What are Teachers Pay Teachers fees for sellers?
·Founder, Stakk
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14 October 2026
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7 min read
Teachers Pay Teachers has two seller plans. A Basic Seller pays a one-time $29 fee, keeps 55% of each sale and pays a 30 cent transaction fee on every resource. An Exclusive Seller pays $59.95 a year, keeps 77.5% (80% as an introductory rate until 1 January 2027) and pays 15 cents a resource only on orders under $3, but must sell digital teaching resources on TPT and nowhere else. The old Premium Seller plan closed to new sign-ups on 1 October 2026. Checked 12 October 2026.
The fees are the easy part to compare. The exclusivity rule is the part that decides which plan suits you, so it gets its own section below.
How much does it cost to sell on Teachers Pay Teachers?
It costs $29 once to become a Basic Seller, or $59.95 a year to become an Exclusive Seller. Both start from a free Buyer account, and both let you upload and sell resources. The differences are all in TPT's own Seller Fees and Payout Rates page.
| Basic Seller | Exclusive Seller | |
|---|---|---|
| Membership fee | $29 once, non-refundable | $59.95 a year |
| Payout rate | 55% of every sale | 77.5% of every sale (80% until 1 January 2027) |
| Transaction fee | 30 cents per resource | 15 cents per resource, only on orders under $3 |
| Premium features and marketing tools | No | Yes |
| Sell your teaching resources elsewhere | Yes | No |
Two small print points matter. The $29 Basic fee cannot be put toward Exclusive if you upgrade later, so moving up means paying the full $59.95 on top. And the third plan you may have read about, Premium Seller, is gone for newcomers: TPT stopped taking new Premium sign-ups on 1 October 2026, and existing Premium Sellers have to pick one of the two plans above.
How much does TPT take from each sale?
On the Basic plan, TPT keeps 45% of the price plus 30 cents for every resource. On the Exclusive plan it keeps 22.5%, or 20% during the introductory rate, plus 15 cents a resource when the whole order comes to less than $3.
Here is what that leaves you on a single resource bought on its own, using the standard 77.5% Exclusive rate. Stakk is in the table so you can see the scale, with its fee taken the same way.
| Where it sells | $2 resource | $10 resource | $20 resource |
|---|---|---|---|
| TPT Basic Seller | $0.80 | $5.20 | $10.70 |
| TPT Exclusive Seller | $1.40 | $7.75 | $15.50 |
| Stakk, 10% + $0.50 | $1.30 | $8.50 | $17.50 |
That last row is not a like-for-like saving, and it would be dishonest to sell it as one. TPT's cut pays for a marketplace that teachers already search. Stakk is a checkout. It brings you no buyers, so every sale on it is someone you sent there yourself. Our fixed $0.50 also hurts on cheap resources: on a $2 file it is a quarter of the price.
Is the TPT Exclusive Seller plan worth it?
On fees alone, yes, once your TPT sales pass about $267 a year. Exclusive costs $59.95 a year and pays you 22.5 points more of every sale, and 22.5% of $267 is just over $60.
Our arithmetic on TPT's published rates. It leaves out the transaction fee, which is lower on Exclusive and only pulls the line further down.
So if you sell steadily on TPT, the money points one way. What you give up is the right to sell those resources anywhere else. TPT's Exclusive Seller FAQ says that if you change your mind you can switch back to Basic, but there is then a one-year wait before you can rejoin Exclusive, and the annual fee is not refunded.
One more rule from the same FAQ: if you run more than one store, every store has to be on the same plan. You cannot keep one exclusive store and one open one.
What can't you sell outside TPT as an Exclusive Seller?
Your digital teaching resources. As an Exclusive Seller you agree to sell digital educational resources through TPT alone. You can still promote them anywhere and run your own website, but the purchase itself has to happen on TPT. The FAQ's own example is a "Buy Now" button on your site that links to the same product in your TPT store.
| Product type | Can an Exclusive Seller sell it off TPT? |
|---|---|
| Digital resources unrelated to teaching, such as clip art or fonts | Yes |
| Physical products | Yes |
| Courses and professional development | Yes |
| Boom Cards and Kindle books | Yes |
| Digital educational resources | No |
| Memberships or subscriptions that include those resources | No |
| Licenses for those resources | No |
Free resources are allowed on and off TPT, with one catch: you cannot charge for a resource on TPT that you give away free somewhere else. The FAQ also rules out payment plans that include access to your teaching resources. If TPT decides you are not meeting the rules, it says it may take action.
How and when does TPT pay sellers?
Monthly, through a payment company called Hyperwallet. TPT's page on how sellers get paid says you set up a Hyperwallet account, then add a transfer method. Depending on your country, the options include direct deposit, PayPal, Venmo and wire transfer.
Each month's earnings arrive the following month, no later than the 21st. TPT says payouts usually arrive around the 10th, and your bank or PayPal may take another 2 to 3 business days. So a resource sold on 2 October reaches you some time in November.
That gap is how a marketplace works. The buyer pays TPT, TPT holds the money, and you are paid on its schedule. It is one end of the split between platforms that hold your money and ones that pay you directly. Refunds run through TPT too: its Customer Experience team issues them on your behalf for purchases made in the last 365 days.
Can Basic Sellers sell the same resources on their own site?
Yes, with three rules attached. TPT's guidelines around using other sites ask Basic Sellers to:
- Keep prices consistent if the same resource is sold somewhere else.
- Not link to or advertise outside stores from TPT, or push buyers who found you on TPT to buy elsewhere.
- Not request refunds to nudge a buyer toward another site.
In practice that means your own store cannot undercut your TPT listing, and it has to find its own buyers. Those come from places you already own: an Instagram account, a Pinterest board, an email list, a school's staff group. It is the same work as selling printables without Etsy, where the marketplace stops sending you traffic and you start sending your own.
You can run both. TPT handles the teachers who search, and a direct checkout handles the followers who already know you.
When is Stakk the wrong choice for a TPT seller?
If you are an Exclusive Seller, Stakk is the wrong choice for your teaching resources, because every sale of them has to go through TPT. It is also the wrong choice if you need a marketplace to find buyers for you, since Stakk brings none. And if cost per sale is the whole decision, two platforms beat us: Systeme.io charges no transaction fees, even on its free plan, and Whop charges 2.7% + $0.30 on a domestic card with no monthly cost. Stakk also has no memberships or subscriptions, no course hosting, and sells in US dollars only.
What Stakk does give a Basic Seller is the shape of the checkout. An answer key or the matching set can sit on the payment screen as an order bump and ride the same charge, so the order carries one fee rather than two. After payment, the buyer can add a bigger bundle with one tap against the card they just used. Both are on every account with nothing behind a tier, which fewer platforms offer than you would think. The layout came out of funnels that ran for agency clients before Stakk existed.
Want a checkout for the followers who already know you?
If you are a Basic Seller, Stakk can be the checkout you link from your own Instagram, email list or website, at the same price as your TPT listing. Paste the link to the folder in your Drive as the delivery, add the answer key as an optional extra, and send your own people there. It is 10% + $0.50 a sale with card processing included and no monthly fee, and the money lands in your own Stripe account rather than waiting for a monthly payout.