Marketplace Seller Fees Compared — Same Sale, Nine Payouts
Sellers don't lose money on fees one platform at a time — they lose it in the comparison they never ran. Same item, same $50 sale price, $6 shipping: here is what every major US marketplace pays out.
Quick answer: On a $50 + $6 sale: Vinted $56.00, Facebook local pickup $56.00, Depop $53.90, Facebook shipped $53.50, Mercari $51.00, Whatnot $50.08 (standard tier), StockX $49.75, Grailed $49.26, eBay $48.28, Poshmark $46.00. Fee spread: $10.00 on an identical sale.
The September 2026 fee table
- Vinted — 0% seller fee (buyer pays protection)
- Facebook Marketplace — local pickup free; shipped 5% ($0.40 min)
- Depop — 0% commission + 3.3% + $0.45 payments processing
- Mercari — flat 10% of item price
- Grailed — 9% + 3.49% + $0.49 processing
- StockX — ~9.5% (8–10% by level) + ~3% processing
- Whatnot — tiered 8%→~3% (0% above $1,500) + 2.9% + $0.30
- eBay — ~13.25% of total sale + $0.30 (2.35% above $7,500)
- Poshmark — 20% of price ($2.95 flat under $15)
The $50 sale, ranked by payout
Vinted and a Facebook local pickup tie at $56.00. Depop: $53.90. Facebook shipped: $53.50. Mercari: $51.00. Whatnot (standard tier): $50.08. StockX (new seller): $49.75. Grailed: $49.26. eBay: $48.28. Poshmark: $46.00. The best-to-worst gap on the identical sale is exactly ten dollars — pure fee spread.
Why anyone still sells on the expensive platforms
Fees buy demand. Poshmark's 20% comes with a social audience that pays fashion prices; eBay's 13% buys the largest buyer pool; StockX's stack buys authentication and sneaker demand. The right question is never 'which platform is cheapest' but 'which platform's buyers pay my item the most' — then fees are just the cost of reaching them. Run your own numbers per item with each calculator below.
How to evaluate marketplace fees on your own items
A published commission rate is only the starting number. To evaluate what a platform really costs you, build four lines per sale: the commission or final value fee, the payment processing charge, any fixed per-order fee, and the shipping you absorb. Add them, subtract from the buyer's total, and you have your true payout. Do this on your three best-selling items rather than an average — the percentage structure rewards and punishes price points very differently. A $12 item and a $120 item on the same platform can differ by several margin points once the fixed fee is spread over a smaller base.
- Step 1 — take the buyer's total (item price + shipping + any tax the platform collects)
- Step 2 — apply the commission to that total, not just the item price, where the platform defines it that way
- Step 3 — add the processing percentage and the fixed per-order charge
- Step 4 — subtract the shipping label cost you actually pay if it is not buyer-funded
- Step 5 — compare your effective take rate (fees ÷ payout) across platforms, not headline percentages
Reading a fee schedule the way platforms write it
Fee pages are written to be scannable, not comparable. Three traps recur across all nine platforms. First, thresholds that switch the rate mid-transaction: eBay above $7,500, Whatnot above $1,500, Poshmark under $15. Second, category rates that differ from the headline number — the rate on the landing page is often the most common category, not yours. Third, discount or promoted-listing percentages charged on top rather than instead. When you evaluate marketplace fees, confirm three things before trusting a rate: that it applies to your category, that it applies at your price band, and that it survives a refund. A fee that is not credited back on a return is a real cost that never appears in any published table.