eBay & Etsy fees explained (2026)
Every number below is quoted from the marketplaces' official fee pages (verified 2026-07-05) and drives our eBay and Etsy calculators. When a fee changes, this guide and the changelog update together.
eBay: two fees, one big surprise
eBay charges a final value fee — 13.6% for most categories on the portion up to $7,500, 2.35% above — plus a per-order fee of $0.40 ($0.30 for orders of $10 or less). The surprise is the base: the fee applies to the total amount of the sale — item price plus shipping charged to the buyer plus sales tax, even though eBay collects and remits the tax itself. A "13.6%" fee is therefore effectively ~14.5% of the item price on a typical taxed order.
After your 250 free listings each month, insertion fees run $0.35 per listing — non-refundable whether or not the item sells. International sales add 1.65% unless you use eBay International Shipping. Category exceptions matter: trading cards pay 13.25%, guitars 6.7%, sneakers over $150 a flat 8% with no per-order fee, and watches tier at 15% / 6.5% / 3%.
Etsy: four fees that stack
Etsy's stack on a US sale: a $0.20 listing fee (charged every 4 months, sold or not), a 6.5% transaction fee on item + shipping + gift wrap, and 3% + $0.25 payment processing on the order total including tax. The tax treatment is asymmetric — the transaction fee excludes sales tax for US sellers, processing includes it.
Offsite Ads is the one that surprises: when a sale is attributed to an Etsy-run ad you pay 15% of the order (12% once trailing-365-day sales pass $10,000 — permanently), capped at $100 per order. Under $10k/year you can opt out; above it participation is mandatory. Listing in a currency other than your payout currency costs another 2.5%.
The five traps that quietly eat margin
- Forgetting fees apply to shipping. Both marketplaces fee your shipping charge — "free shipping" just moves the fee into the item price.
- Pricing off the sticker rate. 13.6% or 6.5% understate the real load once per-order fees, listing fees and tax-inclusive bases stack. Run the actual sale through the calculator.
- Ignoring the per-order threshold. On eBay, a $10.00 order pays a $0.30 per-order fee; $10.01 pays $0.40 — pricing at $9.99 vs $10.50 changes your fee rate meaningfully on cheap items.
- Confusing margin and markup. A 50% markup is a 33% margin; fee percentages come off the price, not your cost. Our margin calculator untangles this.
- Letting stale numbers ride. The most popular fee calculators on the web still show 2022 rates. Fees change; check the changelog or let us email you when they do.