Helm › Helm University › Track 5 › Lesson 5.1
Lesson 5.1What Helm charges, in full
Helm takes two deductions from a Shop order and no others. Here is what each one is, what it is charged on, and the one edge case where a floor applies.
Prefer to listen? This is the same lesson, word for word. The text below is the transcript.
This lesson prepares you to: State Helm's 6% commission and 2.9% plus 30 cents processing fee, and explain the minimum commission floor.
Two deductions, and nothing else
When somebody buys from your Helm shop, exactly two amounts are deducted from that order before the money reaches you. There is no listing fee, no monthly fee, no charge for having a storefront, and no fee on the sales tax the buyer paid. Two deductions per order, and nothing else, anywhere.
- Commission. 6% of the item subtotal. This is what Helm earns.
- Card processing. 2.9% plus 30 cents, recovered at cost.
Commission is charged on the items, not the shipping
This matters more than it sounds. Helm charges its 6% on the item subtotal only. What the buyer paid you for shipping is not part of the commission base.
Sell a 40 dollar hoodie with 6 dollars of shipping and the commission is 6% of 40 dollars, which is 2 dollars 40. It is not 6% of 46 dollars. A marketplace that charges its commission on the shipping line is charging you a fee for handing money to a carrier.
Processing is charged on the whole pre-tax amount, at cost
Card networks charge on the full amount they move, so processing is calculated on the subtotal plus the shipping: 2.9% of the pre-tax total, plus 30 cents. On that same 46 dollar order that is 1 dollar 33 plus 30 cents, so 1 dollar 63.
Helm does not mark this up. It is the card fee, passed through.
The minimum commission floor
There is one floor: commission is never less than 0.4% of the pre-tax total. In practice you will almost never meet it, because 6% of your items is nearly always the larger number. The floor only binds when shipping is more than about fourteen times the item price.
A one dollar keyring with 20 dollars of shipping is the kind of order that reaches it. 6% of one dollar is six cents. 0.4% of 21 dollars is eight cents. The floor applies and Helm takes eight cents instead of six.
Why the floor exists at all
The buyer pays sales tax, and the card network charges Helm a fee on that tax too. Helm does not pass that cost to you anywhere else, and tax is not knowable until the buyer reaches checkout and enters an address. The floor is the only thing that recovers it. On a normal order it costs you nothing, because 6% of the items is bigger.
The fee can never exceed the sale
Commission plus processing is capped at the pre-tax total of the order. Your net can be zero on a pathological order, but it can never go negative. You will never owe Helm money for having made a sale.
The numbers, in one place
| What | Rate | Charged on |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | 6% | Item subtotal only |
| Commission floor | 0.4% | Subtotal plus shipping, whichever is greater |
| Card processing | 2.9% plus 30 cents | Subtotal plus shipping |
| Sales tax | Nothing | Helm collects and remits it |
| Listing a product | Nothing | |
| A monthly or subscription fee | Nothing | |
| Having a storefront | Nothing |
Both numbers are recorded separately
Helm stores the commission and the card processing fee against each order as two separate figures rather than one combined deduction. They are not merged into a single opaque "platform fee", which means the split on any given order is a matter of record and can be checked rather than taken on trust.
Next: we take one real order and follow it from the buyer's card to your bank account, with every number shown.