eBay Profit Calculator
What you actually keep on a sale — after eBay fees, what the item cost you, what postage cost you and what you spent on ads. Plus the price you have to charge before the sale stops losing money.
Break-even price: the number most sellers never work out
Most sellers price off what they paid for the item. That is the wrong anchor, because it ignores the two costs that arrive later: the platform's cut and the postage. On a $20 item with $5 of postage, eBay fees mean you need roughly $29.40 before the sale breaks even — not $25.
The gap between those two numbers is the reason a busy month can still end flat. Every sale under the break-even price is one you paid to make, and volume makes it worse rather than better.
What quietly eats a eBay profit
- The fee on postage. The final value fee is charged on the item price, handling, any shipping the buyer pays, and sales tax, so postage you charge is not profit you keep.
- Ad spend. Promoted listings come out of the same sale. A listing that clears 38% unpromoted can be close to flat once ads run.
- Returns. A returned order earns nothing but the outbound postage is already spent, so one return can cancel out several good sales.
- Postage you underestimated. Sellers quote the label price and forget packaging, tape and the trip to the depot.
The same $40 sale at different sourcing costs
All figures below are produced by the calculator on this page, using rates verified 2026-08-03. Postage assumed at $5, no ads, standard category.
| Item cost you | eBay fees | Profit | Margin | Break-even price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $8 | $5.84 | $21.16 | 52.9% | $15.51 |
| $14 | $5.84 | $15.16 | 37.9% | $22.45 |
| $20 | $5.84 | $9.16 | 22.9% | $29.40 |
| $26 | $5.84 | $3.16 | 7.9% | $36.34 |
Notice the break-even price barely moves while the margin collapses. What kills a reseller is not the fee — it is sourcing too close to the list price.
Margin bands resellers work to
| Margin | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Below 0% | You are paying for the privilege of the sale. Usually a sourcing mistake, not a fee problem. |
| 0–10% | Nothing left for a return, a dispute or a postage rise. One bad order erases a week. |
| 10–20% | Workable. A single return still costs several sales worth of profit. |
| Above 20% | Room to absorb the occasional problem order without the month going backwards. |
Questions sellers actually ask about eBay profit
Why is my profit lower than a fee calculator suggested?
A fee calculator stops at what eBay deducts. Your profit also has to cover what the item cost you, what postage actually cost you, and any ad spend. This page adds those three, which is why the number here is the one worth pricing against.
What is my break-even price?
It is the price at which the sale stops losing money once eBay fees, your postage and the cost of the item are all paid. Enter your costs above and it is the first figure shown. Anything below it is a sale you are paying to make.
Do returns come out of my profit?
Effectively, yes. A returned order earns nothing while the postage you already paid stays spent, so a return costs you several sales worth of margin. Enter your return rate above to see the average profit per sale rather than the best case.
Should I count ad spend as a fee?
Treat it as one. Promoted listing spend comes out of the same sale, so a listing that looks profitable at 13.6% can be flat once ads are running. The ad rate above is your own figure — it is not a published eBay rate, and nothing on this site pretends otherwise.
What margin should I aim for?
Under 10% leaves nothing for a return, a dispute or a postage rise. 10-20% is workable but a single return wipes out several sales. Above 20% there is room to absorb the occasional problem order without the month going backwards.
Just want the fee breakdown?
If what you need is the fee side alone — every eBay charge, the rate on each, and how the total is arrived at — that is a different page: the eBay fee calculator. This page starts where that one stops.
Other calculators
Tracking more than one sale?
This calculator prices a single listing. If you are selling regularly, the question changes from “what do I keep on this one?” to “which platform is actually worth my time?” — and that needs a running record, not a calculator.
The Multi-Platform Profit Tracker is a spreadsheet for that. Log a sale once and it works out the platform fee, processing fee, net payout, profit, margin and ROI, across eBay, PayPal, Etsy and Mercari in one sheet. A monthly summary tab totals each platform side by side.
It uses the same rates as this page, from the same source: each platform’s own fee page, last verified 2026-08-03. The workbook carries a Rates & Sources tab listing the official page behind every number, what we could not confirm, and which platforms we left out because their published rates were not obtainable. Rates change — that tab is how you tell how old your copy is.
Get the tracker — $19 one-time
One-time purchase, not a subscription. Excel / Numbers / LibreOffice / Google Sheets. The calculators on this site stay free.
What should this become?
The calculator is free and stays free. What gets built on top of it is not decided yet — so rather than guess, we are asking. Tick whatever is actually true for you. One tick is one vote.
We keep your email address and which boxes you ticked. That is the whole list — no tracking pixels, no ad networks, nothing sold on. You will hear from us only when something has actually been built that is worth telling you about.