Beacons vs Stan Store: Which Platform Lets Creators Keep More?
Beacons takes 9% per sale, Stan Store takes $29 a month and 0%. The break-even is $320 a month. Both fee tables, and a cheaper third option.
Stan Store lets you keep more once you sell more than about $320 a month. Stan charges a flat $29 a month and takes 0% of each sale. Beacons is free to start but takes 9% of every sale on its Free and $10 Creator plans, and only drops to 0% on Creator Plus at $30 a month.
Below that line, Beacons Free is the cheaper place to start. Above it, the two 0% plans cost almost the same, and the real difference is what each plan includes. There is also a third option on the same math: shopspace takes 0% per sale for $19 a month billed yearly, or $29 month to month.
Prices below are as of September 2026, taken from Beacons' pricing plans and Stan's own pricing breakdown.
Beacons vs Stan Store at a glance
| Beacons | Stan Store | |
|---|---|---|
| Plan with no monthly cost | Yes, Free, with a 9% fee per sale | No |
| Paid plans, month to month | Creator $10, Creator Plus $30, Creator Max $90 | Creator $29, Creator Pro $99 |
| Paid plans, billed yearly | $8.33, $25 and $75 a month | $25 and $79 a month |
| Platform fee per sale | 9% on Free and Creator, 0% on Creator Plus and Max | 0% on both plans |
| Free trial | Not stated | 14 days |
| Email marketing | 50 sends a month on Free, 500 on Creator, unlimited on Creator Plus and Max | Creator Pro only |
| Your own domain | From the $10 plan, free for the first year | Not supported on any plan |
The fee row is where most comparisons go wrong, including an earlier version of this one. Beacons takes 9% per sale, not 10%. Stan takes nothing per sale on either plan, and it has no free plan at all, only a 14-day trial.
What Beacons and Stan Store cost at $500 and $2,000 a month
Here is what each plan takes from the same seller. Card processing (Stripe or PayPal) applies on every platform, so it is left out to keep the comparison fair.
| Plan | Price a month | Fee per sale | At $500 a month | At $2,000 a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beacons Free | $0 | 9% | $45, you keep $455 | $180, you keep $1,820 |
| Beacons Creator | $10 | 9% | $55, you keep $445 | $190, you keep $1,810 |
| Beacons Creator Plus | $30 ($25 billed yearly) | 0% | $30, you keep $470 | $30, you keep $1,970 |
| Stan Store Creator | $29 ($25 billed yearly) | 0% | $29, you keep $471 | $29, you keep $1,971 |
| Stan Store Creator Pro | $99 ($79 billed yearly) | 0% | $99, you keep $401 | $99, you keep $1,901 |
| shopspace Creator | $29 ($19 billed yearly) | 0% | $29, you keep $471 | $29, you keep $1,971 |
The costs use month to month prices. Billed yearly, the cheapest 0% plan on each platform comes to $25 a month on Beacons, $25 on Stan and $19 on shopspace.
Three things stand out.
The 9% plans get expensive fast. At $2,000 a month, Beacons Free costs $180, six times the price of a flat plan. The $10 Creator plan still charges 9%, so it only makes sense for its other features, never to save on fees.
Beacons wins at low volume. At $200 a month in sales, 9% is $18, which is less than Stan's $29. The break-even sits around $320 a month: below it Beacons Free is cheaper, above it any 0% plan is.
At 0%, the two are close. Beacons Creator Plus and Stan Creator are $30 and $29 month to month, and both $25 billed yearly. From there the choice is about features, not fees.
At $2,000 a month in sales, a 9% fee is $180 you never see. Start a 7-day free trial of shopspace and keep it: 0% per sale, $19 a month billed yearly.
Where Beacons wins
Beacons is the only one of the two with a plan you can stay on without a monthly bill. If you have not made your first sale yet, a 9% cut is a reasonable price for testing, because 9% of nothing is nothing.
Beacons also gives you more on its 0% plan than Stan gives on its cheaper one. Creator Plus includes unlimited marketing emails. Your own domain is available from the $10 plan and is free for the first year; Beacons does not say what it costs after that. Stan's $29 plan has neither.
Where Stan Store wins
Stan charges 0% on its cheapest plan, so your cost is fixed from the first sale. You never watch a percentage grow as you do, and there is no higher tier to buy just to stop paying per sale. You also get a 14-day free trial, and the Creator plan covers digital products, courses and webinars, coaching bookings, memberships, communities and lead magnets.
Creator Pro adds tools some sellers need: discount codes, payment plans, Afterpay and Klarna, upsells and order bumps, funnels, affiliate management and advanced pixels.
The catch is that email broadcasts and email flows are Creator Pro only. The moment you want to email your buyers, Stan goes from $29 to $99 a month. And Stan does not support a custom domain on any plan. Your store lives at stan.store/yourname, and your own domain can only redirect to it.
If you would rather not pay a percentage, or $99 for email
Here is shopspace on the same math. The Creator plan is $19 a month billed yearly ($228 a year) or $29 month to month, and it takes 0% of every sale. At $2,000 a month you keep $1,981 on yearly billing, before card processing. The money goes straight to your own Stripe account; shopspace never holds it.
Against Beacons, the fee is the story: 0% from the first plan, instead of 9% until you reach Creator Plus.
Against Stan, it is not a fee story, because Stan also takes 0%. Month to month, both cost $29. Billed yearly, shopspace is $19 against Stan's $25, which is $72 a year less. The bigger difference is what sits on the base plan:
- Email campaigns and sequences are on Creator. On Stan they need Creator Pro.
- Instagram automations: an automatic DM when someone comments, keyword triggers and DM replies. Here is how comment-to-DM automation works.
- Community, memberships and bookings, plus automations that run on store events.
- Eleven product types: digital downloads, physical products, courses with progress tracking, bookings, memberships, webinars and events, bundles, affiliate products, lead magnets, tip jars and external links.
What shopspace does not do matters just as much. Nothing is charged during the 7-day trial, but after it you pay; there is no plan that costs nothing. Your own domain is on the Pro plan ($39 a month billed yearly, $49 month to month). There is no marketplace sending you buyers, so you bring the traffic. And unlike Stan Creator Pro, shopspace has no affiliate management for people promoting your products.
If you are weighing more than these two, see the best Stan Store alternatives with the same fee math, or Stan Store vs Payhip if you sell to buyers in the EU.
Beacons or Stan Store: which should you choose?
Between the two alone: Beacons for a start that costs nothing, or for email and your own domain at around $30 a month; Stan for a fixed price from day one and the sales tools on Creator Pro.
If you have not sold anything yet, start on Beacons Free and treat the 9% as the cost of testing. Plan to move once you pass about $320 a month, because from there every month on 9% costs more than a flat plan.
If you need affiliate management, payment plans or buy now, pay later at checkout, and $99 a month is fine, Stan Creator Pro is built for that.
If you are already selling and want to keep every sale, email your buyers and automate Instagram without paying $99 a month, pick a 0% plan with email included. Of the three, shopspace Creator is the lowest priced 0% plan billed yearly. Start a 7-day free trial of shopspace and build your store first: a card is required at signup, nothing is charged for 7 days, and if you cancel inside the trial you pay nothing.