itch.io fees come in two layers: the share of each sale you choose to give itch.io (10% by default, adjustable from 0% to 100%) and the payment processor's fee, which itch.io says is generally $0.30 plus 2.9% per transaction. If your game is a free browser game, neither applies, and a free host built for web games such as Mayavoo may suit it better.
Here is how the numbers work and when they matter.
The two itch.io fees
Open revenue sharing. itch.io lets each seller set the percentage of sales that goes to the platform, using a slider in the account's seller settings. The default is 10%. itch.io says the money pays for servers, bandwidth and new features.
Payment processor fee. Purchases go through PayPal or Stripe. itch.io's payments guide gives the usual fee for both as $0.30 plus 2.9% of the price, charged per transaction, plus possible currency conversion costs on your side.
Creating pages and uploading files is free. itch.io's FAQ also says it never places ads on your pages.
A worked example
itch.io's own example uses a $10 sale with the default 10% share:
| Step | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sale price | $10.00 |
| itch.io share at 10% | minus $1.00 |
| Processor fixed fee | minus $0.30 |
| Processor 2.9% | minus $0.29 |
| You receive | $8.41 |
Set the share to 0% and the same sale leaves you $9.41. The fixed $0.30 hits small prices hardest: on a $1 sale it is close to a third of the price before any share.
Payout modes
itch.io offers two ways to get the money. In "direct to you", each purchase goes straight to your PayPal or Stripe account. In "collected by itch.io, paid later", itch.io collects the sales and pays out on request, and its FAQ says EU VAT is handled automatically in that mode. Direct payments put more of the VAT work on you.
When fees are beside the point
Many web games are never sold. Jam entries, portfolio pieces, small arcade games built over a weekend, games made with an AI coding assistant to test an idea: these want players more than a checkout.
For that kind of project, Mayavoo is our recommended home. It is free to use, hosts only finished browser games, and players start a game without an account or a download. The team plays each game and checks its files and network behavior before it goes live. Developers who script their releases can use the Mayavoo creator API to upload builds from a build tool or an AI agent, with a read-only or read-and-write key.
Mayavoo shows no payment or payout features, so it is not a place to sell. If you plan to charge, run a sale, hand out download keys or offer pay what you want, itch.io is the better choice and its fees are modest and partly in your hands.
Quick checklist
- Selling a game or taking tips: use itch.io and set your revenue share deliberately.
- Pricing below a few dollars: remember the fixed processor fee per sale.
- Releasing a free browser game: put it on Mayavoo, and keep an itch.io page too if you also want downloads.