In Payhip vs Teachable, Payhip’s free plan (5% a sale) suits sellers under $967 a month, Payhip Plus ($29 a month plus 2%) the middle, and Teachable Builder ($69 a month billed yearly, 0% plan fee) wins past $2,000 to $2,700. Payhip bills video extra, Teachable bills certificates. This post narrows 9 plans to 3.
Payhip lists monthly prices only and includes quizzes and certificates on every plan, but hosted video costs $5 a month per 16 hours. Teachable includes 1,000 GB of video and saves certificates for Growth ($139 a month billed yearly). CartMango (free right now, then about $2.50 a month billed yearly for courses once paid plans start in November) hosts courses at 0% a sale.
Search Payhip vs Teachable and Teachable’s entry price changes from page to page. 3 of the top comparisons say $39 a month and 2 say $59. The cut on each sale is 5% on most of them and 7.5% on 1.
Only the $39 with 7.5% matches Teachable’s pricing page, and only on monthly billing. None of the 5 mention the $0.50 student fee Teachable added for new schools in September 2026.
So I put every plan from the pricing pages in one place, then cut the list with 3 quick rules. You will see what each survivor costs at $1,000 a month, and where the answer flips.
Key Takeaways
- Payhip’s free plan suits small sellers. It takes 5% a sale, which costs less than Payhip Plus until you sell about $967 a month.
- Teachable Builder wins on volume. At $69 a month billed yearly, it costs less than Payhip Plus once you pass $2,000 to $2,700 a month.
- Teachable’s 0% has small print. Its payment system adds 0.5% to taxed sales and 0.7% to renewals. US sellers on their own Stripe pay 2%.
- Free students cost money on Teachable. New schools pay $0.50 a month for each free or imported student past 100. Payhip charges no fee on a free course.
- Payhip charges for video, Teachable for certificates. Payhip hosts video at $5 a month per 16 hours. Teachable certificates start on Growth, $139 a month billed yearly.
- CartMango, the checkout I run, now hosts courses too. CartMango is free right now, then $30 a year for courses once paid plans start, with 0% a sale.
Start here: 9 plans across Payhip, Teachable and CartMango
The 3 pricing pages list 9 priced plans, from Payhip’s $0 free plan to Teachable Growth at $139 a month billed yearly. Teachable’s Custom plan, priced by its sales team, and an Advanced plan its help center still names are not counted.
A cheaper plan will not rescue a course that nobody buys, though. If the selling side worries you more than the software, the Online Selling Mistakes Challenge covers the 5 selling mistakes solo creators make most, over 5 days of free emails.
The 3 price lists bill in different ways. Teachable is quoted on yearly billing, which saves $120 to $600 a year depending on the plan. Payhip only publishes monthly prices, so its plans go in at the monthly rate. CartMango bills yearly only.
Of the 9 plans, 6 take no plan fee from each sale and 3 take a cut, from Payhip Plus’s 2% to Teachable Starter’s 7.5%.
| Plan | Price | Plan fee per sale | Hosts a course | Video files |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payhip Free | $0 | 5% | Yes | $5 a month per 16 hours, or embed free |
| Payhip Plus | $29 a month | 2% | Yes | $5 a month per 16 hours, or embed free |
| Payhip Pro | $99 a month | 0% | Yes | $5 a month per 16 hours, or embed free |
| Teachable Starter | $29 a month, billed yearly | 7.5% | Yes, 5 products | 1,000 GB included |
| Teachable Builder | $69 a month, billed yearly | 0% on Teachable Payments | Yes, 10 products | 1,000 GB included |
| Teachable Growth | $139 a month, billed yearly | 0% on Teachable Payments | Yes, 50 products | 1,000 GB included |
| CartMango Silver | About $0.83 a month, billed yearly ($10 a year) | 0% | No | Not hosted |
| CartMango Gold | About $1.67 a month, billed yearly ($20 a year) | 0% | No | Not hosted |
| CartMango Platinum | About $2.50 a month, billed yearly ($30 a year) | 0% | Yes | Not hosted, lessons take a video link |
CartMango is the checkout I run, and it only belongs in this comparison since November 2026, when its course hosting went live. All 3 CartMango plans are free right now, and the prices above start when paid plans begin in November.
