Facebook Marketplace fees vs eBay — the actual numbers
Short version, US sites, as of 2026: eBay charges 13.6% of the total amount of the sale in most categories, plus a per-order fee of $0.40 ($0.30 if the order total is $10.00 or less). Facebook Marketplace charges individual sellers 10% per checkout transaction, with a minimum of $0.80, and charges nothing on a local pickup deal you arrange in Messenger and settle in person. Both platforms calculate their percentage on the entire transaction — item price, shipping the buyer paid, and sales tax — not on the number you typed into the price field.
Run one order through both and the abstraction goes away. A $40 item, $8.00 shipping charged to the buyer, and 7% sales tax, for a buyer total of $51.36:
| Channel | Fee on a $51.36 order | You keep (before label cost) |
|---|---|---|
| eBay, no Store subscription | $6.98 + $0.40 = $7.38 | $40.62 |
| eBay, Basic Store or above (12.7%) | $6.52 + $0.40 = $6.92 | $41.08 |
| Marketplace, shipped through checkout (10%) | $5.14 | $42.86 |
| Marketplace, local pickup | $0.00 | $48.00 |
The number that stings is $7.38 on a $40 item — 18.5% of the price you actually set, because the shipping and the tax rode along in the fee base. The platform gap is smaller than the forum arguments suggest: $2.24 on this order, meaning you would need roughly ten orders a month before the difference covers a single Basic Store subscription. The gap between shipping the item and handing it over in a grocery store parking lot is $5.14 on the same $40 item, and that is the decision worth agonizing over. On eBay, the 13.6% rate applies to the total amount of the sale up to $7,500 per item, with 2.35% on the portion above that. Sellers without a Store get 250 zero insertion fee listings a month, then pay $0.35 per listing.
Tiny orders flip the ranking. On a $5.00 shipped order, eBay takes $0.68 plus the $0.30 per-order fee, or $0.98 — 19.6%. Marketplace’s $0.80 minimum kicks in on anything under $8.00, so that same $5.00 order costs $0.80, or 16%. At that price the postage costs more than either fee, which is the real answer: neither is a business you want to be in at those margins, but it is worth knowing which one bleeds you slower.
What drives the price up or down
On Marketplace the answer is simple: whether the sale runs through onsite checkout. One rate, no category table, no tiers. On eBay, three things move the number.
Category. The 13.6% headline is “most categories,” not all. Books, Movies & TV, and Music are 15.3%. Coins & Paper Money (except bullion) and Trading Cards are 13.25%. Women’s Bags & Handbags run 15% up to $2,000 and 9% above. Jewelry & Watches run 15% up to $5,000 and 9% above. NFTs are 5%. If you cross-post one inventory pool across categories, your blended eBay rate is not 13.6% and never was — half your orders in Books at 15.3% against half in a 13.6% category blends to 14.45%, and that 0.85-point drift stays invisible until you divide one month of fees by one month of sales.
Price thresholds inside a category. Athletic Shoes is the sharpest example: 8% if the total amount of the sale is $150 or more, with no per-order fee, versus 13.6% below $150. Listing a pair at $145 costs you $19.72 plus $0.40 in fees before tax, leaving $124.88. Listing the same pair at $150 costs $12.00 flat, leaving $138.00. Five dollars more on the price tag is $13.12 more in your pocket. Check whether your category has a threshold like that before you set a “competitive” price just under it — the $149 listing is the single most expensive habit in sneaker reselling.
Store subscription. Basic Store and above drop most categories to 12.7% on the sale up to $2,500 per item. A Basic Store is $21.95 a month on yearly renewal, $27.95 month-to-month. That 0.9-point saving pays for the yearly-renewal subscription at roughly $2,440 in monthly sales, and the month-to-month version at roughly $3,110. Below that, the subscription costs you money unless you are also blowing past the 250 free listings — 100 extra listings at $0.35 is $35 a month on its own, which justifies the store regardless of the rate.
