Take rate: what a marketplace really earns

A marketplace sees two very different sums of money.

• GMV (gross merchandise value) is everything customers paid through the platform, including the part that goes to the people who deliver. For Klasna's 1:1 lessons: what families paid for the lessons delivered. It measures how much business flows through Klasna.
• Revenue is what Klasna itself earned from that flow. For 1:1 lessons it is the commission: GMV minus what tutors receive.

September 2026: families paid 4,284,750 UAH for delivered lessons, tutors received 2,936,250. Klasna's revenue = 4,284,750 − 2,936,250 = 1,348,500 UAH.

The link between the two is the take rate, the share of GMV the platform keeps: 1,348,500 ÷ 4,284,750 = 31.47%.

Payment fees and video costs are not subtracted at this step. They are cost of revenue, the next line of the P&L. Revenue first, then what it costs to deliver.

The same tutors can be presented two ways, depending on who controls the service.

For Klasna for Teams, Klasna signs the contract with the company, promises the lessons itself, picks the tutors and replaces them if needed. If a lesson goes wrong, the company complains to Klasna. Klasna controls the service, so it is the principal:

• revenue: the full 800 UAH a lesson (gross revenue);
• cost of revenue: the tutor's 430 and 31 for video and AI;
• gross profit: 339 a lesson.

For 1:1 lessons the family chooses the tutor and the tutor answers for the lesson. Klasna only runs the platform and passes the tutor's share on, so it is an agent and reports only its commission.

The tests to ask, in plain words: who promises the service to the customer? Who chooses and can replace the provider? Who answers if it goes wrong? If the answer is "we", report gross; if it is "the provider", report net.

Whether a company reports the full price or only its commission depends on who controls the service, not on whose bank account the money passes through.

• An agent arranges a service that someone else controls and answers for. It reports only its commission as revenue: net revenue. Klasna's 1:1 lessons work this way: the family chooses the tutor, the tutor gives the lesson and answers for it, Klasna runs the platform and passes the tutor's share on.
• A principal controls the service: it promises it, chooses who delivers it and answers if something goes wrong. It reports the full price as revenue (gross revenue) and the provider's share as cost of revenue. Klasna for Teams works this way.

A new case, partner summer camps: families pay 10,000 UAH through Klasna, the camp runs everything, Klasna keeps 12%. The camp controls the service, so Klasna is an agent and its revenue is 1,200 UAH. The 10,000 is GMV.

Revenue grows at the same rate as GMV only if the take rate stays the same. Klasna's two autumns of 1:1 lessons:

Growth = new ÷ old − 1:

• lessons: 24,820 ÷ 17,122 − 1 ≈ 44.96%;
• GMV: 14,721,940 ÷ 10,510,442 − 1 ≈ 40.07%;
• revenue: 4,660,750 ÷ 3,711,740 − 1 ≈ 25.57%.

Why did the take rate fall? The push for 32-lesson packages: the discount came out of Klasna's share, while tutors still got their full payout per lesson. So "GMV up 40%" is true, and "revenue up 40%" is not. A board needs both numbers, each with its own name.

The arithmetic habit matters too: growth is the new value divided by the old one, minus 1. A ratio of 1.2557 means revenue reached 125.57% of last year, which is growth of 25.57%, not 125.57%. And compute each growth rate from its own pair of numbers; never apply GMV growth to revenue.

Revenue = GMV × take rate. So when the take rate falls, part of GMV growth never reaches revenue, and you can put a price on that.

Klasna's 1:1 lessons, September–November 2026: GMV 14,721,940 UAH, take rate 31.66%, revenue 4,660,750.

At last autumn's take rate of 35.31%, the same GMV would have brought 35.31% × 14,721,940 = 5,198,317 UAH of revenue. The difference, about 537,567 UAH, is what the lower take rate cost this quarter.

Where did it go? Mostly into discounts on bigger packages. Tutors are paid the same per lesson whatever the package, so a lower price per lesson comes almost entirely out of Klasna's commission: commission per lesson fell from about 216.78 UAH last autumn to 187.78 this autumn.

When you see GMV growing faster than revenue, compute this gap. It turns "the take rate slipped a few points" into a sum the team can weigh against what the discount bought.

Leo asked whether Klasna could simply call itself the principal for 1:1 lessons, to show a bigger revenue line. Only if the facts changed, and the result would not be what he hopes.

Showing 1:1 lessons gross adds the tutors' payouts, 10,061,190 UAH, to both revenue and cost of revenue:

• revenue: 6,832,760 + 10,061,190 = 16,893,950 UAH;
• cost of revenue rises by the same amount;
• gross profit: still 5,108,699 UAH;
• gross margin: 5,108,699 ÷ 16,893,950 = 30.24%, down from 74.77%.

Not a hryvnia of profit changes, yet the business looks like a low-margin reseller instead of a high-margin platform. That is why presentation is chosen by the facts of control, not by which picture looks better.

For the reader of any P&L, the habit is the same: before judging a gross margin, ask whether revenue is shown gross or net, and look at gross profit in hryvnias.

Switching between gross and net presentation moves the provider's share into or out of revenue and cost of revenue at the same time. So:

• revenue changes;
• gross margin changes;
• gross profit in hryvnias does not.

Klasna for Teams, per lesson:

The same works in reverse for 1:1 lessons: showing them gross would add 10,061,190 UAH of tutor payouts to revenue and cost of revenue, leave gross profit at 5,108,699 and cut gross margin from 74.77% to about 30%.

The lesson for comparisons: never compare gross margins across product lines or companies without asking how revenue is presented. Gross profit in hryvnias does not care.

Each of these numbers is useful, as long as it answers its own question:

• GMV: how much did customers pay through the platform in total? It shows demand flowing through Klasna, and tutors care about it because it is their income. Klasna's 1:1 GMV this autumn: 14,721,940 UAH.
• Revenue: what did the company earn from what it delivered? For an agent, its commission: 4,660,750 UAH.
• Take rate: what share of the customers' money does the platform keep? Revenue ÷ GMV for an agent: 31.66%.
• Gross margin: what share of revenue is left after delivery costs? Gross profit ÷ revenue.

Trouble starts when one number is put on another's line. The rule for any slide or report: label GMV as GMV and never put it on the line that says revenue. If you want to show growth, show both, and say why they grew at different speeds.