--- title: "What Is a Transaction Fee? Definition and Examples" description: "A transaction fee is a percentage or fixed amount taken from each sale by a payment provider, app store or platform. See how the fees stack up." url: "https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/transaction-fee" markdown_url: "https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/transaction-fee.md" category: "Pricing & billing" updated: "2026-10-05" --- # What is a transaction fee? A transaction fee is an amount deducted from each individual sale, as a percentage, a fixed sum or both. On a streaming service it can be charged by the payment provider, by an app store and, on some platforms, by the platform vendor itself. ## Who charges transaction fees - Payment gateway: a percentage plus a fixed amount, charged on every card or wallet payment - App store: a commission of roughly 15% to 30% on payments made through store billing - Platform vendor: some take a percentage of rentals, purchases and tickets on top of their subscription price - Currency conversion and cross-border fees when the buyer's card is from another country ## How transaction fees add up Fees stack. A $5 rental sold on the web might lose around 3% plus a fixed 30 cents to the gateway, which is already 9% of the sale. If the platform vendor also takes 10%, almost a fifth of the price is gone before content and delivery costs. The fixed part hurts small sales most. That is one reason short-form apps sell coins in packs: one larger payment carries one fixed fee and funds many small unlocks. ## Reducing the cost - Choose a platform that does not take a cut of one-time sales - Sell on the web as well as in apps - Process payments locally in each major market to avoid cross-border fees - Bundle small purchases into packs or passes - Encourage annual plans: one transaction instead of twelve ## Transaction fee on RentAnOTT RentAnOTT takes no cut of subscriptions, rentals, purchases or tickets. You pay a flat monthly tier, and your payment provider's own fees are the only charge on each sale. [See pricing](https://www.rentanott.com/pricing). ## Related terms - [Per-subscriber fee](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/per-subscriber-fee) — A per-subscriber fee is an amount a streaming platform vendor charges each month for every paying subscriber on your service, usually on top of a base plan. The total grows in step with your audience. - [Revenue share](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/revenue-share) — Revenue share is an arrangement in which income from a streaming service is split by percentage between parties, for example between a service and its platform vendor, an app store, a payment provider or the owner of the content. - [App store commission](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/app-store-commission) — App store commission is the percentage an app store, such as Apple's App Store, Google Play or a TV platform's store, keeps from each payment made through its in-app billing. It typically ranges from 15% to 30%. - [Payment gateway](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/payment-gateway) — A payment gateway is the service that securely collects a customer's payment details, sends the transaction to the banks and card networks for approval, and reports the result back to the business. A streaming service uses one to sell subscriptions, rentals and purchases on the web. - [TVOD](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/tvod) — TVOD (transactional video on demand) is a streaming model where viewers pay once for a single title or event, either renting it for a limited time or buying it to keep. - [Coins and virtual currency](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/virtual-currency) — Coins, or virtual currency, are units of in-app credit that viewers buy in packs with real money and then spend inside a streaming app, most often to unlock individual episodes of a short-form series. - [Merchant of record](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/merchant-of-record) — The merchant of record (MoR) is the legal entity that sells a product to the customer. Its name appears on the customer's statement, and it is responsible for processing the payment, collecting and remitting sales tax, and handling refunds and disputes. ## Further reading - [RentAnOTT as a Vimeo OTT alternative](https://www.rentanott.com/vimeo-ott-alternative) - [Content monetization platforms compared](https://www.rentanott.com/blogs/content-monetization-platforms) - [OTT revenue calculator](https://www.rentanott.com/tools/ott-revenue-calculator) ## Frequently asked questions ### Is a transaction fee the same as a per-subscriber fee? No. A transaction fee is taken from each sale as it happens. A per-subscriber fee is charged every month for each subscriber you have, whether or not a payment was made that month. ### Can transaction fees be passed on to the viewer? Card network rules and local law restrict surcharges in many places. Most services build the cost into the price instead. ### Are refunds charged a transaction fee? Often the original fee is not returned when a payment is refunded, and disputed payments carry an extra charge. Check your provider's terms. All 163 terms: [Streaming and OTT glossary](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary). ## Book a demo Tell RentAnOTT what you are launching. The team walks through the platform and maps the path to go-live around your catalog, markets and revenue model. Book a demo: https://www.rentanott.com/contact ## More from RentAnOTT - [Home](https://www.rentanott.com/index.md) — What RentAnOTT is, what every plan includes, and how launch works - [Features](https://www.rentanott.com/features.md) — Every core feature and optional add-on - [Pricing](https://www.rentanott.com/pricing.md) — Platform tiers, apps, add-ons, usage rates and example bills in INR and USD - [Free tools](https://www.rentanott.com/tools.md) — OTT app builder and calculators for streaming revenue, bandwidth, bitrate and pricing - [Insights](https://www.rentanott.com/blogs.md) — All streaming business articles - [Glossary](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary.md) — Definitions of streaming and OTT terms - [Book a demo](https://www.rentanott.com/contact.md) — Talk to RentAnOTT about your launch Full site in one file: https://www.rentanott.com/llms-full.txt