LMS commission fees are a percentage a platform takes from every sale, on top of or instead of a subscription price, and they vary widely. Some platforms charge 0% on every plan, others only remove the commission on paid tiers — so the free plan's fine print matters more than most people realize.
How commission fees actually work
Two different pricing components get bundled together and often confused: a subscription fee, what you pay the platform monthly, and a commission or transaction fee, a percentage the platform takes from each sale. Some platforms charge both.
What competitors currently charge
Kajabi advertises 0% transaction fees, but that only applies to its own Kajabi Payments — bring your own Stripe and Kajabi adds a platform fee of 0.5% to 5% depending on your plan, while its subscription scales by contact count from $179 to $499 a month. Teachable's commission structure varies by tier too, with 0% on higher-tier plans and a percentage charged on its entry-level tier. The pattern across the industry: a headline 0% is common, but it's usually tied to using the platform's own payment processor, or reserved for higher tiers, rather than applied on every plan. Learn 360 is the exception — 0% commission applies on every plan, including Free, whether you use your own Stripe or not.
Why the free plan is where commission fees hide
Free plans are where platforms most often build in a commission: since they're not collecting a subscription fee, taking a cut of sales is how the free tier stays viable for the platform. Always check the specific commission rate for whichever plan you're actually evaluating, since the number for a $0 plan and a $100 plan on the same platform can be very different. On Learn 360, that check turns up the same answer either way: 0% commission on Free and on Pro.
What to actually check before signing up
Is 0% commission true for every plan, or only paid tiers? Is the commission on top of a subscription, or instead of one? And does the rate change if you use your own payment processor, upgrade, or hit a certain sales volume? The headline number and the number you actually pay are often not the same.