Payhip Free vs Plus vs Pro: When the Lower Fee Covers the Monthly Cost
Payhip’s plan choice is easy to state and easy to misread. The listed plans show the same features, products, and revenue allowance. What changes in the public pricing table is the fixed monthly charge and the percentage Payhip takes from transactions.
The useful question is therefore not “Which plan has more features?” It is “At my monthly Payhip-fee subject sales, does the lower percentage repay the higher fixed charge?”
The public plan terms
| Plan | Monthly Payhip charge | Payhip transaction fee | Selected limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Forever | $0.00 | 5% | All features; unlimited products; unlimited revenue |
| Plus | $29.00 | 2% | All features; unlimited products; unlimited revenue |
| Pro | $99.00 | 0% | All features; unlimited products; unlimited revenue |
The model
Let R be monthly sales to which Payhip’s platform percentage applies. For each plan, the Payhip-only cost is the fixed monthly charge plus the plan’s Payhip transaction rate multiplied by R.
PayPal or Stripe processing is not included in that expression. Payhip says those processor fees still apply on all plans. If the same processing conditions apply to the plans being compared, they do not change the point where the Payhip-only lines cross, but they still belong in a separate total-cost budget.
The break-even points
Free versus Plus
Below the Free-to-Plus boundary in the table, Free has the lower modeled Payhip cost. Above it, Plus has the lower modeled Payhip cost. At the boundary, the two modeled Payhip costs are equal.
Plus versus Pro
Below the Plus-to-Pro boundary in the table, Plus has the lower modeled Payhip cost. Above it, Pro has the lower modeled Payhip cost.
Free versus Pro
The direct comparison is also useful. The table includes the Free-to-Pro boundary so that the result does not depend on looking only at adjacent plans.
| Comparison | Payhip-only boundary |
|---|---|
| Free Forever → Plus | $966.67 of monthly Payhip-fee subject sales |
| Plus → Pro | $3,500.00 of monthly Payhip-fee subject sales |
| Free Forever → Pro | $1,980.00 of monthly Payhip-fee subject sales |
The boundaries describe the listed plans under one fee-only model. They do not establish that a plan is the best product fit or that a seller should change plans immediately.
What the model leaves out
PayPal and Stripe processing fees are separate from Payhip’s percentage. The amount can depend on the processor, account country, currency, payment method, refunds, and other terms. The public Payhip page does not provide the common inputs needed for a complete international net-revenue calculation, so this article does not fill them with a generic rate.
Taxes, chargebacks, refunds, payout timing, and annual billing are also outside the boundary of the calculation. The public page reviewed here displays monthly plan prices; it does not provide an annual price that I can use consistently in this article.
The calculation also assumes that R is the same kind of sales amount for each plan and that Payhip’s listed percentage applies to that amount. If a product, payment route, refund, or tax treatment falls outside that scope, recalculate with the relevant terms rather than reusing the boundary.
Start with Free when the fee is still small
Free is the lower modeled cost when monthly Payhip-fee subject sales are below the first boundary. Since Payhip lists all features and unlimited products and revenue on Free, an early seller does not need to pay for a feature tier merely to test the storefront.
Plus becomes a fee decision once its lower Payhip rate saves more than the fixed monthly difference from Free. Pro is the fee decision once removing Plus’s remaining Payhip rate saves more than the fixed difference between those plans. These statements describe the arithmetic only; they do not predict sales or endorse a plan for every business.
For the official terms, check Payhip’s current pricing page and Billing and Upgrading help before committing.
Method and sources
- Plan prices and Payhip rates are taken from Payhip pricing, checked 2026-09-08.
- The separation between Payhip’s fee and PayPal/Stripe fees is stated in Payhip’s billing help.
- The break-even boundaries use fixed monthly charges and percentage differences only. They do not treat affiliate commission as seller revenue or insert a payment-processor rate.
- This is a source-based calculation, not a first-hand product review or a forecast of sales.
Pricing, fees, and payment conditions can change. Recheck the current plan and processor terms before using these boundaries.
For a related fee-structure discussion, see Community Platform Transaction Fees. For a comparison of how plan costs cross under another fee model, see When Lower Transaction Fees Actually Pay Off.