How Much Does Ko-fi Take? Ko-fi Fees Explained (2026)

Published July 1, 2026

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If you’re about to sell a digital product or take support on Ko-fi, the first practical question is always the same: how much of each sale do I actually keep? Ko-fi’s answer is unusually generous — and unusually simple — but there’s one layer people miss. Here’s the honest, plain-English breakdown, plus how to price so you keep almost everything.

Fees and plan features change over time and can vary by region and payout method. Always confirm the current numbers on Ko-fi’s own pricing page before you rely on them. This guide explains how the model works so the exact figures are easy to plug in.

The short answer

On Ko-fi’s free plan, the platform fee is 0% — Ko-fi doesn’t take a cut of your donations, shop sales or memberships. That’s its whole pitch, and it’s genuinely true: the money is yours minus only the cost of moving it.

So the honest headline is: Ko-fi itself takes nothing on the free plan. The one deduction is your payment processor’s fee, which isn’t Ko-fi’s money at all.

The part people miss: payment processing is separate

This is the single most important thing to understand about Ko-fi’s economics.

Because Ko-fi connects your own payment processor — PayPal or Stripe — they charge their standard fee on each transaction (commonly around 2.9% plus a small fixed fee, though the exact rate varies by country and processor). That fee goes to PayPal or Stripe, not to Ko-fi. If PayPal is your processor, see exactly how much PayPal takes and what drives it up.

So on the free plan:

What you keep ≈ price − your processor’s fee (≈ 2.9% + a small fixed fee).

That’s it. There’s no platform commission stacked on top the way a marketplace or a flat-fee storefront would charge. Compare that with how much Gumroad takes, which rolls both a platform cut and card processing into one flat percentage, or how much Etsy takes, which layers listing, transaction and processing fees together. Ko-fi’s free plan is about as lean as a storefront gets.

Where Ko-fi Gold fits in

Ko-fi’s optional paid subscription, Ko-fi Gold, is a monthly (or discounted annual) plan that unlocks extra features — deeper page customization, more selling and membership tools, and reduced or removed fees on certain sale types. Because the free plan already sells at 0% platform fee, Gold is a features upgrade, not a requirement to keep more of a basic sale.

The honest rule: start free. Only pay for Gold once a specific feature it unlocks clearly earns back its monthly cost for your situation. Don’t buy a subscription to lower a fee you’re largely not paying yet.

What else comes out of a sale

• Payouts. Because you use your own PayPal or Stripe, money lands in your processor account directly — Ko-fi isn’t a middleman holding your balance. For many sale types you’re paid straight through, which is part of why creators like it. PayPal’s own withdrawal and currency rules can still apply on your end.
• Sales tax / VAT. Tax handling depends on the sale type and your setup — check Ko-fi’s current tax settings and your own obligations. As always, tax collected from a buyer is never your income either way.
• No listing fees. Unlike a marketplace such as Etsy, you can list products without paying per listing — another reason the model stays cheap.

A realistic example

Say you sell a $15 template pack through your Ko-fi shop on the free plan. Rough numbers:

• Buyer pays $15.
• Ko-fi’s platform fee: $0 (0% on the free plan).
• Your processor (Stripe/PayPal) takes roughly 2.9% + a fixed fee — on the order of a small handful of cents plus ~$0.44.
• You keep the rest — the large majority of the $15, typically around $14.

Plug your own current rates into the digital product profit calculator to see the exact figure — enter a price and monthly sales and it shows what you keep per sale, month and year across any platform.

Free plan or Ko-fi Gold?

The honest rule of thumb:

• Starting out / low volume → free plan. You’re already at 0% platform fee. There’s nothing to save by upgrading, so keep your cost at zero.
• Selling consistently and want the extra tools → weigh Gold. Estimate the concrete value of the specific features you’d use (and any fee reductions on your sale mix). If that clearly beats the monthly price, upgrade. If not, stay free. It’s arithmetic, not a judgment call.

And zoom out: once you’re selling regularly, it’s worth checking whether an all-in-one tool that hosts your funnel, email list and checkout together beats a support-page storefront for your numbers. We break that trade-off down in Gumroad vs Systeme.io — the same logic applies to Ko-fi.

How to price so the fee doesn’t hurt

Even at 0% platform fee, don’t ignore the processor cut — bake it in from the start:

1. Decide what you want to net per sale (e.g. “$14 in my pocket”).
2. Gross it up for the processor fee. Divide your target net by (1 − the processor rate) and add the fixed fee, then round up to a clean price. On Ko-fi that’s a small adjustment because there’s no platform cut layered on top.
3. Sanity-check the margin with real numbers in the digital product profit calculator, and if you’re still deciding where to sell, the where-to-sell calculator compares platforms side by side.

Because digital products have effectively zero cost per copy, and Ko-fi adds no platform fee, your margin is about as high as it gets. The fees are a rounding error next to your real challenge, which is getting traffic and your first buyer — not the percentages. (Ko-fi is a storefront, not a marketplace: it won’t send you buyers.)

Bottom line

Ko-fi is one of the cheapest ways to sell a digital product: 0% platform fee on the free plan for donations, shop sales and memberships, with only your own PayPal/Stripe processing fee coming out. Ko-fi Gold is an optional features upgrade you don’t need to start. Just remember the one layer people miss — the payment processor’s fee is separate and always applies — and bake it into your price.

Ready to sell? Read how to sell digital products on Ko-fi, weigh it against the obvious alternative in how much does Gumroad take, and get the number right with how to price a digital product. Comparing storefronts? See the best Etsy alternatives for selling digital products, or line the fee structures up in digital product platform fees compared.

Some links above are affiliate or product links — they never cost you extra. See our affiliate disclosure. Fee figures are illustrative; confirm current rates on Ko-fi directly.