How Much Does It Cost to Sell an Item on eBay?

1 of 11 in Series: The Essentials of Listing an Item on eBay

Every item listed on eBay is charged an insertion fee. There’s no way around it. The insertion fee is calculated on a sliding scale based on the minimum bid (your starting price), your fixed-sale price, or the reserve price (the semi-secret lowest price that you’re willing to sell for) of your item.

eBay understands that there’s not as much profit margin when you’re selling a media item, so they have a lower listing fee to encourage you. What’s a media item? New or used books, music, DVDs, movies, and video games. Take a look at the following table for eBay’s insertion fee structure.

Auction Insertion Fees
Starting or Reserve Price	Insertion Fee	Insertion Fee for Media
$0.01–$0.99	$0.15	$0.10
$1.00–$9.99	$0.35	$0.25
$10.00–$24.99	$0.55	$0.35
$25.00–$49.99	$1.00	$1.00
$50.00–$199.99	$2.00	$2.00
$200.00–$499.99	$3.00	$3.00
$500–gazillions	$4.00	$4.00

If you’re running a reserve-price auction, eBay bases its insertion fee on the reserve price, not the starting bid. eBay also charges a fee to run a reserve-price auction.

Here’s a snapshot of how a reserve price affects your insertion fee. If you set a starting bid of $1.00 for a gold Rolex watch (say what?) but your reserve price is $5,000.00 (that’s more like it), you’re charged a $4.00 insertion fee based on the $5,000.00 reserve price plus a $50.00 reserve fee (1 percent of the reserve price).

So what does the insertion fee buy you on eBay?

A really snazzy-looking display page for your item that millions of eBay members can see, admire, and breathlessly respond to. (Well, you can only hope.)
The use of eBay services, such as the Trust & Safety program, which protects your selling experience.

eBay has a different fee structure for items that are listed as fixed-price sales:

Fixed-price sale insertion fee: $0.35
Fixed-price sale insertion fee for media: $0.15

These are quite the bargain, so if you have multiples of a single item and know what you need to get for them, a fixed-price sale is a great way to go!

In addition to the insertion fees, when your item sells, you also have to pay a Final Value Fee based on your item's closing price. The table below outlines the Final Value Fees for most general merchandise.

Final Value Fees*
Closing Price	Final Value Fee
Item not sold	No fee
Up to $25.00	8.75% of the closing value
$25.01–$1,000.00	$2.19 plus 3.5% of the closing value over $25.00
$1,000 and up	$36.31 plus 1.5% of the closing value over $1,000.00

* These Final Value Fees do not apply to motor vehicles, real estate, or items listed in certain subcategories of the Business and Industrial category.

Keep in mind that there is a slightly higher Final Value Fee for fixed-price listings, based both on your closing price and the type of item you sold, but a fixed-price listing that can stay on the site for as long as 30 days! Go to the eBay.com Fees page for more information.