Ecommerce Fee Calculator
Calculate platform fees and net profit for selling on major ecommerce platforms.
How to use this ecommerce fee calculator
- 1Enter your item's selling price and product cost (what you paid to acquire or manufacture it).
- 2Select the platform you're selling on — the fee structure varies significantly between Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Shopify.
- 3Enter your shipping cost per order (what you pay to ship to the buyer, not what you charge them).
- 4Review the platform fees and net profit to understand how much each channel actually pays you after fees.
- 5Compare the same product across platforms to find the most profitable channel for your specific item.
- 6Remember that fee rates vary within platforms — Amazon's 15% is the default, but categories like electronics (8%) and jewelry (20%) differ significantly.
How it's calculated
Platform fee = price × fee rate (+ fixed fee). Net profit = price − product cost − shipping − platform fee.
About the Ecommerce Fee Calculator
Understanding the true cost structure of different ecommerce platforms is essential to choosing where to sell and how to price. Each major platform has a different fee architecture, and the headline fee rate often understates the full cost of selling. Comparing platforms accurately requires calculating net profit per order across all fees for your specific product category and price point.
Amazon's marketplace power comes from its enormous buyer intent — customers shopping on Amazon are ready to purchase, not browsing. This intent advantage justifies higher fees for many sellers. Amazon's 15% referral fee plus FBA fulfillment fees (typically $3–$7 per unit for standard-size products) adds up to 25–35% of selling price in total platform costs. Despite this, FBA sellers benefit from Prime eligibility, Amazon's customer service, returns handling, and the Buy Box algorithm — making total economics competitive for the right product categories, particularly where sales velocity and conversion rates are high.
Etsy's niche is handmade, vintage, and craft supplies, where its buyer community has strong product-category fit and willingness to pay premium prices. The effective fee rate of 10–15% (combining transaction, listing, and payment fees) is competitive with Amazon, but Etsy's addressable market is narrower. Sellers who fit Etsy's aesthetic and category — jewelry, home decor, wedding items, art prints — often find it the most profitable platform because the community's willingness to pay for handmade quality reduces price competition from manufacturers and wholesalers.
Shopify represents the other end of the spectrum: near-full ownership of the customer relationship, lower payment processing fees, but complete responsibility for driving traffic. The critical insight is that Shopify's economics work best at scale, where the fixed cost of building traffic (through SEO content, email lists, and social media audiences) is amortized across a high volume of orders. A Shopify store with 10 monthly orders is paying relatively high marketing cost per order; a store with 1,000 monthly orders from a mature organic and email channel may have the lowest net fee load of any platform. Building a Shopify brand is a long game, but the ownership of the customer relationship and email list builds compounding value that marketplace sellers never accumulate.
Frequently asked questions
Does Amazon really charge 15% on everything?
Amazon's standard referral fee is 15% for most categories, but there are significant exceptions. Electronics accessories: 15%. Cameras and photo: 8%. Consumer electronics (TVs, cameras): 8%. Books: 15%. Jewelry: 20% for the portion of the total sales price above $250. Amazon also charges a per-item closing fee for media categories, and FBA fulfillment fees on top of referral fees if you use Amazon's warehouse and shipping.
What are Etsy fees beyond the 6.5% transaction fee?
Etsy charges multiple fees: $0.20 listing fee per item (renewed every 4 months or when sold), 6.5% transaction fee on the item price plus shipping charged to buyer, payment processing fee of 3% + $0.25 for Etsy Payments, and optional Offsite Ads fee of 12–15% on sales resulting from Etsy's off-platform promotions (mandatory for shops over $10,000/year in sales). Total effective fees often run 10–15% of selling price, not just the 6.5% headline rate.
Why is Shopify 'cheaper' than marketplaces but often isn't in practice?
Shopify's 2.9% + $0.30 payment processing fee (using Shopify Payments) is indeed lower than Amazon or eBay fees. However, Shopify requires you to generate your own traffic through advertising, SEO, or social media — Amazon and eBay bring buyers to you. The real comparison includes marketing cost per order: if you spend $15 on Facebook ads to get each Shopify sale vs $0 in paid advertising on Amazon (but paying 15% referral fee), a $50 product on Amazon nets $42.50 vs $46.30 on Shopify — but the Shopify sale required $15 in ad spend, making Amazon more profitable per unit.
How does eBay's fee structure compare to Amazon for similar products?
eBay's final value fee of 13.25% (most categories) is slightly lower than Amazon's 15%, but eBay's buyer audience has lower purchase intent for most non-collectible categories. For collectibles, vintage items, used electronics, and niche categories where eBay has auction culture and dedicated buyers, eBay can dramatically outperform on selling price — items that sell for $30 on Amazon sometimes sell for $80+ on eBay. For commodity new goods, Amazon typically offers higher volume with comparable margins.