🇺🇸 Updated 2026-07-13 · 7 min read · every figure sourced & dated (dataset 2026.07)
If you sell the same product on five US marketplaces, you will keep five different amounts of money. Not because your product changed — because each platform's fee stack takes a different bite. Here's the 2026 landscape in one place, from the same verified dataset that powers our Channel Comparator.
Amazon charges a referral fee on the total sale (item + shipping): 15% in most categories, 8% for electronics, 17% for apparel over $20, with a $0.30 minimum. Fees are frozen through 2026. Add $39.99/month for the Professional plan, and FBA fulfilment on top if you use it. eBay takes a 13.6% final value fee on the full order (including shipping and even the buyer's sales tax) plus $0.30–$0.40 per order — the per-order fee is $0.40 once the order tops $10. Etsy looks cheap at 6.5%, but stack the $0.20 listing fee and 3% + $0.25 Etsy Payments and a $30 sale pays about $3.30 all-in (11%). Walmart Marketplace runs 6–15% by category with no monthly fee — and unlike Amazon and eBay, its referral fee applies to the item price only, not shipping. TikTok Shop is the outlier: a flat 6% referral fee that includes payment processing — but if you sell through creators, their 10–20% affiliate commission changes the picture entirely.
Take a $29.99 apparel item with $8 landed cost and $5 shipping. On eBay you pay $4.08 commission + $0.40 order fee and keep about $12.51 (41.7% margin). On TikTok Shop, fees drop to $1.80 and you keep about $15.19 — before any creator commission. On Amazon, apparel's 17% band takes $5.10, netting about $11.89, minus your share of the monthly fee. Run your own numbers — including the ad cost that each channel realistically needs — in the comparator or work backwards from a profit goal in the Goal Planner.
Three costs wreck more margin forecasts than referral fees ever do. First, fee base: Amazon and eBay charge their percentage on shipping you collect from the buyer, so "free shipping built into the price" and "cheap item + high shipping" produce different fee bills. Second, fixed per-order fees quietly dominate low-priced items: $0.40 on a $8 eBay sale is another 5 points of margin. Third, import duty: since the $800 de-minimis exemption was suspended (August 2025, extended indefinitely in June 2026), every unit you import owes duty per the tariff schedule — landed cost is the real COGS now. Estimate it with our shipping & landed cost tool.
TikTok Shop’s 6% referral fee is the lowest headline rate among major US marketplaces, followed by Etsy’s 6.5% + 3% payment processing. Amazon, Walmart and eBay cluster around 13–15% for most categories. But the cheapest headline fee is not always the highest net margin — fixed fees, payment processing and your traffic source change the ranking per product.
A healthy net margin after all marketplace fees, product cost and shipping is 15–25%. Below 10%, one fee change or ad-cost spike can wipe out your profit. Use a reverse calculator to find the price that protects your target margin.
Yes. All major US marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, TikTok Shop) are marketplace facilitators — they collect and remit state sales tax at checkout, so it never touches your margin. Only Shopify / own-store sellers must register and remit where they have nexus.
No — Amazon froze US referral fees for 2025 and 2026. Most categories pay 15%, with electronics at 8% and apparel over $20 at 17%.