Card processing comes on top of every plan in the table. On a US card that is 2.9% plus 30 cents on Teachable Payments. That matches Stripe’s standard rate for Payhip and CartMango sellers who take cards through their own Stripe account, and PayPal charges its own rate.
Teachable counts each course, coaching offer or digital download as 1 product, while memberships and bundles do not count toward the limit, per its pricing page. Payhip and CartMango Platinum have no product cap. Our Payhip pricing breakdown goes through Payhip plan by plan.
The summary at the top of Google gets Teachable wrong. It says Teachable’s paid plans start “around $59/month” and that Teachable pays out on a “monthly delayed payout schedule”. There is no $59 plan on Teachable’s pricing page, and its own payment system pays daily, weekly or monthly, as you choose.
Google’s AI Overview for “payhip vs teachable”. Read the Pricing Plans row against the table above.
Cut 1: the 2 CartMango plans that cannot hold a course
CartMango Silver and Gold go first, because CartMango puts course hosting on its $30-a-year Platinum plan only. Silver sells downloads and subscriptions with order bumps. Gold adds upsells, downsells and cart recovery. Neither one can hold lessons.
That leaves 7 plans.
Cut 2: plans that cost over $1,000 a year before any sales
Payhip Pro and Teachable Growth go next. Pro costs $99 every month, which is $1,188 over a year, and Growth bills $1,668 for the year up front. Both cost that whether or not a student buys. Payhip puts every feature on every plan, so skipping Pro only means paying Plus’s 2% instead. Pro pays for itself over Plus once you sell about $3,500 a month.
Growth is the only Teachable plan with a listed price that includes completion certificates, bulk student imports and the option to remove Teachable’s branding. If a certificate is part of what your students pay for, Growth stays on your list and this cut does not apply to you.
That leaves 5 plans.
Cut 3: plans that take 5% or more of every sale
Payhip’s free plan takes 5% of every sale and Teachable Starter takes 7.5%, so both go here.
Starter is the easy one. At $1,000 a month in sales, it costs $348 a year plus $900 in fees, which is $1,248. Builder costs $828 for the same year with no plan fee. Starter only comes out ahead while you sell under about $533 a month. Payhip’s free plan is a closer call. At $1,000 a month it costs $600 a year, against $588 for Plus.
A year on each plan that can hold a course, at $1,000 a month in sales. Payhip Free and Plus land $12 apart.
That leaves 3 plans.
What is left: Payhip Plus, Teachable Builder or CartMango Platinum
At $1,000 a month in one-time sales, Payhip Plus costs $588 a year, Teachable Builder $828 to $888 and CartMango Platinum $30, before card fees on all 3.
| Plan | Yearly cost at $1,000 a month | Cleared the 3 cuts with | Still does not do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payhip Plus | $588 | A course player, $348 a year, 2% a sale | Hosts video only for $5 a month per 16 hours. No 1-click upsell after checkout |
| Teachable Builder | $828 to $888 | A course player, $828 a year, 0% plan fee | No certificates. 10 products. Adds 0.5% to taxed sales and $0.50 a month per free student past 100 |
| CartMango Platinum | $30, free right now | A course player, $30 a year, 0% a sale | No video file hosting, quizzes or certificates |
The range on Builder comes from the 0.5% Teachable adds when a sale is taxed. If none of your sales are taxed it costs $828, and if all of them are it costs $888. Between Payhip Plus and Teachable Builder, the answer flips with volume. Plus costs less until you sell $2,000 a month. If every one of your sales is taxed, that line moves up to about $2,700, because of the 0.5%. With no tax on your sales, adding Payhip’s $5-a-month video hosting for a course under 16 hours moves the $2,000 line down to about $1,750.
CartMango costs the least of the 3. CartMango’s lessons hold text, images, audio, files and a pasted video link, with a progress bar and a “Mark complete” button for students.
What CartMango adds is 1-click upsells and downsells after checkout. Payhip does not offer those, and Teachable places its upsells inside the checkout or a lesson instead.