Hidden costs most people miss
The fee base is the mistake that costs the most. eBay states plainly that the total amount of the sale includes the item price, handling charges, shipping collected from the buyer, sales tax, and other applicable fees. Meta’s merchant policy says the same thing about the Marketplace selling fee: it is calculated on the entire transaction amount including shipping fees and applicable taxes. Sellers who “charge shipping so the fee doesn’t apply to it” are paying a percentage on their own shipping revenue. If you build your margin sheet off item price alone, you will be short by two to four percentage points on every order, every month. Build the sheet off buyer total instead.
Refunds do not unwind cleanly on eBay. When you refund a buyer, eBay credits the variable final value fee, the Promoted Listings General fee, the international fee, and any performance-related extra — but the per-order fixed amount is not credited. Worse, you get no fee credits at all if you refunded the buyer outside eBay or if eBay had to step in on a return or item-not-received case. A 5% return rate on 200 orders a month is $40 of per-order fees you never see again, plus every case you let escalate. The tempting shortcut — sending the buyer their money by other means to keep things friendly — is the version that forfeits the entire credit.
Add-on percentages. An international fee of 1.65% of the total sale applies on eBay when the buyer is registered outside the US. Below Standard sellers pay an additional 6% on their final value fees the following calendar month, rising to 7% if the status persists four or more consecutive months. Promoted Listings General ad rates run from 2% to 100% and are charged on the total sale amount when a promoted item sells within 30 days of a click. Stack a 2% ad rate onto 13.6% plus 1.65% international and you are at 17.25% before the per-order fee — and none of those three lines announced itself when you set the price.
Stale Marketplace numbers. Older help articles and a lot of third-party fee calculators still quote 5% per shipment, or a flat $0.40 on shipments of $8.00 or less. Meta’s merchant policy page currently states 10% with a $0.80 minimum. Do not trust either me or a calculator on this: pull one real payout statement, find the fee line, and divide it by the buyer total. That number is your actual rate.
How to bring the cost down
In rough order of payoff, and none of it takes longer than an afternoon:
- Open your last 20 payouts on each platform, divide total fees by total buyer payments, and write down your real blended rate. Stop estimating.
- Move anything bulky, low-value, or high-return-risk to Marketplace local pickup, where the selling fee is zero. Furniture, exercise equipment, and monitors are the obvious candidates — just budget for the two buyers who confirm a time and never show up before the one who does.
- Check your eBay categories against the fee schedule for threshold pricing — especially Athletic Shoes at $150, Handbags at $2,000, and Jewelry & Watches at $5,000.
- Total your last full month of eBay sales. Above roughly $2,440, subscribe to a Basic Store on yearly renewal; below it, only subscribe if you need more than 250 listings.
- Refund inside eBay’s flow, before a case escalates. Every case eBay steps into forfeits the whole fee credit, not just part of it.
- Set Promoted Listings ad rates deliberately at the 2% floor for items that already sell, and reserve higher rates for genuinely stale stock. Review the report monthly, because nobody has ever accidentally lowered an ad rate.
- Reprice anything where the fee eats more than 20% of item price after shipping and tax — usually sub-$10 items — or bundle it into a multi-item order so one per-order fee covers more revenue.
Summary
Marketplace is cheaper per shipped order — 10% with a $0.80 minimum against eBay’s 13.6% plus $0.40 in most categories — and free when the buyer picks up locally. eBay costs more per order but brings category-specific rates, threshold breaks, a 12.7% Store tier, and buyer volume that Marketplace’s local-first audience does not match for niche goods. The decision is usually per item, not per platform: bulky and local goes to Marketplace, searchable and shippable goes to eBay, and the two fee schedules live in your pricing spreadsheet rather than in your head. Both companies revise these pages without telling anyone, so check any figure here against eBay’s Selling fees help page and Meta’s merchant policies page before you set prices. And note what this arithmetic does not cover: it prices the cost of a sale, not the odds of making one.