Platform Business Model & Pricing

Purpose

How SellVia itself makes money — the platform fee model.

Finalized (2026-08-03)

• No subscription/monthly package. Merchants pay nothing upfront.
• Platform fee: 2% flat, on every sale, for every merchant. Collected via periodic billing (revised 2026-08-07) — not a live Paddle split, since SellVia no longer processes the underlying sale (01. Money Flow). Bundled into the same billing-cycle charge as creator commissions owed.
• Creators are never charged anything — they only ever receive commission.
• No tiering by volume or category at MVP — one flat rate, no exceptions. Simplest to explain to merchants ("we only make money when you do") and requires no billing/subscription infrastructure.

Worked Example (PKR — updated 2026-08-23)

• Sale: ₨19,000, commission rate 20%
• Creator commission: ₨3,800
• Platform fee (2%): ₨380
• Merchant owes SellVia (billed separately, not deducted at sale): ₨4,180 — merchant keeps the full ₨19,000 from their own Shopify checkout

What This Doc No Longer Needs

All pricing variables are resolved. This doc previously blocked Commission Engine — that dependency is now cleared.

Update (2026-08-23): Pakistan/PKR Only, Swich Confirmed as Processor

Market is Pakistan-only for MVP, currency is PKR only (replaces the original $68.00/USD example above). "Collected via periodic billing" no longer means a Paddle charge — it means Swich (confirmed 2026-08-23, same day as the Paddle removal): SellVia generates a billing-cycle invoice through Swich, the merchant pays through Swich's checkout, a webhook confirms it. The 2% flat fee and no-subscription model are unchanged. Full reasoning: 02. Architecture Decision Log.

Note: Swich is a payment processor, not a Merchant of Record — its own transaction fees (not yet confirmed, pending a real signup conversation) are a real cost SellVia absorbs as a cost of doing business, separate from and on top of the 2% platform fee SellVia charges merchants. Once known, these belong in infra_costs/unit-economics tracking (11. Analytics), not folded into the 2% figure.

Possible Future Considerations (not MVP)

• Volume-based fee reduction for high-performing merchants, if retention data later suggests it's needed
• A paid tier reintroduced later for extra features (analytics, priority placement) — decoupled from the transaction fee itself, not a fee discount