Teachable’s 0%: the 0.5% and 0.7% behind it
Teachable Builder’s 0% is Teachable’s plan fee only. Its payment system, Teachable Payments, can add up to 2 small fees of its own on the default setup, and a different one if you pick another option.
Teachable’s fee breakdown lists them:
- Standard, the default: 0.5% on any sale where tax is charged, and 0.7% on recurring payments such as subscription renewals.
- Global: 2.8% on every sale, which waives those 2 fees and adds local payment methods.
- Your own Stripe account: US sellers pay Teachable 2% a sale on top of Stripe’s rate, and Teachable stops handling tax.
So a $50-a-month membership on Builder still pays Teachable 35 cents a renewal on the default setup, or 60 cents if that renewal is also taxed.
Payhip’s pricing page lists 1 fee per plan, the same on a first sale and a renewal. And Payhip says it will not charge “a cent” for handling US sales tax on your behalf.
Free students: $0 on Payhip, $0.50 a month each past 100 on Teachable
Teachable charges $0.50 a month for every student past 100 who gets in without paying through its checkout. A free course on Payhip pays no sale fee, since 5% of $0 is $0. Teachable’s usage fee page counts students on a $0 checkout, a free product, a 100% coupon, a manual import, or access from a sale made somewhere else. The fee is the same on every plan.
Teachable’s fee schedule for students. Read the “Added by any other method” row.
Say you run a free mini-course to build your email list, and 600 people join. Teachable bills 500 of them at $0.50, which is $250 a month, on top of your plan. Schools created on or after September 3, 2026 are on this rule from day 1, and older schools move over at their first renewal on or after April 30, 2027. If you plan a free course as a lead magnet, this fee can decide the whole comparison.
Our Teachable review covers how the rule rolled out.
Course video: 1,000 GB on Teachable, $5 per 16 hours on Payhip
Teachable includes 1,000 GB of video storage on every plan and charges $15 a month for each extra terabyte. Payhip charges $5 a month for 16 hours of hosted video and $10 for 32 hours. So a 10-hour course hosted on Payhip costs $60 a year on top of the plan.
Payhip’s video add-on comes with 3 rules:
- It bills monthly in US dollars only.
- The storage works for courses and memberships, not other products.
- Cancel it, and Payhip schedules your videos for deletion within 3 days.
You can skip the add-on on Payhip by embedding videos from YouTube, Vimeo or Wistia at no cost. 1 seller looking for a Gumroad alternative for video courses wrote in a 2024 r/ecommerce thread that Payhip gave them “the video hosting free for 1 year ($5/mo after that)”. Treat that as 1 seller’s deal, not a price Payhip publishes.
CartMango works the embed way only. A CartMango lesson takes a pasted YouTube, Vimeo or Loom link, while audio, images and downloadable files upload straight into the lesson, with 50 GB of file storage on the Platinum plan.
I once spent 8 hours on a 1-minute demo video for CartMango’s homepage. Making video is slow, so I would not keep lesson videos on a host that deletes them 3 days after an add-on is cancelled.
Quizzes and certificates: Payhip gives both on every plan
Payhip includes quizzes, assignments, surveys and completion certificates on every plan, the free one included. Its course page also lists drip lessons, lesson comments, free preview lessons and preorders. 2 of the pages ranking for this comparison undersell Payhip here. Nightcore Pro’s page lists Payhip with “No quiz or assessment tools”, and SchoolMaker’s says Payhip “lacks advanced education tools like assessments”.
Teachable puts auto-graded quizzes and short-answer assessments on every plan, along with drip content and lesson comments. Certificates only arrive on Growth, at $139 a month billed yearly.
CartMango has neither quizzes nor certificates. Its lessons track progress, and students mark each one complete. If your course needs SCORM files or interactive video, our Kajabi vs LearnWorlds comparison covers the platforms built for that.
Tax and payouts: Payhip pays at once, Teachable on a schedule
Payhip sends each sale to your own PayPal or Stripe account as soon as it completes. Teachable Payments pays out daily, weekly or monthly, whichever you set, with a 2-day rolling delay on daily payouts and no reserve held back.
