Fees

Whatnot fees after the September 2026 change

Published October 2, 2026 6 min read

Whatnot charges two fees on each US sale: a commission on the item price and payment processing on the whole order. At the Standard tier the commission is 8% in most categories and 4% for coins. Since September 21, 2026, it drops as your four-week sales grow.

What does Whatnot charge sellers?

Whatnot takes a commission and a payment processing fee from every sale, and both come out before your payout. The commission is a percentage of the item's sale price. Whatnot's help page says shipping and taxes paid by the buyer aren't included in it. Processing is 2.9% plus $0.30, and it is charged on the full order: item, buyer-paid shipping and tax.

Source: Whatnot seller fees (Whatnot Help Center), checked September 23, 2026. Standard is the tier for sellers with under $15,000 in Whatnot sales in a four-week period.

What changed on September 21, 2026?

Whatnot replaced its flat commission with tiers on September 21, 2026. Before that, most categories paid 8% no matter how much you sold. Now your sales in each four-week period set your rate for the next one, and the rate falls as volume rises. Sellers who got selling access after September 21 move onto the tiers the week of September 28, 2026.

The four fee pages we checked in Google's top ten for "whatnot fees" on September 23, 2026 still showed the old flat 8%. Under $15,000 in four weeks, that's still your number. Above it, it isn't.

Whatnot's US commission tiers

Whatnot's US tiers run from Standard, for under $15,000 in sales in four weeks, to Tier 6 at $500,000 and up. Your rate depends on the tier and on each item's category. Coins start at 4%. Every other vertical starts at 8% and falls to between 4% and 6.5% at the top tier.

Source: the United States rate card in Whatnot seller fees (Whatnot Help Center), checked September 23, 2026. Whatnot says rates as low as 3% are custom terms for its highest-volume sellers.

How does the four-week tier work?

Your Whatnot tier comes from your total sales across all categories in a 28-day period. The rate on each sale then follows that sale's category. The rate is locked for the whole period, so crossing a threshold halfway through lowers your rate for the next period, not right away.

• What counts: live show sales, marketplace and Shop sales, every category, and sales made on a promotional rate.
• What doesn't: private shows and local pickup orders. Canceled orders come off the total for the period they were placed in.
• Each account stands alone. Sales on a second seller account build that account's tier, not this one.
• Your projection is sales so far, divided by days passed, times 28. It shows on the Seller Hub home page with your current tier.
• Premier Shop sellers get their 10% commission discount on top of the new rate through October 31, 2026. From November 1 the discount ends and the tier alone sets the rate.

What do you keep on a Whatnot sale?

On a $50 Whatnot sale at the Standard tier you keep about $43.93, if the buyer paid $8 shipping and 6% tax. Fees take a bigger share of cheap items because of the fixed $0.30 and the processing charged on shipping: 21.7% of a $5 sale, 11.2% of a $500 one. Find your price in the table.

Worked example, not a quote: the buyer pays $8.00 shipping and sales tax of 6% of the item price (eBay's own fee examples use 6%; your buyers' rates vary). The shipping pays for the label, so it isn't in "you keep". Your item cost and packaging aren't either. Run your own numbers in the net proceeds comparison, which has Whatnot's Standard rate built in next to eBay, Poshmark, Mercari and Depop.

Is Whatnot cheaper than eBay?

Whatnot usually costs less than eBay per sale, and the reason is what each fee is charged on. eBay's 13.6% final value fee in most categories applies to the item, the shipping and the sales tax, plus $0.40 on orders over $10. Whatnot's 8% applies to the item alone, and its 2.9% processing is the only part that touches shipping and tax.

Sources: Whatnot seller fees (Whatnot Help Center) and Selling fees (eBay Help), both checked September 23, 2026. For the full list of marketplaces, see every marketplace's fees side by side.

The fee is one line of the decision. Whatnot sells through live shows as well as its marketplace, and a show costs you the hours it runs. An item that sells in a show this week can still beat a lower fee on a marketplace where it sits for months.

What if you sell the same items on eBay or Poshmark too?

Only your Whatnot sales count toward your Whatnot tier. If you split inventory between Whatnot and other marketplaces, the Whatnot share alone has to reach $15,000 in four weeks before your rate moves off Standard. Until it does, plan around 8%, or 4% for coins.

An item live on Whatnot and eBay at once carries the usual risk: it sells in both places and you cancel one. A canceled Whatnot order also comes off your sales total for that period. The delisting routine covers how to stop it happening, and where a second channel pays covers whether to split at all.

Whatnot fee questions

Keep reading

• How to stop selling the same item twice

  What a double sale costs on eBay, Poshmark and Mercari, the one record that prevents it, and where software falls short.

• Is crosslisting worth it?

  When a second marketplace pays for itself, what it costs, and when it doesn't.