eBay insertion fees
The fee most sellers never pay,
and the rules that decide when you do.
An insertion fee is what eBay charges to create a listing, separate from the final value fee you pay when something sells. Every account gets 250 free listings a month, which is why casual sellers never see this fee. The interesting part is what counts against those 250.
What counts against the 250
Once the allowance runs out, the fee follows rules that surprise people. All of these come from eBay's own fees page:
- It's charged per listing and per category. List an item in two categories and the second category costs its own insertion fee.
- It's charged again each time you relist an unsold item.
- It's not refunded if the item doesn't sell.
- Duplicate auction-style listings of identical items are each charged.
- A multi-quantity or variation listing is charged once, not per unit.
Two category-level exceptions in the schedule: Guitars & Basses listings carry no insertion fee at all, and athletic shoes listed at $150 or more are also free to list.
The fee ladder by store tier
What you pay after the free allowance depends on your store tier, and so does the size of the allowance itself. This is most of the practical value of a store for high-volume sellers in cheap categories.
| Store tier | Free fixed-price listings/mo | Free auctions/mo | Each listing after that |
|---|---|---|---|
| No store subscription | 250 (one pool, auction or fixed price) | $0.35 | |
| Starter Store | 250 (one pool, auction or fixed price) | $0.30 | |
| Basic Store | 1,000 | 250 in select categories | $0.25 |
| Premium Store | 10,000 | 500 in select categories | $0.10 fixed / $0.15 auction |
| Anchor Store | 25,000 | 1,000 in select categories | $0.05 fixed / $0.10 auction |
| Enterprise Store | 100,000 | 2,500 in select categories | $0.05 fixed / $0.10 auction |
Select Business & Industrial categories (heavy equipment, commercial printing presses, food trucks) pay a flat $20 insertion fee per listing on every store type — free allowances do not apply there.
One modelling note, for honesty: store tiers also get separate "select categories" allowances on top of the all-categories numbers above. We model the all-categories allowance only, so the table understates what some store subscribers get.
Insertion fees are the small line
On most sales the final value fee dwarfs the insertion fee. The calculator shows the whole stack together, with your category's rate and the per-order fee, so you can see what a sale actually leaves you.