Selling on TpT, my honest opinion: what still works and what frustrates so many teachers

Selling on TpT: My Honest Opinion as a Teacher Who Still Sells There

I am a teacher, and I sell the review games and sub plans I make in two places: on Teachers Pay Teachers and here on my own website. Since TpT announced in October that it is replacing its Premium membership with an “Exclusive Seller” membership, I have been asked the same question again and again: is selling on TpT still worth it?

This is my honest answer. It is an opinion piece, not a news report. If you want the facts and numbers first, I wrote those up here: what the TpT Exclusive Seller change means for teachers. I am not writing this to attack TpT. I still have my store there and I plan to keep it. But I do think something is being lost, and a lot of teachers feel the same way.

What TpT still does well

Let me start with what is good, because it would not be honest to leave it out.

  • Teachers already look there. When a teacher needs a fractions game for tomorrow morning, TpT is very often the first place she searches. No other site for teacher-made resources comes close. As a small seller I could never bring that many teachers to my work on my own.
  • Buyers trust it. Teachers know how TpT works, they know their purchase is safe, and their school often already has an account. That trust took TpT many years to build, and every seller benefits from it.
  • It is easy to start. You upload a file, write a description, set a price, and you have a shop. You do not need a website or any technical knowledge.
  • It gave teachers something new. A classroom teacher could suddenly earn money from the materials she was making anyway, in a job that has never paid well. Many teachers built a real second income there, and some built a whole business. That matters, and TpT deserves credit for it.

I mean all of that. It is exactly why the current change hurts so many people.

What changed

In short: until now, a seller could pay $59.95 a year for Premium, keep 80% of every sale, and sell her resources anywhere else she liked. From January 1, 2027, Premium no longer exists. There are two options left.

  • Exclusive: $59.95 a year, you keep 77.5%, and you agree to sell your digital teaching resources only on TpT. Your own website may still show your products, but the buy button has to lead to TpT.
  • Basic: you keep 55% minus 30 cents per resource, and you stay free to sell wherever you want.

Premium sellers have until December 31, 2026 to decide. I checked TpT’s pages again while writing this in November, and the terms are the same as on the day they were announced.

Why so many of us are frustrated

From the outside it can look like teachers are upset about two and a half percentage points. That is not it.

It is the choice we are being given. Sellers who did what every business guide tells you to do, who built a small website, started an email list, opened a second shop, now have to pick: close those doors, or accept 55% on TpT. The high school English teacher behind Lit & More, a TpT seller for about twelve years, wrote that she is angry about the many hours and dollars she put into the storefront on her own website, and that she still does not know what she will do.

It is the feeling that nobody asked us. The change arrived as a finished decision with a deadline. The questions came afterward, at a Town Hall that many sellers left with more questions than answers. Two petitions followed. One asks TpT to reconsider the restriction on selling elsewhere and had more than 1,500 signatures when I looked in November; the other asks TpT to simply keep Premium and offer Exclusive as an extra choice.

It is the worry about what comes next. If the terms can change this much in one year, what will they be the year after? A teacher who depends on that income cannot plan with that.

And for some it goes deeper than money. One seller, quoted by a teacher who followed the discussion in the seller groups, put it like this: “What hurts the most is realizing that TPT doesn’t see us as people.” I would not go that far myself. But I understand where the sentence comes from.

To be fair, not everyone feels this way. Some sellers looked at the numbers and calmly chose one side. Lindsay Bowden, who teaches other teachers how to sell, said she will move to Basic because she already earns through her own website, and that she still sees TpT as a good way for teachers to earn extra income. For a seller who only ever sold on TpT, Exclusive may honestly be the right choice. I do not think anyone should feel bad for taking it.

From teachers sharing with teachers to a company and its marketplace

This is the part I keep coming back to.

Look at the name: Teachers Pay Teachers. The idea is right there. It was started in 2006 by a New York City teacher, Paul Edelman, as a place where teachers could share what worked in their classrooms with other teachers and be paid a little for the work. One teacher made something, another teacher needed it, and the website stood quietly in the middle.

Today TpT belongs to IXL Learning, a large education company that bought it in 2023. TpT explains the new membership with the growth of the marketplace: it says more and more resources are being sold outside of TpT, and it wants them back in one place. From a company’s point of view I can follow that. Running the site costs money. Search, payments, customer support and advertising all cost money, and TpT is allowed to earn its share. I earn money with my resources too, so I am not going to pretend money should not be part of this.

But a rule that tells a teacher where she is allowed to sell her own work is a different kind of thing. It is no longer the website standing quietly in the middle. It is a company deciding how the teachers on both sides may deal with each other. The words have changed with it. We used to talk about sharing, helping, and what worked in my classroom. Now we talk about payout rates, exclusivity terms, penalties and opt-in deadlines.

I do not think anyone at TpT set out to take the teacher out of Teachers Pay Teachers. I think it is what happens when a community turns into a big marketplace with a company behind it. But I notice it, the teachers I talk to notice it, and I think it is the real reason this change stings more than the numbers explain.

Where I stand

I am staying on TpT, and I am not going Exclusive. I will not check that box, because this website is where I can talk to the teachers who use my games, answer their emails, and offer things I cannot offer on TpT. So from January I will keep 55% of what I sell there instead of 80%. That is a real cut and I do not like it. I am accepting it because I would rather earn less on TpT than give up the one shop that is actually mine.

I am not telling anyone to leave TpT. My honest advice is smaller than that: do not let any single website be your only shop, however good it has been to you.

What alternatives we have

More than most teachers think. I wrote a full comparison with fees here: TpT alternatives where teachers can open their own store. The short version:

  • Stay on TpT as a Basic seller and treat it as one shop among several. You keep the buyers who search there, and your freedom.
  • Open a shop of your own. Payhip takes a few minutes and needs no technical skills. If you already have a blog, WordPress with WooCommerce is what I use. On your own shop the buyer is your customer, and nobody can change your terms by email.
  • Add another teacher marketplace. Amped Up Learning is teacher-run and pays 80% without a yearly fee. Tes is strong if your resources fit the UK curriculum. Classful is small but free to try.
  • Start an email list. It is the only way to reach your teachers that does not depend on anyone else’s rules.
  • Keep sharing. Freebies are allowed everywhere, with or without the Exclusive membership. Giving something useful to another teacher for free is still the heart of all this, and nobody needs a membership for it.

If you are not sure what the change means for your own store, I built a free TpT seller calculator that compares Exclusive and Basic with your numbers.

And if you are a teacher who buys rather than sells: when a seller you like has her own shop, buying there means more of your money reaches the teacher who made the resource. That is as close to the original idea as it gets.

What I would wish for

I would like TpT to keep a middle option for sellers who also sell elsewhere, at a fair rate. I would like sellers to be asked before a change this big, not after. And I would like the rules written in words a tired teacher can understand at nine in the evening.

TpT became what it is because teachers trusted it with their work. I hope it remembers that. Until then, I will keep making my games, keep my store there, and keep my own little shop open here. If you sell too, I would love to hear how you have decided.