Payment Plans Cost More Than You Think: The Surcharge on Installments
A payment plan does not split one fee into pieces. It creates a new fee for each charge. A $1,200 course billed in four Stripe payments costs about $36 in processing, versus $35 billed once. Add a 2-3% platform surcharge on installments (Kajabi, Teachable, Podia) and the gap widens to $60+ per sale. As of August 2026, that math is why creators quietly lose margin on their most attractive offer.
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Why a 4-pay plan triggers four processing fees, not one
Every charge that hits a card is a separate transaction. Stripe does not know or care that four $300 charges belong to the same $1,200 course. Each one gets billed at Stripe’s standard US card rate: 2.9% + $0.30, as of August 2026 (Stripe pricing).
On a single $1,200 charge, that is $35.10 in processing. On four $300 charges, it is $8.70 per payment, or $34.80 total. The percentage cost is nearly identical because 2.9% scales linearly. The fixed $0.30 fee is the problem: you pay it four times instead of once. That is $1.20 versus $0.30. Small on one sale, real at volume.
This gets worse the smaller each installment. A $600 course split into six $100 payments pays $0.30 six times: $1.80 in fixed fees against a $1.74 fee on a single charge. You are now paying more in fees to split the payment than you would pay to take it whole. And that is before the platform touches it.
The extra percentage some platforms add to recurring and installment charges
Here is what most creators miss. Several course platforms charge an additional platform fee on installment and subscription revenue, on top of what Stripe takes. This is a surcharge for the privilege of using the payment-plan feature, and it is buried in pricing pages.
As of August 2026, here is how the major platforms handle it on their entry tiers:
| Platform | Entry plan | Platform fee on sales | Extra fee on installments/subs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kajabi Kickstarter | $69/mo | 0% platform, 2% transaction | 2% transaction fee applies to all sales, including installments |
| Kajabi Basic and up | $149/mo | 0% | 0% (removed at higher tiers) |
| Teachable Basic | $59/mo | 5% transaction fee | 5% applies per installment charge |
| Teachable Pro and up | $159/mo | 0% | 0% |
| Podia Mover | $39/mo | 0% | 0% |
| Thinkific Basic | $36/mo | 0% | 0% |
| Zanfia Basic | $25/mo billed annually | 0% | 0% |
Sources: Kajabi pricing, Teachable pricing, Podia pricing, Thinkific pricing, Zanfia pricing.
The pattern: entry tiers are where the surcharges live. Kajabi and Teachable use their transaction fees as a wedge to push creators up to $149+ plans. If you are on Teachable Basic selling a $600 course as 6 x $100 installments, Teachable takes $5 per installment (5% of $100), so $30 across the plan. That is on top of Stripe’s roughly $10.44 in processing. Total fees: $40.44 on a $600 sale. Sell that offer without the platform fee and you keep an extra $30.
A ,200 program billed once vs billed in four: the fee difference
Let us run the numbers on a real creator scenario. You sell a $1,200 signature program. You offer both pay-in-full and a 4-payment plan of $300. Here is what each option costs you in fees on a US card sale, as of August 2026:
| Scenario | Platform fee | Stripe fees | Total fees | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pay-in-full on Zanfia Basic | $0 | $35.10 | $35.10 | $1,164.90 |
| 4-pay on Zanfia Basic | $0 | $34.80 | $34.80 | $1,165.20 |
| Pay-in-full on Teachable Basic (5%) | $60 | $35.10 | $95.10 | $1,104.90 |
| 4-pay on Teachable Basic (5%) | $60 | $34.80 | $94.80 | $1,105.20 |
| Pay-in-full on Kajabi Kickstarter (2%) | $24 | $35.10 | $59.10 | $1,140.90 |
| 4-pay on Kajabi Kickstarter (2%) | $24 | $34.80 | $58.80 | $1,141.20 |
On this single sale, the gap between Zanfia and Teachable Basic is $60. Sell that offer 20 times a month and you have handed Teachable $1,200 in transaction fees. That is the entire revenue of one paying customer, gone to the platform, just for accepting the payment.
Notice something else: the difference between pay-in-full and 4-pay is under $1 on every platform. The installment structure itself is not expensive. The platform surcharge is. If you are on a platform that charges transaction fees, you are not paying for the payment plan feature. You are paying for the plan tier you chose.
Buy-now-pay-later is a different product with a different rate
Do not confuse a native installment plan with Klarna, Afterpay, or Affirm. Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) is not a payment plan you run yourself. It is a lender. Klarna pays you upfront in full, then collects from the customer over four payments. If the customer defaults, that is Klarna’s problem.
The trade is cost. Klarna charges merchants roughly 3.29% + $0.30 per transaction in the US (Klarna business pricing). Afterpay charges around 6% + $0.30, per its published merchant terms. Compare that to Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30 on a card.
On the same $1,200 sale, Klarna costs about $39.78 and Afterpay costs about $72.30. That is $4.68 to $37.20 more per sale than running your own installment plan on a card. The math only works if BNPL drives incremental sales you would not otherwise close, which for most course creators it does not, because installments already do that job.
Use BNPL when you want the credit risk off your plate on physical goods or high-refund-risk digital products. For a course with a defined cohort and a refund policy you control, native installments are cheaper and simpler.
How to price a payment plan so the surcharge does not eat the margin
If you are on a platform that charges a transaction fee on installments, you have three options.
Option 1: Price the plan higher than pay-in-full. This is standard practice. Charge $1,200 pay-in-full and $1,300 across four $325 payments. The $100 markup covers the extra processing, the platform surcharge, and the higher default risk on installments. Frame it as a convenience fee, not a penalty. Most buyers accept it without pushback.
The math: on Teachable Basic, a $1,300 4-pay generates $65 in platform fees plus roughly $37.70 in Stripe fees. Net to you: $1,197.30. That is now within a few dollars of what you would have kept on the $1,200 pay-in-full price.
Option 2: Move up to a plan without transaction fees. Teachable Pro at $159/month kills the 5% surcharge. That is worth it once your installment revenue crosses about $3,200 per month. Below that, you are paying more in the plan upgrade than you save in fees. Above it, the upgrade pays for itself.
Option 3: Switch to a platform that does not surcharge installments at all. This is the honest fix. Zanfia is rolling out to US creators with 0% platform commission across every plan, including installments and subscriptions. As of August 2026, Basic is $25/month billed annually and Pro is $99/month. Only Stripe’s standard processing fee applies. A $1,200 program billed in four costs you the same $34.80 whether you charge one payment or six.
The point is not that Zanfia is the only option. Podia and Thinkific also skip the installment surcharge on entry tiers. The point is that a payment plan surcharge is a platform choice, not a payment processor requirement. If you are paying one, you are paying for a business decision your platform made, not for the actual cost of accepting money.
What to check before your next launch
Before your next payment-plan offer goes live, open your platform’s pricing page and search for the word “transaction”. Then do the arithmetic on your last five installment sales. Multiply the number by twelve. That is your annual surcharge.
Compare it to the cost of upgrading your plan tier, or the cost of migrating to a platform that does not charge one. One of those numbers is smaller. That is your answer.
