TCG marketplace fees, compared honestly

Fee schedules change; the structures rarely do. How the major selling venues for trading cards actually take their cut.

Every marketplace takes a share, but they take it differently — and the structure matters more than the headline number. What follows is the shape of each venue's fees; always confirm current rates on the platform itself before pricing a sale.

eBay

eBay charges a final-value fee on the total sale including shipping, plus payment processing baked in. The offsetting strengths: the largest buyer pool for singles and sealed product, strong price discovery via sold listings, and seller protections that scale. For cards, fee promotions and store subscriptions materially change the effective rate — model your own volume, not the brochure rate.

TCGplayer

TCGplayer is the dedicated TCG marketplace: structured listings by game, set, and condition, with fees that historically run lower than eBay's for high-volume singles sellers and a direct-buy program for serious inventory. The tradeoffs are per-order picking/packing overhead at scale and a buyer pool narrower than eBay's. It is the natural home for catalog-scale selling — which pairs with collection pricing.

Facebook groups, Discord markets, local shops

Peer-to-peer venues charge no platform fee — that is their entire appeal — and pay for it with fraud risk, no payment protection, and heavy discounting versus market price (buyers expect a deal for the risk). Local shops buy at wholesale, typically well below market, in exchange for instant cash and zero effort. Neither is wrong; they are different points on the price-versus-hassle curve.

Shipping is part of fees

Whatever a platform subsidizes or charges for shipping comes out of the same sale. Padded mailers, tracking, and time are costs; a "free shipping" listing prices them into the card. For graded slabs, insurance is not optional at realistic values — see the grading guide for when slabs are worth insuring.