/month?
It depends on your sales volume. Gold removes the 5% service fee, so the breakeven is $240/month in sales: at that point, the 5% fee equals $12. If you consistently sell above $240/month, Gold saves money. Gold also adds custom branding, analytics, and increased storage. If you sell below $240/month, the free plan is the better deal. Prices verified 15 June 2026.
Can I cancel Ko-fi Gold anytime?
Yes. Ko-fi Gold is a monthly subscription with no contract and no cancellation fee. If you cancel, you keep Gold features until the end of your billing cycle, then revert to the free plan with the 5% service fee. Your shop, products, and supporters are not affected. You just lose the Gold perks like 0% fees and custom branding.