The fee nobody works out

How much eBay really takes on a card sale

By Justin Willmon · WTX Sports Cards · Updated September 2026

Everybody knows there is a fee. Almost nobody prices for it properly, because the percentage is not charged on the number you think it is.

Ask a dealer what eBay takes and you will usually get "about thirteen percent". That is roughly the rate. It is not roughly the money, because the rate is not applied to the card price.

What the percentage is charged on

eBay's final value fee is calculated on the total amount of the sale. That is the item price, plus any handling you charge, plus the shipping the buyer paid you, plus the sales tax eBay collected from the buyer on your behalf.

That last one surprises people every time. You never see that tax — eBay collects it and remits it — but it is in the number your fee is worked out on. On a card going to a state with 8% tax, that alone adds about 1% to what you actually pay.

The rate for cards is not the rate for everything else

Cards have their own tier. As of September 2026, for Sports Trading Cards, Non-Sport Trading Cards and Collectible Card Games:

No store subscription: 13.25% up to $7,500 of the sale, then 2.35% on the portion above that.
Starter Store: 13.25% up to $7,500. The same as no store.
Basic Store and above: 12.35% up to $2,500, then 2.35%.

Plus a per-order fee: 30¢ on orders of $10 or less, 40¢ on anything over.

The Starter Store trap. A Starter subscription does not buy you the store card rate. eBay charges Starter the same 13.25% it charges somebody with no subscription at all — the 12.35% rate begins at Basic. If you are paying for Starter and pricing as though you are on 12.35%, you are out by about $295 on a $5,000 sale. Check which tier you are actually on before you price anything.

A $200 card, all the way through

Say you sell a $200 card, charge the buyer $5 shipping, and the buyer is somewhere with 8% sales tax. You have no store.

Card$200.00

Shipping the buyer paid$5.00

Sales tax eBay collected (8% of $205)$16.40

Fee is charged on$221.40

Final value fee at 13.25%−$29.34

Per-order fee−$0.40

Postage you actually bought−$5.00

You keep$170.26

You collected $205 from the buyer. You kept $170.26. That is 85% of the card price — and the fee came to 14.7% of the card price, not 13.25%, because it was charged on the shipping and the tax as well.

Change the tax rate and that moves. A buyer in a state with no sales tax costs you less; one at 10% costs you more. You cannot control it and you cannot see it in advance, which is exactly why a flat "take 13% off" is not good enough on a card worth real money.

What this means for what you list at

If you want to clear card value on eBay, the list price is not card value. Working the sum backwards on the example above, to keep $200 you would need to list at $234.70 — and that is before you decide whether you want any profit on top.

This is the single most common way a card dealer loses money without noticing. You price off the sticker, the card sells, and the payout is fifteen percent lighter than the number in your head. Do that on eleven cards a weekend and it is a real amount of money.

Two things worth doing

Find out which store tier you are on. Not which one you think you are on. The gap between Starter and Basic is the largest single error available to you here.
Price the eBay number separately from the table number. What you take in cash across a table has no fees in it at all. They are two different questions and they deserve two different numbers.

Rates checked against eBay's own selling fees and store selling fees pages, September 2026. eBay changes these; check before you rely on them.

Every card in Raw & Slabbed carries a list price worked out from this math — your store tier, the tiered rate, the per-order fee and the postage — so the eBay number already clears card value before you list anything.

I'm Justin — I sell cards on eBay as WTX Sports Cards and across a table at shows in West Texas. I built it for my own case first.

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