You type “best platform for selling online courses” into Google and see nice price lists. 29 dollars, 79 dollars, PLN 149. Looks simple. The problem is that the price at the top of the page is usually a fraction of what you’ll actually pay after the first month of sales.
I checked this carefully, calculating two realistic scenarios — a small creator making 20 sales a month and a growing creator making 100 sales a month — across six popular platforms. Below I share what I found, so you know what to look at before you sign an annual plan.
Two different fees that price lists happily mix up
Before we get to the numbers, one thing that changes the whole comparison. When a platform writes “0% commission”, it’s usually only half the truth. You pay two separate things:
First, the platform fee — how much the LMS takes from your sale on top of what the payment operator would cost you anyway. This is the cost you should actually compare between platforms.
Second, the payment operator’s commission (Stripe, PayU, PayPal), which you’ll pay no matter where you sell. That’s not an LMS cost — it’s the cost of accepting money online; in Europe it’s usually 1.5 to 1.9% plus a fixed fee per transaction.
When a platform advertises “no commission”, it’s worth asking whether that means zero on top of the payment operator’s fee, or zero altogether. At higher sales volumes, that’s a big difference.
How much it really costs, counting everything
I took six platforms and calculated the full monthly cost — subscription plus platform fee plus a realistic European payment operator rate — in two scenarios: about PLN 8,000 in monthly revenue and about PLN 40,000 in monthly revenue.
At lower sales (PLN 8,000/mo) the differences are already noticeable. A platform with a closed, expensive payment system can cost two and a half times more than one with a cheap payment system and a zero platform fee — even though both show a similar subscription amount in the price list.
At higher sales (PLN 40,000/mo) the differences get painful. A platform that looked cheap at the start, but makes you connect your own payment gateway for an extra percentage fee, can cost several times more than competitors calculated to the zloty in exactly the same way.
The conclusion is simple: count in monthly zloty at your real sales volume, not in the price shown in the price list header.
Where the cost actually hides
I gathered what I found by checking the official price lists and documentation of the biggest players.
A commission on sales on the cheapest plan. Some platforms take a percentage of every sale until you move to a more expensive plan. Teachable, on its entry-level Starter plan, takes 7.5% of every transaction — so when you sell a PLN 400 course, you hand the platform the equivalent of PLN 30 per transaction, before you even add the payment operator’s fee.
A fixed fee per sale instead of a percentage. LearnWorlds, on its cheapest Starter plan, takes 5 dollars from every sale, regardless of the course price. On cheap courses this can eat a bigger part of your margin than a standard percentage commission.
A surcharge for your own payment gateway. Thinkific has its own internal payment system with no extra fee, but if you want to connect your own Stripe or PayPal — say, because your company is registered outside the market where their internal payment system operates — you pay an extra 5% on the cheapest plan. For a creator outside the United States, that’s often a real scenario, not just a theoretical one.
Fees for exceeding limits. In April 2026 Teachable introduced extra fees for every active student above the plan limit, for every student imported from outside the native sales system, and for exceeding the published-course limit. These are costs invisible in the price list until you read the separate terms-of-use document.
Features locked behind a higher plan. SCORM, gamification, an affiliate program, webhooks, a mobile app with your own branding — all of this is often locked behind the second, third, or sometimes fourth pricing tier. If you need any of these features from day one, check before you buy, not after.
Publigo: a Polish competitor, a good choice, but with its own price
It’s also worth mentioning Publigo, a Polish alternative that takes no commission of its own on sales and comes out cheap in a simple price-list comparison. The thing is, the payment gateway fee isn’t included — you have to connect and pay for it separately (Przelewy24 or PayU) — there’s no native mobile app for students, and if you stop paying the GO subscription, you lose access to your account along with all your data. That’s not an accusation, just something worth knowing before you compare only the line with the price.
What to actually look at when choosing a platform
Instead of comparing just the numbers on the price list’s front page, check these five things:
- Whether “0% commission” means zero on top of the payment operator’s fee, or zero altogether. Ask directly if it isn’t clearly stated.
