How to work out your real eBay profit, order by order

Ask most eBay sellers what they made last month and you'll get a sales figure. Sales are easy to see; eBay profit is not. Between the price a buyer pays and the money that stays in your business sit eBay's fees, postage, refunds, money on hold and every cost of your own.

This guide breaks those down, gives you a simple formula you can use on every order, and shows how a monthly statement closes the gap between what eBay pays out and what you actually earned.

Sales, earnings and profit: what's the difference?

Three figures get mixed up all the time:

• Sales are what buyers paid: the item price plus any postage they were charged.
• Earnings are eBay's figure for what you'll receive from an order once eBay's fees come off. Seller Hub shows this for each order.
• Profit is what's left after your own costs as well: what you paid for the item, postage, packaging, and your share of overheads.

Growing sales with shrinking profit is one of the most common ways a busy store loses money without noticing. Track profit per order and per month, not just sales.

Which eBay fees come off every sale

eBay's fees vary by site, category, seller level and store subscription, and they change from time to time. Rather than relying on a figure you remember, check eBay's current fee pages for each site you sell on. The kinds of fee are broadly the same everywhere.

Final value fees

The main selling fee: a share of the sale, usually with a fixed amount per order on top. Check whether your site charges it on postage as well as the item price. On many sites it does, and that changes your figures if you charge buyers for postage.

Promoted listings fees

If you promote listings, the ad fee is part of the cost of the sale. With the most common kind of campaign you pay the rate you chose when a sale comes through the promotion; other kinds charge per click. Either way, a promoted sale costs more than an organic one, and your profit figures should show which was which.

Listing, upgrade and store fees

Insertion fees beyond your free allowance, optional listing upgrades and a monthly store subscription aren't tied to one order. Treat them as monthly overheads, and spread them across the month's orders when you want a true profit per order.

Other charges

Selling across borders can add international fees and currency conversion, and some sites add further charges of their own. They're small on one order and noticeable over a month.

Postage, packaging and your own costs

Postage is the cost sellers most often underestimate. Charging a buyer £3.50 for postage that costs you £3.90 loses money on every order, and offering free postage means the whole cost comes out of the item price. Check your real label costs every few months, by parcel size and service, and include packaging: boxes, mailers, tape and labels add up.

Then add the costs eBay never sees:

• What you paid for the item, including any delivery to you.
• Packaging and printing.
• Staff time, if anyone is paid to list, pack or answer buyers.
• Software, storage and equipment.

If you're VAT registered, keep VAT out of your profit figures, since it isn't yours to keep. Ask your accountant how to treat your sales and eBay's fees for VAT on each site you sell on.

How refunds and returns change your eBay profit

A refund rarely costs only the sale price. Depending on the case, you may also lose the outbound postage, pay for the return, and get back an item you can't sell as new. eBay may give back some of its fees on a refunded order, but not always all of them, so look at what your statement actually shows rather than assuming.

Partial refunds, item-not-received cases and payment disputes all belong in the same place. Record each one against its order, so the order's profit reflects what really happened. A product that sells well but comes back often may be losing money once refunds are counted. Answering buyers quickly and dispatching on time prevents many cases in the first place; our guide to eBay dispatch deadlines covers the routine.

A simple eBay profit formula per order

For each order, start from eBay's earnings figure, which already has eBay's fees taken off, and subtract your own costs:

Profit = eBay earnings − postage you paid − what you paid for the item − packaging − any refund not already in earnings

If you'd rather build it up from the sale price, the same calculation reads:

Profit = what the buyer paid − eBay's fees (selling, ads, other) − postage − item cost − packaging − refunds

Here's an example with illustrative figures. A buyer pays £24.99 for an item and £3.50 for postage, £28.49 in total. Say eBay's selling fees on the order come to £4.10 and the promoted listing fee to £1.20. Postage costs you £3.10, the item cost you £9.00 and packaging £0.40.

• What the buyer paid: £28.49
• Less eBay's selling fees and the ad fee: £5.30
• Less postage, the item and packaging: £12.50
• Profit: £10.69, about 37.5% of what the buyer paid

The figures are made up; eBay's real fees depend on your site and category. What matters is the shape. Every order's profit should be visible, and the orders that make little or nothing should stand out.

Money on hold and eBay payouts

Earnings aren't the same as money in the bank. eBay can hold some of a seller's money for a time: on a newer account, after a jump in sales, or while a return or case is open, for example. The reason is shown in the Payments area of Seller Hub. Money on hold isn't lost, but you can't spend it, so plan stock purchases and wages around what's actually available. If you run several stores, check each one: SellingSquads shows the amount held for every store with eBay's reason beside it, which saves opening each account's Payments page in turn.

Payouts don't line up neatly with orders either. A single payout may cover many orders, less fees, refunds and other adjustments. To check the books, match each payout to the orders and charges behind it.

Monthly statements: closing each month

Once a month, produce a statement for each store:

1. 1Total sales and total earnings for the month.
2. 2eBay's fees by kind: selling, ads, listing and store, and other charges.
3. 3Refunds, and any fees eBay gave back.
4. 4Your own costs: items, postage, packaging and overheads.
5. 5Profit for the month, and the margin.
6. 6Payouts received and matched to your bank, and anything still on hold.

Compare each store month on month. If you sell on several eBay sites, convert everything to one currency so the stores can be compared fairly. Our guide to managing multiple eBay stores has a weekly and monthly routine to fit this into.

How SellingSquads shows your real eBay profit

SellingSquads' Finances does the sums in this guide for you, for every store you connect. It reads each seller's money straight from eBay, so the figures are eBay's own rather than copied by hand:

• Payouts, store by store.
• Fees, as eBay charged them.
• Refunds given to buyers.
• Money on hold, with eBay's reason for holding it.
• Real profit after eBay's fees, refunds and your own costs.

Every market is added together in one currency, so a UK store and a German one can be read side by side, and a monthly statement is emailed on the 1st, so the month closes without anyone building a spreadsheet. Orders can be downloaded as a CSV exactly as you've filtered them, for your accountant or your own records.

Profit also starts before a product is listed. When a product is hunted, SellingSquads checks the profit on every option at the market price with the account's real eBay fees and postage, and AI listings are priced with eBay's real fees, so a product that can't make money is caught before it costs anything. Once it's live, if the place you buy it from runs out or puts its price up, SellingSquads' stock and price watch alerts you before your margin quietly disappears.

In a team, money is sensitive. Because each person in a SellingSquads workspace sees only the stores and areas they're given, the finances can stay with the people who should see them.