Whatnot Fee Calculator

Most sellers pay Whatnot 8% commission on the item price plus 2.9% + $0.30 payment processing on everything the buyer pays, including shipping and tax. That is roughly 11–12% of a typical sale. The commission is tiered: it drops as your 4-week sales grow, to between 4% and 6.5% depending on the category. Coins start at 4%.

That is what this Whatnot fee calculator works out for you: enter a sale and it shows the commission for your category and tier, the processing fee on the buyer's total, and what lands in your balance. Add your item cost and it doubles as a Whatnot profit calculator and earnings calculator, with margin and ROI.

Whatnot's commission comes from a rate card with two inputs: how much you sold in the last 4 weeks, and what you are selling. Some older fee guides still quote a flat 8% for everyone; that no longer applies.

How tiers work

• Your total sales across every category in a 4-week (28-day) period decide your tier for the next period. The rate is then locked for those four weeks, and the count restarts from zero.
• New sellers start on Standard. Cancelled orders, private shows and local pickup orders do not count toward your total; sales made at promotional rates do.
• The rate on each order follows its category: the show's category for live sales and the listing's category for marketplace sales. That is why two orders in the same week can carry different rates.
• The very largest sellers can negotiate custom rates as low as 3% through an account manager. Those are not public, so the calculator stops at Tier 6.

US commission rates by tier and category

0% commission above 1,500

In some categories Whatnot charges no commission on the part of a single order above $1,500 (£1,500 in the UK). A $2,000 card pays commission on $1,500 only. Eligible categories are trading card games, sports singles (football, basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey, UFC and wrestling), entertainment cards, comics and anime, toys and hobbies, coins and money, bags and accessories, and jewelry and watches. Sports breaks and surprise products are excluded, processing is still charged on the full amount, and Whatnot labels it a limited-time promotion. The article doesn't mention CAD, so the calculator doesn't apply it to Canadian sales.

Coins, bullion and paper money

Coins and money have their own, much lower row: 4% at Standard, falling to 3.5% at Tier 6. With thin bullion margins, that difference matters more than in any other category.

Premier Shops

Premier Shops get 10% off their commission rate (8% becomes 7.2%).

The second fee is easy to underestimate. Payment processing is 2.9% + $0.30 per order in the US and Canada, and the 2.9% applies to the buyer's full total: item, shipping and sales tax. Tiers don't lower it and promotions never waive it.

On a $50 sale with $8 shipping and 8% tax the buyer pays $62.64, so processing is $2.12 rather than the $1.75 you would pay on the item alone. On cheap items the fixed $0.30 and the shipping push the total take much higher: a $5 comic with $4.47 shipping pays $0.97 in fees, almost 20% of the price.

UK rates are quoted before VAT: 6.67% commission and 2.42% + £0.25 processing at the Standard tier. If you are not VAT-registered, Whatnot adds 20% VAT to both, which brings them to 8.00% and roughly 2.9% + £0.30, the same headline rates as the US. If you are VAT-registered, Whatnot doesn't charge VAT on its fees and you account for it yourself. Use the toggle in the calculator to switch.

On a £50 item with £3.27 Royal Mail shipping, a seller who isn't VAT-registered pays £5.85 in fees (£0.97 of it VAT) and keeps £44.15. A VAT-registered seller is charged £4.88 and deals with VAT in their own return. UK buyers pay shipping set by Whatnot's Royal Mail labels: £2.62 for a large letter, £3.27 for a small parcel and from £5.03 for a medium parcel.

Canadian sellers sell only in CAD. The commission percentages match the US row for row, but the tier thresholds are lower, so you reach a cheaper rate sooner: Tier 1 starts at C$10,000 in 4-week sales and Tier 6 at C$85,000. Processing is 2.9% + 0.30, which we treat as C$0.30.

GST, HST, PST or QST paid by the buyer is part of the order total, so it raises the processing fee. An Ontario sale of C$50 with C$8 shipping and 13% HST totals C$65.54, and fees come to C$6.20, leaving C$43.80. Whatnot also collects sales tax on its own fees for sales to buyers outside Canada.

Giveaways are free in fees, since the order is worth nothing, but not free to run. You pay for the item and for its shipping label, including international labels, and the label is taken from your Whatnot balance when the giveaway happens. A $4 pack shipped for $4.47 costs you $8.47.

The honest way to price this is to spread giveaway costs over the sales they help generate. Three $8.47 giveaways across 30 sold items add about $0.85 to each sale; put that in the calculator's giveaway field to see your real profit per item.

For shows, you can also choose to pay all shipping or cap what buyers pay. Whatever you cover comes out of your earnings, though it lowers the processing fee slightly because the buyer total is smaller. Pick "I pay shipping" in the calculator to model it.

Whatnot charges the same fees for every sale type: the winning bid, a Buy It Now price or an accepted offer is simply the final price that commission is calculated on. A break spot is treated as a sale in the show's category, with one catch: sports breaks don't qualify for the 0% above 1,500 rule.

Before starting an auction at $1, know your floor. Switch the calculator to Price for a target profit, enter your item cost and a target of 0, and it returns the break-even sale price after fees. For breaks, enter the box cost divided by the number of spots as the item cost to find the minimum per spot.

1. Enter the sale price: the winning bid, Buy It Now price or accepted offer.
2. Add the shipping the buyer pays and the sales tax rate, since processing is charged on both.
3. Pick your category and your tier from the last 4 weeks of sales to get the commission rate.
4. Read your payout, then add your item cost to see profit, margin and ROI.

As formulas:

• commission = rate × item price (first 1,500 only in eligible categories)
• processing = 2.9% × (item + shipping + tax) + $0.30
• payout = item price − commission − processing − any shipping you cover
• profit = payout − item cost − supplies − giveaway share

Whatnot rounds each fee to the cent, so your statement can differ from a hand calculation by a penny.

Sold as a sports break instead, the $2,000 example would pay commission on the full price and net $1,776.82: the high-value rule is worth $40 on that one order.

Whatnot's commission ignores shipping and tax, which makes it one of the cheaper places to sell collectibles, and the tiers widen the gap for high-volume sellers. Headline seller fees side by side:

Fees are only half the picture: live auctions suit cards and collectibles, while clothing often sells faster on listing-based apps. Plenty of sellers run shows on Whatnot and keep the same inventory listed elsewhere between streams.

• Watch your tier. The calculator shows what the next tier would save on each sale. If you are close to a threshold near the end of a 4-week period, the extra sales lower your rate for the whole next period.
• Choose the show category deliberately.Live orders take the show's rate, so a mixed show filed under a cheaper group can cost less. List items honestly, though: miscategorising to dodge fees breaks Whatnot's rules.
• Bundle small items. Every order pays the fixed $0.30, and shipping inflates the processing base. Smart Bundling and weekly bundling cut both.
• Set accurate shipping profiles. Underweighted labels are adjusted later and the difference is charged to you.
• Budget giveaways and promotion.Treat them as show costs and spread them over the items sold, so a busy show doesn't quietly lose money.
• Avoid covering shipping unless it sells. Free shipping comes straight out of your payout on every order.