Recent research has shown that citizens’ commitment to liberal democratic norms and values is wavering globally and that certain contextual factors such as polarized environments may further weaken such commitment. However, we still know little about whether democratic commitment varies across key social groups. In this paper we examine how gender, age, education and income shape citizens’ willingness to trade off liberal democratic principles such as free elections, freedom of speech or checks and balances for higher incomes. Drawing on theories of political socialization, material self-interest, and gendered political attitudes, we expect that sociodemographic characteristics may be associated with democratic commitment through differences in how groups experience democratic institutions, their levels of economic security, and how they learn democratic values.  More specifically, using data from a conjoint experiment fielded in seven countries we estimate and compare heterogeneous patterns in citizens’ “willingness to pay” – i.e., the additional income needed to make respondents give these principles up. Our results show that young people, the less educated and lower income respondents are less committed to democratic principles than their counterparts. When it comes to sex, differences between men and women are scarce and depend on the specific principle being evaluated. These patterns are consistent with socialization and education-based explanations, though our design does not allow us to adjudicate between competing mechanisms. This paper has important implications for our understanding of which groups of citizens may be more open to relinquish specific liberal democratic principles.