Free tool
eBay Fee Calculator.
eBay fees on trading cards are 13.25% of the total the buyer pays, shipping and sales tax included, on the first $7,500 of an item, plus a per-order fee of $0.30 on orders of $10 or less and $0.40 above. eBay.ca charges the same rates in Canadian dollars.
Sales are easy to see. Profit is not. Put a card through the calculator and find out what you actually kept after eBay took its cut, you paid to ship it, and you accounted for what the card cost you in the first place.
Free, no signup, nothing saved. Built by card sellers who got tired of guessing.
Your sale
Change any number. Everything updates as you type.
Sleeve, toploader, team bag, envelope, tape.
Leave at 0 if you do not promote.
eBay charges 13.25% on sports trading cards up to $7,500, then 2.35% above that, plus a per-order fee of $0.30 on orders of $10 or less and $0.40 above. All of that is applied automatically. Sports Trading Cards and Collectible Card Games show the same 13.25% on both eBay's standard and store fee schedules, so a store subscription does not appear to change this rate, though some other collectibles categories do get lower store rates. Fees also exclude any sales tax the buyer paid, which eBay includes in its own fee base. Check your seller invoice and eBay's current fee schedule, then set your real rate here.
You keep
$0.00
0% margin
That's one card, typed by hand. See every sale, automatically →
The leaks
Where the money actually goes.
The final value fee, eBay's commission on the sale, is the one everybody knows, and it is charged on the total the buyer pays, including the shipping you charged them. Charging more for shipping does not dodge it.
The per-order fee is the one that quietly ruins cheap cards. It is close to the same amount whether the card sold for six dollars or six hundred, so as a share of the sale it grows as your price drops.
Then come the costs eBay never shows you at all: the label or the stamp, the sleeve and the toploader, and what you paid for the card. None of those appear in your sales total, which is exactly why a strong sales month can still be a losing one.
Run a low-priced card through the calculator above and watch the break-even number. For a lot of sellers that is the first time the under-$15 problem stops being a forum complaint and becomes a number.
For the full breakdown, including the fees that only show up in your payout reports, read Are You Actually Making Money Selling Cards on eBay?
Wondering whether a card is worth sending off first? The PSA grading calculator does the same job for grading, with real US and Canadian pricing. And if you sell more than cards, the eBay profit calculator runs this math for any category, with a target-profit solver built in.
The fee structure
How eBay fees work on trading cards.
eBay charges two selling fees on a card that sells. The first is the final value fee: 13.25% of the total the buyer pays, which is the selling price plus the shipping you charged plus any sales tax. That rate covers the first $7,500 of an item; the part above $7,500 is charged 2.35%. The second is a per-order fee of $0.30 when the order total is $10 or less, and $0.40 when it is more.
Listing is mostly free. A seller without an eBay Store gets 250 free listings a month, then pays $0.35 per listing on eBay.com. This calculator leaves out listing upgrade fees for optional upgrades, so add one by hand if you pay for any. Promoted Listings General is also separate: the ad rate you set, from 2% up, is a fee charged only when the card sells within 30 days of a click on the ad. The Promoted listing rate field above covers it.
Three worked examples
| Sale | Total sale | Final value fee | Per-order fee | Fee charged |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $5 card, $1.50 shipping | $6.50 | $0.86 | $0.30 | $1.16 (17.8%) |
| $20 card, $5 shipping | $25.00 | $3.31 | $0.40 | $3.71 (14.8%) |
| $100 card, free shipping | $100.00 | $13.25 | $0.40 | $13.65 (13.7%) |
The examples leave out sales tax. Where the buyer pays tax, the final value fee is charged on the tax too, so the fee charged is a little higher.
Category differences for trading cards
Sports Trading Cards and Collectible Card Games are both charged 13.25% up to $7,500 on eBay's published schedules, with or without a store. Other categories have their own rates, which is why the eBay profit calculator lets you set any final value fee.
eBay.ca vs eBay.com
eBay.ca uses the same structure in Canadian dollars: 13.25% up to $7,500 and 2.35% above, the same $0.30 and $0.40 per-order fee, and 250 free listings a month, then $0.30 per listing. On eBay.com, a sale to a buyer outside the US adds an international fee of 1.65% unless it ships through eBay International Shipping, and a currency conversion charge applies when your payout involves a conversion.
One card down
Now do that four hundred more times.
Nobody is typing their whole store into a calculator. WaxEngine connects to your eBay account and does this math on every order automatically, going back two years, so you get one honest profit number instead of a spreadsheet you will abandon in March.
Listing the cards is the other half of it: the eBay bulk listing tool scans a stack of photos into a review queue, and eBay listing software covers the whole workflow from photo to live listing.
Common questions.
How much are eBay fees on trading cards?
Does an eBay Store subscription lower your card fees?
Is the final value fee the same as eBay's commission?
How do I calculate eBay selling fees on a card?
Does this include sales tax?
Do eBay fees apply to shipping?
How much does eBay take from a $20 card sale?
Why do cheap cards feel like they make no money?
Is this calculator really free?
Stop guessing what a sale actually paid you.
WaxEngine tracks every fee, refund, and shipping cost against your real eBay sales, so your profit is a number instead of an estimate.
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