Farm Ecommerce Fee Calculator
Compare up to three online store plans by monthly fee, platform transaction fee, and payment processing to see the real monthly cost and effective take rate.
Free · no account · works on mobile · embeddable
Best for farms choosing or reviewing an online store, preorder, or subscription platform. Updated .
Your store
Plans to compare
Copy each figure from the platform's own pricing page. Leave a field at 0 if the plan does not charge it.
Total = monthly fee + other fixed costs + sales × platform % + sales × processing % + orders × per-order fee. Effective take rate = total ÷ sales. Re-run at your slow-season and peak volumes; the cheapest plan often changes.
About the farm ecommerce fee calculator
Every farm ecommerce platform prices differently: a monthly fee with no transaction percentage, no monthly fee with a percentage of every sale, or a mix. The only fair comparison is total monthly cost at your sales volume. Enter your monthly online sales and order count, then the published fee structure of up to three plans, and the calculator shows platform fees, payment processing, fixed costs, total monthly and annual cost, effective take rate, and cost per order for each.
Fees are entered by you from each platform's pricing page, so the comparison stays current and is never based on someone else's outdated table.
Where the money goes
Platform transaction fees are a percentage of sales charged by the software. Payment processing is what the card processor takes, typically a percentage plus a fixed amount per order. Fixed fees are the monthly subscription plus anything else you pay every month regardless of sales: add-ons, domain, email service. The calculator keeps the three separate so you can see whether a plan is expensive because of its monthly fee or because of what it takes from each sale.
Reading the effective take rate
Effective take rate is total monthly cost divided by monthly sales. It puts a flat-fee plan and a percentage plan on the same scale. A plan with a high monthly fee and no percentage looks expensive at low volume and cheap at high volume; a no-fee percentage plan is the reverse. Run the comparison at your slow-season and peak-season volumes, because the cheapest plan often changes between them.
Worked example
At $4,000 in monthly sales across 80 orders, with 2.9% + $0.30 card processing on all three: Plan A ($0 a month, 5% platform fee) costs $200 in platform fees plus $140 in processing, $340 a month or 8.5%. Plan B ($79 a month, no platform fee) costs $219, or 5.5%. Plan C ($29 a month, 2% platform fee) costs $249, or 6.2%. Over a year that is $4,080 versus $2,628 versus $2,988.
Source
- Penn State Extension, Understanding pricing objectives and strategies for the value-added ag producer. Frames selling costs and channel fees as part of the price a product must recover. Accessed Sep 4, 2026.
This calculator gives planning estimates from the numbers you enter. It is not accounting, tax, veterinary, or legal advice. Replace the defaults with your own farm records whenever you have them.
Frequently asked questions
What fees do farm ecommerce platforms charge?
Usually some combination of a monthly subscription, a percentage of each sale to the platform, and card processing (commonly around 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction, though rates vary). Some add setup fees, add-on modules, or per-user charges. Read the pricing page and enter each part separately.
Is a monthly fee or a percentage cheaper?
It depends on volume. A percentage plan wins when sales are small; a flat monthly plan wins as sales grow. The crossover is monthly fee ÷ percentage difference. At a $79 fee versus a 5% platform fee, the flat plan is cheaper above $1,580 in monthly sales.
What is a good effective take rate?
For a small farm store, total software and processing cost between roughly 4 and 8 percent of online sales is typical. Above 10 percent is worth questioning unless the platform is doing marketing or fulfillment work for you.
Does this include the value of my time?
No. A platform that saves hours of order handling can be worth a higher fee. Use the farm labor cost calculator to price those hours and compare the difference.
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