- Whether there are fees for exceeding student, course, or video storage limits. Check the separate terms-of-use document, not just the pricing page.
- Whether the features you really need are available on the plan you can afford today, not in a year. SCORM, gamification, an affiliate program, installment payments.
- Whether you can connect your own payment gateway without a surcharge. Especially important if you operate outside the market where the platform runs its internal payment system.
- What happens to your data and your students if you decide to leave. Exporting courses, certificates, and the student database should be possible without negotiating with support.
TherLMS against all five, number by number
Enough theory. Below is the same comparison, only with TherLMS added next to each of the five platforms, calculated in exactly the same way: subscription plus platform fee plus a realistic European payment operator rate.
| Platform | Cost/mo at ~PLN 8,000 revenue | Cost/mo at ~PLN 40,000 revenue | Sales commission | Hidden fees | SCORM and gamification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TherLMS | PLN 305 | PLN 1,079 | 0%, on every plan, including the trial | none | from the trial |
| Publigo | PLN 259 | PLN 867 | 0%, but the payment gateway is separate | no threshold in the price list, but also no native app | not natively |
| Thinkific | PLN 310 | PLN 959 | 0% on their own payment system, +5% for an external Stripe | surcharge for the mobile app, 199 USD/mo | only from the Grow plan |
| Teachable | PLN 417 | PLN 1,066 | 7.5% on the Starter plan, 0% from Builder up | fees for exceeding student and course limits | not natively |
| LearnWorlds | PLN 454 | PLN 1,103 | 5 USD per sale on the Starter plan | surcharge for the mobile app | depends on the package |
| Kajabi | PLN 764 | PLN 1,709 | 0%, but a closed, expensive payment system | no flexibility in choosing a gateway | not natively |
Two things stand out. First, TherLMS is cheaper than three of the five platforms in every scenario, and it comes out cheap without you having to read the fine print — because there isn’t any. Second, the only two platforms that come out slightly cheaper in a simple numerical comparison, Publigo and Thinkific on its own payment system, do so at a cost: Publigo at the cost of features it simply doesn’t have (SCORM, gamification, a native app), and Thinkific at the cost of that low price applying only if you agree to their internal payment system.
Why it’s worth choosing TherLMS
Let’s put it all in one place — concrete, no fluff.
You pay less than with most alternatives, counted honestly. Not in the advertised price at the top of the page, but in the real monthly cost with the commission and payment gateway included, the way we calculated above.
Zero percent commission on sales — genuinely zero, on every plan. Including in the free trial. TherLMS adds nothing to your sales; the commission on every transaction stays with you. The only cost you pay per sale is the standard payment operator fee (Stripe or PayU, in Europe usually 1.5-1.9% plus a fixed fee) — and that’s money for the operator, not for us. You’d pay that fee with any platform anyway, because it’s the cost of accepting money online, not the cost of the platform.
No fees for exceeding limits. You pay exactly what the plan shows. No extra charges for an active student above the limit, an imported student, or another published course.
The full feature set from day one, not from the most expensive plan. SCORM 1.2 and 2004 with a dedicated player, gamification with an XP system and badges, an affiliate program with scaled commission, webhooks for integrating with your tools — all available already in the trial.
Any payment gateway without a surcharge. Stripe or PayU, including installment payments, with no penalty for choosing your own provider.
Certificates with public verification and invoices without manual work. Every certificate can be verified at a public address, and every sale generates an invoice automatically, with no separate accounting tool to plug in.
Multi-currency with automatic NBP exchange rates. If you also sell outside Poland, course prices convert themselves — no manual converting or updating price lists.
Thirty days to check all of this yourself, for free. Not a limited demo box, but the full version of the platform, with a 10-student limit so you can genuinely test selling before you pay a single zloty.
If you’re looking for a platform that won’t start costing you more just as you begin earning on it, this is exactly why we built TherLMS.
Competitor prices and terms checked on the vendors’ official sites, as of August 2026. It’s worth verifying the current price list right before making a decision, because SaaS platforms change their terms fairly often.