← eBay fee & profit calculator
Resellers search this after a Buy It Now sits for three weeks and an auction on a similar SKU closed $4 lower in seven days. The completed sale is only half the decision. Buy It Now often leaves more if it sells. Auctions often sell. Insertion fees are sunk either way. Promoted Listings Standard usually sits on the fixed-price listing.
Open the eBay fee calculator, keep your own price and fee preview, and enter the hammer you actually expect plus the sell-through and days you see on that SKU. The table below uses the page defaults: $40 Buy It Now, $6 shipping charged, 13.6% final value fee, $0.40 fixed fee, $12 cost of goods, $5 label, $1 packaging, 10% returns with $5 return postage, a $36 auction close, 50% Buy It Now sell-through over 21 days, and 90% auction sell-through over 7 days.
If it sells, Buy It Now keeps $18.11 after the typed return rate. The $36 auction keeps $15.00 — $3.11 less on the sale itself. After sell-through, Buy It Now expects $9.05 ($0.43/day). The auction expects $13.50 ($1.93/day), $4.44 more, because nine in ten of those auctions close.
| Format | Price | If it sells | Expected | Per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buy It Now (50% / 21 days) | $40.00 | $18.11 | $9.05 | $0.43 |
| Auction (90% / 7 days) | $36.00 | $15.00 | $13.50 | $1.93 |
On these rates the auction expected profit matches Buy It Now if the hammer is about $29.65. Below that, faster sell-through cannot cover the cheaper close. A 0% auction sell-through, or a completed auction sale that already loses money, cannot be rescued by listing more of them.
Type the sell-through you actually see — not a hope — and the insertion fee your account still charges. The calculator does not tell you which format to use. It shows the arithmetic from the rates you entered. After a listing sells, a buyer case is a different question: whether a partial refund still beats taking the return.
On the calculator example — a $40 Buy It Now with $6 shipping, 13.6% final value fee, $12 cost of goods, and a 10% return rate — a completed BIN sale leaves $18.11. A $36 auction leaves $15.00 if it sells. With 50% BIN sell-through over 21 days versus 90% auction sell-through over 7 days, expected listing profit is $9.05 for Buy It Now and $13.50 for the auction. The cheaper hammer still wins because more of those listings actually close.
On the same example the hammer that matches Buy It Now expected profit is about $29.65. Below that, the auction's higher sell-through no longer covers the cheaper close. Enter your own sell-through and days on the calculator; the figure is arithmetic from those rates, not a forecast of your category.
Promoted Listings Standard is modeled on the Buy It Now row only. The auction row uses its own promoted rate, defaulting to 0%. Insertion fees are subtracted from expected listing profit because they are sunk whether the listing sells.