Marketplace fee calculator
Work out what marketplace fees cost your shop in a year, and what the same orders would cost sold directly from your own site.
What it costs you
Sales through marketplaces, per year
48,960
Fees paid, per year
5,875
Sales moved direct, per year
12,240
What those sales cost sold directly
490
Kept instead of paid away, per year
979
Before your plan subscription, which is a fixed cost rather than a per-sale one. Current prices are on the pricing page.
How this is calculated
Marketplace fees are charged on what you sell, so the annual figure is your monthly orders multiplied by the average order value, multiplied by twelve, multiplied by your effective fee rate.
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The saving is the part people get wrong. Moving a sale to your own shop does not make it free: it costs your card processing rate plus whatever your shop platform charges. So the saving is the difference between the fee you were paying and those two together, on the share of orders you actually move.
The worked example above, in full
| Orders a month through marketplaces | 120 |
| Average order value | 34 |
| Sales per year | 48,960 |
| Fees at 12.0% | 5,875 |
| 25.0% of those sales taken direct | 12,240 |
| Cost of those sales at 2.0% + 2.0% | 490 |
| Kept per year | 979 |
What the number does not include
Your plan subscription, which is fixed rather than per sale. Postage, which is unchanged and charged to the buyer on both sides. The work of earning direct orders in the first place, which is real. And the value of owning the buyer's name, email and order history, which is the part sellers say matters most and the part no calculator can price.
What to do with the number
If the saving looks worth having, the next question is where those direct orders come from. These cover it:
- An alternative to marketplace fees - what changes when you sell direct, and what does not.
- Ways to get paid on your website - the practical version of taking the money yourself.
- Discount codes that do not lose money - the usual first move for converting a marketplace buyer to a direct one.
- Handmade seller website builder and the online store builder - what selling on your own site involves.
- Running a restaurant on a delivery app instead? That sum has to account for the driver, so it is the restaurant commission calculator.
- Every free tool we publish is listed on free tools.
Questions
What do selling marketplaces actually charge?
It is rarely one number. A marketplace typically takes a commission on the sale, and may add a listing fee per item, a payment processing charge, and an optional advertising cost that is easy to stop noticing. Add up a real month from your own statements and divide by what you sold - the effective rate is usually higher than the headline one.
Is selling direct actually cheaper?
Usually, but it is not free, and a calculator that pretended otherwise would be useless to you. A direct sale costs card processing plus whatever your shop platform charges. The saving is the difference between those and the fee you were paying, on the share of orders you actually move.
What does Webkio charge on a direct sale?
A transaction fee of 2 percent on the Starter plan and 1 percent on Growth Business and Agency, on top of your own card processing rate and the plan subscription. There is no commission on the sale itself. A shop needs a paid plan, so the free tier is not part of this comparison.
What share of marketplace orders can realistically move direct?
It depends how much of your demand is people looking for you rather than for a product. A seller with an audience of their own moves a larger share; one relying entirely on marketplace search moves less. The calculator defaults to a deliberately modest 25 percent.
Should I close my marketplace shop?
Almost certainly not, and this is not an argument for it. A marketplace is how people who have never heard of you find your work, and a fee on a first sale to a stranger is a marketing cost. The saving here is on the repeat buyer who already knows your name and did not need finding.
What about postage?
It is left out on purpose, because it does not change. You post the parcel whether the order came from a marketplace or your own shop, and in both cases the buyer is usually charged for it. Adding it to both sides of the sum would move the two totals by the same amount and change the answer by nothing.