What the marketplaceactually leaves you.
The listing price is a fiction. Between the referral cut, the listing fee, and the payment processor, the platform takes its slice before you see a cent. Enter your price, cost, and the shipping you eat, pick your marketplace, and watch the real net profit per sale appear, fees and all.
Your numbers
What the buyer pays, before any platform fees come out.
Your landed cost of goods for one unit (COGS).
Outbound shipping you eat (set to 0 if the buyer pays it).
The verdict
Net profit / sale
$22
Total platform fees
$6.00
Take rate
15.0%
Share of the price the platform keeps.
Profit margin
55.0%
Where the price goes
Amazon headline: 15% referral (most categories) + $39.99/mo Pro plan. On this sale the platform keeps $6.00 of your $40.
Compare · the same sale on every marketplace
Where does this item keep the most?
| Marketplace | Fees | Net profit | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | $6.00 | $22 | 55.0% |
| Etsy | $4.25 | $24 | 59.4% |
| eBay | $5.46 | $23 | 56.4% |
| Shopify | $1.46 | $27 | 66.4% |
| Walmart | $4.80 | $23 | 58.0% |
Same $40 price, same $12 cost — only the platform's cut changes. Shopify charges no referral fee, but you supply the traffic; the marketplaces bring buyers and bill you for them.
Your move
You see the take rate. I find the margin hiding behind it.
On Amazon, a $40 sale leaves +$22 net (55.0% margin) after a 15.0% take rate.
Send me your top SKUs and the channels you sell them on. I'll show you, free, where the fee stack is quietly eating your margin, which items are priced to lose, and which buyers you should be pulling onto your own store. You keep the analysis whether you hire me or not.
Plain English
The price is gross. The profit is what survives the fees.
Every marketplace runs the same play: it owns the audience, so it charges you for access to it on every sale. That charge isn't one number, it's a stack. A referral or final-value percentage of your price, sometimes a flat listing or per-order fee, and almost always a payment-processing cut on top. By the time all three clear, the price on the listing and the money in your bank are two different figures.
Sellers get burned because they price off cost and a target margin, then forget the platform is a silent partner taking 12–20% off the top. A $40 product that cost you $12 looks like a $28 win. On Amazon at 15% you keep $22; on Etsy after the transaction, listing, and payment fees you keep less; and that's before the shipping you quietly absorb. The margin you planned and the margin you bank are rarely the same.
This calculator does the stack for you. Pick the marketplace and it applies that platform's real fee structure, then subtracts your cost and the shipping you eat to show the net profit per sale, the total fees, your take rate (the share of the price the platform keeps), and your true profit margin. Now you can price to a margin that survives contact with the platform.
The formula
Net profit = Sale price − (referral% × price + listing fee + payment fee) − product cost − shipping
Sell at $40, cost $12, no shipping, on Amazon: fees = 15% × $40 = $6.00. Net profit = $40 − $6.00 − $12 = $22.00. That's a 55% margin and a 15% take rate. Move the same item to Etsy and the 6.5% transaction + $0.20 listing + 3% + $0.25 payment fees change the math; the calculator shows exactly how much.
What each marketplace charges
Headline selling fees by platform, as of 2025. Categories and seller tiers vary (Amazon clothing is 17%, electronics 8%; Walmart runs 6–15%), so treat these as the baseline your price has to clear:
| Marketplace | Headline selling fee |
|---|---|
| Amazon | 15% referral (most categories) + $39.99/mo Pro plan |
| Etsy | 6.5% transaction + $0.20 listing + 3% + $0.25 payment |
| eBay | ~12.9% final value + $0.30 per order |
| Shopify | No referral fee + 2.9% + $0.30 payment |
| Walmart | 6–15% referral (≈12% midpoint), no monthly fee |
Source: Webgility marketplace fees comparison, 2025 · 2025
Your net profit came back thin. Where's it going?
Take rate above ~20%.
The platform is eating a fifth of every sale. Check whether your category carries a premium referral rate, and price the fee in rather than hoping volume covers it.
Net profit negative on a 'profitable' item.
Your COGS plus the fees exceed the price. Raise the price, cut landed cost, or drop the item — no amount of marketing fixes a sale that loses money before it ships.
Margin fine on Shopify, ugly on a marketplace.
You're paying for someone else's audience. Use the marketplace for discovery and push repeat buyers to your own store, where the only cut is the 2.9% + $0.30 payment fee.
Shipping quietly killing the margin.
Absorbed shipping is a fee you charge yourself. Either build it into the price, set a free-shipping threshold that lifts AOV, or pass it to the buyer where the category allows.
Eight ways to keep more of each sale
01Price the fee in
Work backwards from net margin, not list price. If you need to keep 40% on Etsy, the fees have to be added on top of cost before you set the price.
02Know your category rate
Amazon referral swings from 8% (electronics) to 17% (clothing). Pricing every SKU off one assumed rate quietly under-prices your highest-fee items.
03Lift AOV with bundles
Flat fees (listing, per-order) hurt small baskets most. A $0.20 listing fee is nothing on a $60 bundle and painful on a $5 trinket.
04Cut absorbed shipping
Free shipping is a margin line, not a marketing freebie. Set a threshold that pays for itself or build it into the price.
05Drive repeats off-platform
Win the customer on the marketplace, keep them on your own store. Every repeat purchase off Shopify dodges the referral cut entirely.
06Trim COGS, not corners
A few dollars off landed cost flows straight to net profit. Renegotiate supplier MOQs and freight before you touch the price.
07Mind the monthly
Amazon's $39.99 Pro plan only pays off above ~40 units a month. Below that, the per-item plan or a different channel keeps more.
08Audit fees quarterly
Platforms raise rates and add fees with little fanfare. Re-run your real take rate every quarter so a silent hike doesn't erase your margin.
The vocabulary
- Referral fee
- The marketplace's commission on a sale, charged as a percentage of the sale price. Amazon and Walmart's main cut.
- Final value fee
- eBay's name for its commission, charged as a percentage of the total amount of the sale plus a small per-order fee.
- Take rate
- The share of the sale price the platform keeps as fees. Your fees ÷ sale price, as a percentage.
- Payment processing fee
- The cut the payment processor takes, typically ~2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Baked into Etsy and Shopify totals here.
- Net profit per sale
- What you actually keep: sale price minus platform fees, product cost, and any shipping you absorb.
- Take-home margin
- Net profit as a percentage of the sale price. The number that survives the platform, not the one you planned.
Marketplace fee questions, straight answers
On most categories, 15% of the sale price as a referral fee, plus a $39.99/month Professional selling plan (or $0.99 per item on the individual plan). Some categories differ — clothing is 17%, consumer electronics 8%. On a $40 item at 15% that's $6 in referral fees, leaving $34 before your product cost.
Keep going
A calculator tells you what. A call tells you what to do about it.
Send me the account behind these numbers. I'll tell you straight where the money's leaking and what I'd fix first — free, and you keep it whether you hire me or not.