Marketplace Fee Calculator
Compare take rates across marketplaces and your own store on one price — because the difference is not a cost, it is the customer acquisition budget you would otherwise spend.
Marketplace Fee Calculator
Results recalculate instantly on every keystroke. Nothing you type is transmitted.
What this result does not account for
- Excludes marketplace advertising, which is effectively mandatory for visibility.
- Commission rates vary widely by category.
- Ignores price parity requirements that limit fee recovery.
In short: The marketplace premium IS an acquisition cost. Amazon takes 13.53 on a 50.00 sale against 1.58 on your own store — an 11.95 gap that is precisely the CPA your own-store advertising must beat.
Formula
take rate = total fees ÷ sale price
premium = marketplace fees − own-store fees = your CPA benchmark
[('take rate', 'all fees as a share of price'), ('premium', 'what the marketplace charges for demand'), ('CPA benchmark', 'what your own store must beat'), ('own store', 'cheap per order, zero traffic')]
Worked Example
- Total every marketplace fee, subscription included.
- Total your own-store fees on the same price.
- Take the difference — that is the demand premium.
- Compare it against your own cost per acquisition.
- Choose the channel that acquires more cheaply.
A 50.00 sale on a marketplace: 7.50 commission at 15%, 5.40 fulfilment, 0.50 other and 0.13 of subscription across 300 orders = 13.53, a 27.0600% take rate. Your own store on the same sale: 1.45 payment plus 0.30 fixed plus 0.13 platform = 1.88, a 3.7600% take rate. The 11.65 gap is 23.3000% of the price and 3,495.00 a month — and it is precisely the cost per acquisition your own-store advertising must beat. Net after 15.00 of goods: 21.47 on the marketplace against 33.12 on your own store, before any advertising.
Strengths & Limits Of This Model
Where this engine is strong
- Spreads subscriptions across real volume
- Reframes the premium as a CPA benchmark
- Prices both channels on an identical sale
Where it stops
- No advertising term
- Category rates vary
Practical Use Cases
Channel strategy
Deciding between marketplace and own store.
Setting a CPA target
Using the marketplace premium as the benchmark.
Pricing across channels
Sizing the price difference each channel needs.
Evaluating a new marketplace
Comparing take rates on a like-for-like basis.
Justifying own-store investment
Quantifying the margin recaptured per order.
Methodology & Editorial Standards
Both channels are priced on the same sale, with subscriptions spread across actual monthly volume rather than ignored, since they dominate at low volume and vanish at high. The difference between the two take rates is presented not as a cost but as a cost-per-acquisition benchmark, because the marketplace fee buys demand that an own store must otherwise purchase. That framing converts an unfavourable comparison into an actionable threshold.
Computation runs in IEEE-754 double precision at full internal precision; rounding to two decimal places occurs strictly at the display layer, so no cumulative drift enters the result. All monetary outputs use accounting presentation — grouped thousands, two decimals, negatives in parentheses — so figures can be transcribed directly into a model or working paper. Division-by-zero and out-of-domain inputs return an em-dash rather than a misleading number.
This engine was reconciled against an independent reference implementation and hand-verified for the worked example above before release. Our full five-stage review process is published on the About Us page.
Disclaimer. This calculator is provided for informational and modelling purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, legal, medical, or engineering advice. Verify all figures with a qualified professional before acting on them.
Marketplace Fee Calculator — 10 Expert FAQs
10 analyst-written answers to the questions practitioners actually ask — optimised for voice and answer-engine retrieval.
What is a marketplace take rate?
Every fee the marketplace charges, expressed as a share of the sale price — commission, fulfilment, storage, subscription and any per-item charges. The headline commission is rarely the whole of it, and all-in rates commonly reach twenty-five to forty per cent.
Why is my own store so much cheaper per order?
Because it delivers no traffic. A payment processor charges for moving money; a marketplace charges for finding you a buyer. Comparing the two without adding your acquisition cost to the own-store column compares two different services.
Should I sell on a marketplace or my own store?
Compare the marketplace premium against your own cost per acquisition. If you can buy a customer for less than the premium, your own store wins. If you cannot, the marketplace is supplying demand more cheaply than you can, and the fee is rational.
Does marketplace commission apply to shipping?
On most platforms, yes — the commission is charged on the total the buyer pays including any shipping and gift wrap. That makes shipping revenue considerably less attractive on a marketplace than on your own store.
Why run both channels?
Because they do different jobs. Marketplaces excel at discovery, where buyers arrive with intent and no brand preference. Your own store excels at repeat purchase, where the acquisition cost is already paid and the fee difference becomes pure margin.
Is the subscription significant?
Only at low volume, where it can dominate. Spread across hundreds of orders a monthly subscription is negligible per unit, but a seller doing a handful of sales a month pays it on every one. Always spread it across your actual volume rather than ignoring it.
Do marketplace fees include advertising?
No, and this is the most commonly omitted cost. On competitive marketplaces, sponsored placement is effectively mandatory for visibility, and it can add another ten to thirty per cent of revenue on top of the take rate.
Can I raise prices on the marketplace to cover the fees?
Somewhat, but price parity clauses and buyer price sensitivity both constrain it. Where a marketplace requires your price to match your own store, you cannot recover the fee through pricing and must absorb it in margin.
How do returns differ across channels?
Marketplaces typically impose their own returns policy, which is usually more generous than one you would choose, and may charge a processing fee per return. That raises the effective take rate in categories where returns are frequent.
What take rate is too high?
The one that exceeds your contribution margin. Take rate has no meaning without the margin behind it: forty per cent is fine on an eighty per cent margin product and fatal on a thirty per cent one. Compare against your margin, never against a benchmark.