Both platforms collect and pay sales tax for you, with different reach.
- Payhip handles digital EU and UK VAT plus US and Canadian sales tax. It took over US sales tax on July 1, 2026, at no charge.
- Teachable Payments handles tax in more than 45 markets, for creators based in its 41 supported countries, and charges the 0.5% on taxed sales.
- CartMango is not a merchant of record, so sales tax and VAT stay your job, and payments go straight to your own Stripe or PayPal account.
Subscriptions are the other money rule. Payhip sells subscriptions through Stripe only, not PayPal, and the recurring payments you set up there do not come with you if you leave. CartMango keeps your subscribers paying you even after you cancel your CartMango account.
Payhip’s free plan beats Plus below $967 a month
Cut 3 is the one to skip while you are small. At $1,000 a month the free plan costs only $12 more than Plus, which is why $967 is the line. Below it, Payhip’s free plan costs less than Payhip Plus, and it stays cheaper than Teachable Builder until about $1,380 a month.
At $500 a month in sales, the year looks like this:
- Payhip Free: $300
- Payhip Plus: $468
- Teachable Starter: $798
- Teachable Builder: $828
If your course is new, you may not sell $967 a month for a while. Paying $29 a month to save 3% on sales you do not have yet is backwards. Start on the free plan and move to Plus when your monthly sales clear $967.
Payhip vs Teachable FAQ
What are the disadvantages of Payhip?
Payhip’s free plan takes 5% of every sale, and hosted video costs $5 a month per 16 hours. Videos are deleted 3 days after you cancel that add-on. Payhip has no 1-click upsell after checkout, and subscriptions only run through Stripe. Our Payhip review sorts Payhip’s 1-star Trustpilot reviews by complaint.
Can you make money with Teachable?
Yes. Teachable sells courses, coaching and digital downloads from $29 a month billed yearly. On Starter, 7.5% of each sale goes to Teachable, so a $100 course nets you $92.50 before card fees. Builder removes that cut for $69 a month billed yearly.
What is the best platform to sell courses?
For a first course, Payhip’s free plan costs less than any Payhip or Teachable plan until you sell about $967 a month. Teachable Builder fits sellers past $2,000 to $2,700 a month who want video storage included. For a course that needs no quizzes, certificates or hosted video, CartMango’s $30 plan costs less than Payhip’s free plan once you sell more than $50 a month.
Which is better, Payhip or Etsy?
Etsy brings you buyers who search its marketplace, while Payhip charges less per sale but leaves the traffic to you. Etsy delivers files, not lessons in a course player. Our Payhip vs Etsy comparison runs the fees on a $10 sale.
Which plan to start on, by monthly sales
The Payhip vs Teachable choice gets simple once you know your volume. Under about $967 a month, Payhip’s free plan is the cheaper of the 2. Between that and $2,000 to $2,700, Payhip Plus is. Past that, Teachable Builder costs less than Plus, as long as your free students stay under 100.
Neither one gives you 0% a sale for less than $69 a month. Payhip’s 0% plan costs $99 a month, and Teachable’s starts at $69 a month billed yearly. If your course is lessons with a video link and files, CartMango puts your course behind a 0% checkout for about $2.50 a month billed yearly ($30 a year) once paid plans start, with 1-click upsells after the sale.
About the Author
👋 I’m Welly, founder of CartMango (the site you’re on), a checkout platform for digital product sellers. We’ve previously processed $179M+. I also run BirdSend (email marketing tool, 3.1B+ emails sent). On the side I show other non-techie digital sellers how I use AI workflows to automate 50%+ of my operations. Find me on LinkedIn.
Related Reading
- Payhip pricing, plan by plan: what the 5%, 2% and $99 plans really cost per sale
- Teachable review: what recent Trustpilot reviews say, and how the $0.50 student fee rolled out
- Payhip review: Payhip’s 1-star reviews sorted by complaint
- Kajabi vs LearnWorlds: 2 course platforms with SCORM, quizzes and email built in
- Payhip vs Etsy: marketplace buyers against a lower fee per sale