A resale fee is the difference between the number on the listing and the number that reaches you. It is not one percent you can tattoo. Marketplaces change rates, they charge different categories differently, they bundle payment processing or they do not, and they invent promotions that are optional until you click them. Anyone who hands you a single “the fee is” figure for eBay, Poshmark, or Mercari is describing a day that already ended. This note is the list of charges to look up, so your price in the pricing guide is a price you might keep.
Read the fee page on the site you will use, for the category you will list. If the page and a forum post disagree, the page wins. Screenshot it if you are comparing two ways to list the same object. Your memory of last year’s rate is not a source.
The commission
The main fee is a cut of the sale. On some sites it is a percent of the item price. On some it includes what the buyer paid for shipping. On some a category, a store subscription, or a cap changes the percent. You need the definition, not the slogan. “Low fees” is not a definition. “This percent of the total, including shipping, in this category, this month” is a definition, and it lives on the company’s page.
Calculate it on the buyer’s total, the way the company does, before you decide the thrift tag was a win. A small sale loses a larger share of its usefulness to a fixed label, even when the percent looks modest. A common record, a single sports game, or a reading-copy book can be entirely fee and postage. That is why lots exist. It is also why leaving the object on the shelf is a complete strategy.
If you cross-list, do the math per site. The site with the lower commission can still be the worse net if its buyers will not pay the shipping, or if its sold comps are lower. Commission is one line. It is not the whole listing.
Payment processing
Some marketplaces fold payment processing into the commission. Some charge it as its own line, a percent plus a small fixed amount per order. The fixed amount is why a very cheap item is hostile: the fixed piece does not shrink just because your object was a dollar at the register. Look for both lines before you add them in your head into “about ten percent,” which is how people undercount.
Payout timing is not a fee, but it is cash flow. A sale that pays out days later still has to cover the label you bought today. If you are turning a thin margin, the delay matters. It does not change the fee. It changes whether you can afford the next label.
Shipping, the fee you choose
The carrier’s price is a fee even when the marketplace calls shipping “free.” You pay it, or the buyer pays it, and if the buyer pays it you must not also pretend your item price is comparable to a free-shipping comp. Weigh the item in the box you will use. A Pyrex bowl in a real carton is a different label from a bowl in a bag, and the bag is how you buy yourself a refund.
Marketplace labels are sometimes discounted against the counter rate. Sometimes the discount is real and sometimes it is a comparison to a retail rate nobody pays. Compare the label you will actually buy. A label that under-weighs the package becomes a surcharge, which is a fee with a late notice. A label that over-declares value can change insurance. Insurance is optional until the object is glass and the buyer says it arrived in pieces. Then it is the whole story. Kitchenware and records are where packing is the fee you cannot spreadsheet after the crash.
Local pickup removes the label and adds your time and a meeting. For a skillet, a lot of tools, or anything you have not fully tested, pickup is often the only fee structure that works. Garage sale pricing is the local version of the same honesty.
Returns and the second postage
A return is a fee when you pay the label back, refund the buyer, and still own a now-used object. Some categories and some seller settings put return shipping on you. Some put it on the buyer. The setting is yours to read before you list, not after the request arrives. A buyer who says the item was not as described is often pointing at a photo you cropped. The cheapest return policy is a title that already says “chip at the rim.”
Restocking, if a site allows it, is not a moral victory. It is a line in a policy. Do not invent one the site forbids. Do not hide one in a listing. A clear description reduces returns more reliably than a stern paragraph.
Promotions you opted into
Promoted listings, boosts, and “feature this” buttons are fees. They are optional. They are also easy to leave on. Check the listing flow for a checked box. A promotion can make sense on a competitive clothing search, a bag or a pair of jeans with many similar listings, and it can be a donation on a unique mold number that buyers already search by the number. If you cannot say what the promotion is supposed to do, do not buy it.
Store subscriptions are a fee you pay even in a month you sell nothing. They sometimes reduce the commission. Do that division on your actual volume, not on a volume you plan to have. A subscription that saves a small percent and costs a fixed amount every month is a loss until the sales exist. The company’s comparison chart assumes the sales.
Supplies, mileage, and the hour
Mailers, tape, boxes, gas to the outlet, and the hour you spent listing are costs. They are not the marketplace’s fee, and they still come out of the same pile of money. A honest net ignores none of them. You do not need a startup spreadsheet. You need to notice when the pile is smaller than the hour. That notice is the whole business.
Taxes are not a marketplace fee and this is not tax advice. Sales tax the platform collects is usually the platform’s problem to remit, and your income is still income. Keep the payout report. If you are unsure what you owe, ask someone who is allowed to tell you. Do not take a percent from a stranger’s video.
A price that survives the bill
Before you buy to resell, write four lines: sold comps of this condition, this site’s current commission and processing, a real label or the word pickup, and what you paid. If the first line does not cover the other three with room for a return, it is not inventory. What is worth flipping is that test in the aisle. Estate sales are that test in a driveway, with worse lighting.
Worth will not calculate a marketplace’s fee for you, and it should not. The rate would be stale the week after we printed it. A photo can put the object in a range. The fee page of the site you are about to use tells you whether the range is a listing or a story. Open the fee page. Then set the price.