Whatnot charges an 8% commission on most items, plus a 2.9% + $0.30 payment processing fee on every sale. Those two fees sound like they should add up simply, but they're calculated on different amounts. Here is what comes out of your payout:
Whatnot's commission is straightforward: 8% of the sold price, calculated on the item price alone. It excludes shipping and tax entirely. The payment processing fee works differently. It's 2.9% plus a flat $0.30, but calculated on the full amount the buyer's card is charged, which includes the item price, shipping, and any tax.
That means two sellers can move the same $40 item and end up with different total fees, depending on what they charged for shipping.
| Fee type | Rate | Calculated on |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | 8% (4% Coins & Money) | Item price only |
| Payment processing | 2.9% + $0.30 | Item price + shipping + tax |
| Electronics commission | 5% | Item price only |
| Listing fee | $0 | — |
Electronics carry a lower 5% commission rate, and Coins & Money drops to 4%. Everything else defaults to the standard 8%, regardless of whether it sells through a live auction, a Buy It Now during a show, or a static listing.
For select categories, including comics, trading cards, coins, and toys, Whatnot charges 0% commission on the portion of a sale above $1,500. Sell a $2,500 item in an eligible category, and you pay the standard 8% on the first $1,500, then nothing on the remaining $1,000. Payment processing still applies to the full sale amount regardless. This applies to individual orders, not your total sales across a show.
If that same buyer had paid $15 in shipping instead of $8, the commission would stay at $3.20, since it only counts the item price. But the processing fee would rise to roughly $1.90, since it's calculated on the larger total. Higher shipping charges quietly raise your fees even though your commission rate never changes.
For resellers running multiple shops
Whatnot's split-base fee structure is a different calculation than Mercari's flat 10% or Poshmark's tiered commission. If you're crosslisting the same inventory across platforms, those differences change your real margin on every sale. Oly syncs your listings and lets you set markup rules per platform, so your pricing accounts for each marketplace's actual fee structure instead of a flat guess.
See how Oly works →Calculate your minimum acceptable price using both the 8% commission and the processing fee before you go live, not after the auction closes.
Since processing fees scale with shipping cost, padding shipping to cover your own costs raises your fee total slightly more than you'd expect.
If you sell high-value items in an eligible category, structuring the listing as a single order above $1,500 captures the 0% rate on the excess.
Electronics and Coins & Money carry lower commission rates than the 8% default. Make sure items are categorized correctly to get the lower rate.
No. The 8% commission applies only to the item's sold price. Shipping and tax are excluded from the commission calculation, though they're included in the separate payment processing fee.
For select categories like comics, trading cards, and coins, Whatnot charges 0% commission on the portion of an order above $1,500. The standard rate still applies to the first $1,500.
Yes. UK and EU sellers pay a 6.67% commission plus VAT, instead of the 8% US rate, along with a slightly different processing fee structure.
Oly crosslists your inventory to Poshmark, Mercari, Depop, and more, automatically. One dashboard, every marketplace.
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